Leader of Disy and president of the House, Annita Demetriou, pulled the curtain on her party’s election campaign on Wednesday night, by repeating her uninspiring message that a vote for Disy would ensure against a return to policies of instability and experimentalism. What was at stake in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, she said, was the functionality of the next legislature, warning that political instability could damage the international trustworthiness of the country, the economy and the ability to take decisions.

This is the narrative we have been hearing from the Disy leadership for the entire election campaign, as if it is a government party that wants to preserve the status quo and demonises the prospect of change. “Today, Cyprus does not have the luxury for experiments. It does not have the luxury to slip into division, toxicity and cheap populism,” said Demetriou. She believed the election was not just an ordinary battle for a bigger share of the vote, but a critical choice for the future of the country.

Is Demetriou trying to scare people into voting for her party, by offering chaotic instability as the alternative? The idea that we would lose our international trustworthiness, our economy put at risk and our legislature stop functioning if Direct Democracy and Alma win a few seats on Sunday is pure alarmism, Demetriou perhaps forgetting that we live in a presidential democracy and little changes after parliamentary elections. We will still have the same president next week pursuing his own policies and ideas, regardless of the distribution of seats in Parliament.

It is the government that could find it a little difficult dealing with the legislature if the new and old opposition parties win too many seats, but there is nothing to suggest the stability of the country would be threatened as Demetriou is misleadingly claiming, presumably, to justify Disy’s new role as a pro-government party. It was quite astonishing that for the entire election campaign, the Disy leadership avoided any criticism of the government, even though, in theory, it is an opposition party. 

On the contrary, the party has embraced the government positions about economic stability, foreign investment, support of the middle class and strengthening the military during the campaign, in which it seemed a more loyal government alliance party than Diko. Perhaps Demetriou, for reasons she has never explained, refers to her embrace of the government as the “alliance of responsibility,” which will fight the irresponsible parties that engage in “cheap populism.”

Demetriou’s calculation that by siding with President Christodoulides, Disy would secure a respectable share of the vote could prove spectacularly wrong. It may drive away all those supporters that were under the illusion that Disy was an opposition party.