THE HYPOCRISY of our politicians knows no bounds. The universally indignant reaction to the Antenna report about the presidential palace’s ‘rusfeti list’ defied belief, as politicians pretended to be shocked by what had happened. In Cyprus, the people living in glass houses are only too happy to throw stones when a fellow-culprit is caught in the act, because they think this proves their own innocence.

But is there any rational person who would take the criticism leveled at the government seriously? We all know that all parties dispense favours because this is how supporters’ loyalty is ensured. And we all know that the party of whoever happens to be president dispenses the most favours because it has the power to do so. So now that we have an AKEL president, the beneficiaries of most favours – in the army, police, civil service, semi-governmental organisation – would be party members and supporters. Members of DIKO, the government partner, also benefit.

The fact is that opposition parties always take a highly principled stand against rusfeti, because they are incapable of practicing it. AKEL was constantly uncovering such cases when there was a DISY president. And now there is an AKEL president, it is DISY’s turn to take the moral high ground. The only difference is that the communists seem incapable of covering their tracks and have been caught in the act twice in the space of a few months. First, there was the ‘rsufeti’ e-mail sent to the wrong addresses by the AKEL chief’s secretary and now we had a similar letter, from the presidential palace, being leaked to Antenna.

The president’s attempt to show he was tough on rusfeti smacked of populism and was not very convincing. The resignation of Vassos Georgiou, the head of the president’s private office, over the issue could only be described as a communications gimmick. According to the government he had done nothing wrong as the letter with the names of the National Guardsmen who were to be transferred was sent to the defence ministry by a secretary without authorisation. So why did Georgiou show such great ‘sensitivity’, resigning over something he had no responsibility?

Everything ends in farce. How could it be any other way, when humbug is the main currency of political life? Rusfeti is an integral part of political life and there is not a single party that does not practise it. What is worse, citizens demand it of their respective party and if they are not satisfied they switch allegiances. In this culture, no party would give up such a reliable vote-buying method, no matter how outraged they were with the government’s latest rusfeti list.