.
The most important message coming out of the French elections on Sunday is undoubtedly that Emmanuel Macron simply demolished the conventional political establishment, while dinosaurs on the right chose to support nationalist Marine Le Pen, simply out of spite, and the hard-line left resorted to their tactics of long-gone days, by declaring strikes.
The new president already admitted that he has a difficult task ahead to unite a divided nation and reintroduce confidence in a public that has been disappointed with its leadership, as unemployed remains doggedly at 10%, with 3 mln people out of work.
Naturally, populist Le Pen will persist that she is the real winner of the elections, without realising that she, too, is part of the old establishment, while grumpy party leaders were quick to declare that Macron’s victory was based more on a public opposition to the National Front rather than supporting the young president’s fresh policies.
This air of change is already blowing across Europe, with neigbouring Germany, primarily, sighing in relief that France did not go the way of extremism, hoping that similar results will be seen in other countries as well.
It is too bad that this fresh wind is not blowing Cyprus’ way, with the old establishment that the general public is so sick of, bickering among themselves over who will become president in the next elections less than ten months away.
Already, the rejectionists in the centre are quarrelling over who should be the common candidate, with personal ambitions much higher on their agendas than the national good. These are the same people that have constantly criticised President Anastasiades’ every move, especially on efforts to resolve the Cyprob, without suggesting a single creative alternative.
Then we have the misguided leadership of the “ruling” Democratic Rally, which, in an ambition to become a power-broker, is more keen to become an opposition voice to the incumbent administration, rather than support it.
In the absence of a Macron-like fresh movement, this leaves us with the only relatively sane voice, the communists at Akel, who swallowed their pride and stood by their president, when they should have abandoned Christofias a long time ago.
Ironically, with the thorniest issue of privatisations now having been shelved, due to the administration pulling back from all such plans, there seems to be not much of a difference nowadays between the policies of Disy and Akel, with the communists seeming to support the president more in the ongoing peace talks than Anastasiades’ own Disy.
With strategists throwing the first salvo of spreading the rumour that Akel would back serial entrepreneur Stelios Hadjioannou as a candidate, that was (as expected) flatly rejected by the easy-businessman, it is clear that public opinion would favourably consider a neutral or independent candidate, as long as he or she is not part of the “old establishment.” So, Akel’s decision next month will be critical to see if they will come up with a “popular” candidate who would be electable, if they choose a person who would make it but lose in the second round runoff with Anastasiades in order to keep the peace talks going, or if they resort to their own pool of a die-hard communist, that could also spell the beginning of the end of the once mighty popular party.
