Tales from the Coffeeshop: Still hogging the limelight – 100 days for PR president

OUR PREZ has completed his 100 days in office, which has dogmatically come to be considered as some kind of grace period, for a newly elected prez. It is a period during which he is allowed to adjust, familiarise himself with the new role, distribute the spoils of power and come to terms with being Kyproulla’s numero uno.

After the first 100 days are over in theory he becomes fair game for opposition politicians, interest groups and, of course, the media. This establishment, like the Twitteratti, has failed to respect this arbitrary convention that has no rational, political or ethical justification. It is, however, a good excuse for media appraisals.

Good old Phil, a devotee of such conventions, ran individual appraisals of the prez and all his ministers in its Thursday issue, giving each one a mark out of 10. The conceit of the exercise was impressive, with the job of evaluating each minister given to the hack responsible for covering his or her ministry.

The aim of the exercise, Phil said, was “for the mark either to push some to continue with their good start, or to regroup and try to raise their game in the future.” It did not say when its next evaluation of the ministers would take place, nor what it would do if one failed to step up. It could give them extra homework because corporal punishment is no longer allowed.

POOR old deputy minister for culture Michalis Hadjiyiannis got two out of 10 as did the health minister Popi Kanari. Deputy minister for social welfare, Marilena Evangelou was given three and defence minister Michalis Giorgallas four.

The rest got at least a pass mark, with the highest scoring being foreign minister Constantinos Kombos with nine out of 10. One of the reasons is that “the foreign ministry remains the basic instrument for the promotion of initiatives by the president of the republic” for the more active involvement of the EU in the Kypriako.

“On this, Mr Kombos is working with his colleagues at the foreign ministry systematically and it is high among priorities.” Considering the initiative for the EU’s more active involvement – the prez’s top policy objective – has been a spectacular failure, does Kombos deserve a nine?

Prez Nik II did not score very highly, getting just a six out of 10, a mark which will not have pleased his wife, who could arrange afternoon lessons for him to improve his grade or stop him watching TV.

THE REALITY is that Prez Nik’s first 100 days were just like the previous 300 days before he became prez. He is still campaigning, making two or three public appearances a day, with cameras in tow and making statements to the press every day, about every issue under the dust cloud.

I suspect that public campaigning and uttering platitudes are the things he really knows how to do and feels comfortable doing, so he continues with them even if there is no point. He surely could not have started working on his re-election campaign, 1,785 days before the vote.

In the first 10 days of this month, the prez did the following: opened a nursery in Ayios Athanasios industrial zone (2/6); opened the planetarium at Tamasos Bishopric (4/6); opened a painting exhibition by his minister Makis Keravnos (6/6); laid the foundation stone for the campus of the American University of Beirut in Paphos (7/6); opened the training centre of Paphos FC in Yeroskipou (7/6); attended a seminar for digital education (8/6); opened a photographic exhibition in Limassol (8/6); addressed the conference of the bank employees union Etyk (10/6); opened the Francophonie Park in Nicosia (10/6).

On Friday he took some time off from opening ceremonies as he was forced to stay at the palace for the presentation of credentials by several ambassadors.

IT MAKES you wonder whether with such a busy social agenda and the frequent trips abroad, he has any time left to deal with the more trivial aspects of being president such as affairs of state, policy briefs, the economy and government actions.

Nik II was always going to be a PR president because PR and hogging the limelight is his expertise. This was all he did when he was government spokesman and foreign minister, seizing every opportunity to appear in public and speak to the cameras, while ensuring he never said anything that might be deemed meaningful or offensive.

In this respect he has been very consistent since his election, never pretending he is anything other than the PR president the majority voted for, which is why I believe Phil was very unfair with its grade. I would give him 10 out of 10 for his first 100 days, because he has lived up to all expectations.

ON THURSDAY, on the way to the photographic exhibition in Limassol, Nik II told the gathering he had received a telephone call, “based on which there seemed to be prospects in this direction”. The direction he was talking about was the more active involvement of the EU in the Cyprob, which he has been unsuccessfully peddling for more than a100 days. Now there are prospects of someone taking it seriously.

He did not give the identity of the caller, which he may as well have done, given he felt the need to share with the crowd the fact that he received a telephone call. Was it Angela Merkel urging him not to withdraw his proposal for the more active involvement of the EU from the table, as he was threatening to do a week earlier?

RETIREMENT has not sat well with Nik I. Last Wednesday he could be seen lurking in the background as his heir laid the foundation stone for the AUB campus in Paphos. A foundation stone that, sadly, would not have his name on it.

Why was he there? The official explanation was that he had been instrumental in brokering the agreement with the AUB and was invited to the ceremony out of courtesy. He could have declined, but it seems he is as big a limelight junkie as his successor.

His problem now is that his heir never turns down an invitation to be the guest star of an opening ceremony, leaving nothing for a former president.

THE GESY golden goose, which had its fourth birthday party this month, is attracting many investors from abroad. In 2022, the health ministry received 13 applications from foreign investors wanting to set up clinics. In 2021 there were 15 applications.

It goes without saying that all these investors would want their clinics to join Gesy, which pays so well with a very profitable future guaranteed. Private hospitals/clinics have seen turnover increase by about 30 per cent after joining Gesy.

The foreign investors that put in an offer for the Ygia private hospital in Limassol made the purchase conditional on Ygia joining Gesy, which has reportedly been given the go-ahead.

With all these investors lining up to set up clinics, the future of public hospitals, which will not be entitled to state support from next year, does not seem very rosy.

WHAT A surprise to find out on Friday that the much-hated, David Hannay, one-time UK envoy to Cyprus, is still around and still spouting his opinions about the Cyprob.

Baron Hannay of Chiswick – to give him his correct title – now aged 87, was a speaker at the Cyprus investment conference in London on Friday, doing what he always does best, pissing off Greek Cypriots with his bluntness. He did this from the word go, referring to the taboo “government of the TRNC”, and suggesting the best way forward for Kyproulla was to market its natural gas through Turkey.

He also referred to poor old Kyproulla as “one of those places which is the home of conspiracy theories”, eliciting a response from Greek Cypriot negotiator Menelaos Menelaou. “Unlike what some people like to believe of us, we are not conspiracists,” he said.

Unless Britain or the US is involved, in which case the conspiracy is not a theory but a proven fact, even before it unfolds. Menelaou did not say that – I did.

THE ATTACK on a Turkish Cypriot woman by a couple of drunken thugs, who pushed her off a two-metre wall in Ayia Napa last weekend became the big story of the week as everyone was outraged by what happened and condemned the attack.

Of course, Prez Nik II had to give his verdict, declaring that it was not a racially motivated attack, without really knowing if it was or not. It probably was not and the victim of the attack quite sensibly did not try to make an issue out of it.

The Ayia Napa cops, however, tried to balance things out, saying they would investigate and bring charges against one of the young woman’s male friends because CCTV had shown him go to his car and take a club out of the boot when the attack happened. And why did he have a club in this car, the police asked.

There may be a conspiracy here, but I will not try to decipher it.