PRESIDENT Christoias needs to develop a thicker skin. His over-sensitivity to criticism, which, admittedly, sometimes veers on the abusive, has taken comic proportions as his associates often resort to absurd methods to defend him.

A couple of months ago, AKEL leader Andros Kyprianou, who has been assigned the thankless task of answering the president’s critics, claimed that certain circles were plotting Christofias ‘physical elimination’. Before this, Kyprianou and other presidential associates claimed that the objective was the president’s ‘political elimination’, but having failed to achieve this, his opponents had turned nasty.

Two weeks ago, Kyprianou revealed that there was a group of people ‘co-ordinating the attacks’ and that it was no coincidence that critics were often using the same arguments against the president. Even if this were the case, the co-ordinator(s) was not doing anything illegal, making Kyprianou’s revelations sound ridiculous. We live in a democracy and criticism of Christofias does not undermine the institution of the presidency or endanger the state, as AKEL apparatchiks claim.

In last few days, the president’s defenders turned their attention to a dozen brainless, extremists who were chanting, during a demo to ‘welcome’ the UN Secretary-General, that Christofias was a traitor. The sensible thing to have done was ignore them, but AKEL felt obliged to put the extremists in their place. All that was achieved was to give publicity to the extremists and to leave the government open to charges that it was suppressing the right to free speech.

Does the government have nothing better to do than waste its time answering everyone who expresses critical views against the president? The responsibility for this state of affairs belongs exclusively to the president who, quite clearly cannot cope with being doubted or questioned. If he was a little more thick-skinned his minions would not feel obliged to take on anyone who uttered an unfavourable remark about him.

But he cannot understand that by responding to everything that is said about him, he is doing more harm than good to his public image and his standing. Only the weak and insecure exhibit such extreme sensitivity to criticism and negative comment. A confident and strong leader knows that he cannot please everyone all the time and accepts that some of his decisions will be questioned, disparaged and mocked. He does not waste his time, worrying about what every single person has been saying about his decisions.

The danger is that in the end the president might take decisions that would provoke minimal criticism and not because they are for the good of the country.