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With the summer holidays officially over and children back in school, the presidential election campaigning season has gone into full drive.
Already, the opposition parties have been broadcasting all sorts of tales – some true, some false – about the government’s failures, ignoring the fact that the present administration inherited a bankrupt state and managed to turn it around to meet international lenders’ demands.
However, the government has failed in other areas that include lack of transparency, good corporate governance, changing its mind on policy issues and taking its time to implement changes and reforms for which it had more than four years to design.
The latest parade of scandals and corruption are evident of the long-tolerated practice of sweeping everything under the carpet. Trouble is, President Anastasiades promised in his own election campaign that he would stamp out corruption and greed in the public sector.
While avoiding the issue of re-election, the President is seen going from one wedding to the next, tasting the local ‘ofto’ and other dishes, while presidential candidates will now honour their local supermarkets not to buy consumer goods, but to buy the consumers’ goods – their votes.
And if you need to see a candidate up close, then all you need to do is visit one of the popular coffee shops on a Saturday morning. You’d be amazed at who will show up and would be willing to pose for that silly selfie that will be posted on social media in an instant.
It is clear that Akel is now trying to hedge its bets by opting for a candidate who could make it into the first round next February and then try and pick up votes from potential junior coalition partners in order to win the second round. And this would be in exchange for cabinet posts, as usual, regardless of ideological differences and the usual patriot-bashing these days. Come elections day, even the worst of enemies seem to find a kind a word for their opponents, with the hope of securing a place in a new coalition.
On the issue of the Akel candidate, Stavros Malas, it is a bit confusing that the election platform includes ‘a progressive economic model’, at the time that the party rejected another candidate because they claimed he was a believer of the ‘liberal economic model’. So, is Akel’s economic model not progressive after all?
And on the issue of focusing on youth development and innovation (supposedly on the Israeli model), one wonders why Akel did nothing on this issue when it was in power five years ago.
