AKEL sets out directions of programmatic dynamic actions
Statement by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL Andros Kyprianou
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 23rd March 2018, Nicosia
The first thing I’d like to say is that on the occasion of the debate on the assessment of the electoral result, we did indeed have an in-depth and very meaningful debate.
This discussion began from the Political Bureau and subsequently continued in the Central Committee. The Political Bureau convened at a first meeting during which no proposal was made. The members of the body expressed their views freely, and in fact I was the last one to speak at this session. The Political Bureau subsequently convened again based on a document that had been prepared on the basis of the previous debate. It then prepared its proposal for the Central Committee session. One part of the proposal concerned the elaboration of seventeen issues that we consider should be thoroughly and exhaustively discussed in the Central Committee plenary of the Party to give the possibility as a Party to move dynamically forward
The discussion in the Central Committee enriched this subject matter and the Political Bureau following that, having assessed the discussion held in the Central Committee and based on the proposals submitted before the C.C, decided to elaborate a number of issues so as to allow the Party to move forward.
The elaborations that will be made focus on three directions.
The first is to improve the Party’s functioning and effectiveness, which we believe is extremely important so that we can move forward.
The second concerns the more timely, concrete and in-depth elaboration of political positions and policies on all the issues currently facing Cypriot society.
The third pillar is for the Party to reach out to society and the social movements.
The Political Bureau has decided and set timetables on the basis of which these elaborations will be made. It has also decided who will work on these introductory texts which the Party bodies will study.
It has also been decided that special ad-hoc committees will be set up dealing with some of these issues. In some other cases the texts will be elaborated by the respective Auxiliary Bureaus of the Central Committee of the Party, which function as small think tanks. In some other cases, the assistance of persons who cooperate with AKEL without necessarily being members of the Party will be called for, but these persons do have a long-standing cooperation with us and have specialized knowledge which will help us in the reflections we will develop.
How will we move forward? The texts will be prepared and discussed successively within the party bodies, namely the Secretariat, Political Bureau and Central Committee. We have decided that we will seek to discuss the texts to be prepared, judging each text separately, and with people in society who have specialized knowledge on these issues. We want to hear opinions from others and we will of course also organize discussions, whether in the form of workshops or seminars, with society more broadly.
Now, what are the issues we have decided to elaborate on? I say so because I have seen that it has been written that these issues have already been prepared, that decisions have already been made on several things. Let me just say again that this doesn’t correspond to reality.
We have decided to elaborate 20 issues, I have compiled them into 18 for the purpose of making them public.
The first and foremost issue is to look at the Party’s organizational functioning. For decades, we have been functioning in a certain way. The Party Organizational Bureau had elaborated specific ideas before the elections on how to modernize the way our Party operates. An initial discussion took place in the Secretariat of the C.C, but we decided to continue this debate after the elections since we will have more time. This document exists and we shall start discussing it very soon.
The second chapter we will discuss is the functioning of the Auxiliary Bureaus of the C.C. which are responsible for elaborating and producing policies. I will admit that they aren’t as effective and timely as we would like them to be. That is why we have said that we should reflect on the composition of these Auxiliary Bureaus and also look at what they should be called and how they will work so they can be more timely and effective in producing policy and their intervention in society.
We will also be dealing with the redefinition of the role and organization of what we term “New Forces”. We want to give these people, who have been cooperating with us for years, to become more involved in the discussions on the taking of important decisions and in defining political positions on important issues. We are therefore talking about how we will manage to have their own views when discussing all these issues.
We will subsequently see how AKEL reaches out more to society. In this context, we will discuss numerous issues: The role of the Left and the trade union movement in the broadest sense. The Left and the Youth Movement. The Left and the Women’s Movement. The Left and the Farmer’s Movement. The Left’s contacts with non-governmental organizations and the relationship we could develop with them. The Left’s role in relation to the need to form a powerful Peace movement and the forging of an anti-fascist front. These are all issues that we believe should be thoroughly discussed bearing in mind current conditions around the world, with everything we see happening in our region, but also in many countries and in Cyprus too.
From there onwards, we will look into some issues that will help us in the field of policy making, but at the same time we will elaborate them in an attempt to see how we can redefine our role on certain important issues.
The subject of formulating a communication strategy with a five year time period.
We will discuss the “Prometheus” Research Institute and other institutes and what our party’s cooperation could be with them so that we can receive elaborated texts that we can then make use of in order to formulate our political positions.
We will look seriously at the issue of our International Relations – how these can be developed further.
We will discuss the Cyprus problem in the light of the new given situation as it is evolving after the break down in the Crans Montana talks, the Turkish provocative actions and aggression that is increasingly growing, the Turkish Cypriot leadership’s stand, and more specifically I am referring to Mr. Akinci’s stand, and our own side’s stand on the question of the resumption of the negotiations. We shall discuss prospects, the possibilities that exist, and ways, on the one hand, to breach the deadlock that seems to be on the way to being consolidated and to create a perspective for the resumption of the negotiations with the aim, of course, of reaching an agreement based on the agreed framework as soon as possible.
We will also conduct a study, which will be more time-consuming because a great deal of work needs to be done to study the class structure and society’s ideological position. We will utilize the knowledge of specialized people as well with expert backgrounds, who have experience on specific issues, sociologists and other analysts, so that we can make a study as objective as possible. We will formulate a proposal on how to address the Cyprus economy’s problems and how to propose a perspective to deal with the problems currently affecting the Cypriot economy.
We will be discussing the given developments and situation as it is evolving within the European Union in many areas and what our role should be. Let me say that we had made a similar analysis a few years ago and we had elaborated a framework of political positions. We believe that today in the new conditions, as they have developed in the European area, the whole issue must be studied again.
Culture is an enormous area, which we consider can make a great contribution to Cypriot society moving forward. We want to discuss culture from a left perspective to see how we can intervene more effectively so that culture really does contribute towards taking Cypriot society forward.
The last chapter we will study in-depth is co-operatives and the new situation that has developed, as well as the role our Party must play in the light of developments.
I want to make it clear that this list is not exhaustive. It does not in any way mean that AKEL in the period ahead or next year, since we have set a timetable by the end of the year, won’t deal with other issues. We will deal with other issues too such as education and so on. However, given that we have elaborated all-round policies on these issues, we will follow them according to developments that will evolve.