The Three Per Cent Solution

According to Nicos Katsourides:

"It is others who have the honour of staging coups,"

When will AKEL stop referring back to the coup in 1974 whenever it has no response to a particular issue in question? There seems to be a problem in the National Guard. AKEL's General Secretary says midweek that the investigation will reveal the truth. The Attorney General indicates that not all is well with the "investigative procedures" and before you now it, Katsourides remembers July 15th, 1974, as if the investigative procedures in September 2006 were a direct consequence of what happened on that day!

This, of course is nothing but standard AKEL procedure. When in trouble, cite July 15th, 1974. I wonder how many years have to go by before they actually realize that independent observers understand what happened in July 1974, but are rather more affected by events happening in 2006. And if they cannot offer any solutions to the problems of 2006, then they should pack up and piss off, or at least let younger (in age, that is) comrades take over...

But what is this business of the "parastratiwtikon epiteleion"? As always in Cyprus, nobody, not even well-meaning, relatively independent media, can tell you the truth. If you don't have direct contact with high-ranking politicians, businessmen or priests you have no chance of getting to the bottom of things. So you have to use some deductive reasoning based on facts to help you figure out what is happening and whether anything is going on.

The facts are that EDEK held the ministry of defence with Koullis Mavronikolas in charge from Feb 2003 to right after TP decided to inject some energy in the final stretch of his 5-year reign and replaced him with Klokkaris. This happened right after the parliamentary elections which, in turn, happened right before the summer. In these elections, Koullis Mavronikolas' wife, was elected MP in Lefkosia.

When the results came out, AKEL's General Secretary (a.k.a. Jimmy the Sheftali) was quick to point out:

"We are happy to be the first party in these elections. But we are unhappy that we lost 3%. We will look into the reasons, but the reasons are not emanating from the Yes/No stance in the referendum. You will notice that in Ammohostos and in Deryneia where the Yes vote was so high, we maintained and even increased our popular support. Where we lost was in Lefkosia and in some other provinces. And this is not independent of what is happening in certain ministries".

It also happened that EDEK gained a few percentage points, rejuvenating the Doddering Doctor. Within AKEL there were complaints that the ministry of defence had become "ministry of defending rousfetti". Dr. Mikellides reported (somewhat tongue in cheek) an increasing number of soldiers seeking help. Half were going to Roulla and the other half were going to him, seeking medication.

In this ambient atmosphere, I interpret these events as follow:

EDEK in general (and the Mavronikolas household in particular) practiced what is common practice in Cyprus. They used their power to get votes for EDEK and Roulla elected to parliament.

DIKO does not mind this that much because EDEK's gains are usually AKEL's losses, and a weaker AKEL is better than a stronger EDEK since EDEK has nobody else with whom to co-operate other than DIKO (EDEK has replaced DHSY in the extreme right so they are stuck there until they vanish).

DHSY is not really affected but cannot do much and so it sits on the fence letting the "heterogeneous forces in government" figure it out.

But AKEL? AKEL went crazy with this blatant rousfetti action that cost it 3%, almost all of it going to EDEK. No way Castro would let things get so out of hand.

AKEL, therefore, decides to replace Koullis with someone else. The official reason would be to "get rid of rousfetti" but in reality they would use the same techniques to get the 3% back. Little did they know, that TP wanting some respectable ministers as 2008 draws near and always wanting to appear like an extremely fair and just kinda guy, appointed Klokkaris who seems to be honest, hard-working and not a rousfetti kinda guy.

But at least the direction was right for AKEL: no more EDEK in there. But why not try to use the organization to do some rousfetti, we don't need the minister to do that, do we? So therein must lie the presence and purpose of the "parastratiwtikon epiteleion".

Apodimos Kypreos
September 16, 2006