The President’s institutional interwoven interest is self-evident
Statement by Aristos Damianou, AKEL Political Bureau member
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 16th January 2021, Nicosia
For some years now, AKEL has been criticizing the actions and decisions of President Anastasiades and his Council of Ministers, which constitute institutional interwoven interests. Consequently, apart from denials of what the journalist Andreas Paraschos had written on the substance, Mr. Anastasiades’ institutional interwoven interests is self-evident because:
- As President of the Republic, he authorized his Council of Ministers to approve applications for the exceptional granting of citizenships that had been made by the law firm he himself had established. As a result of these decisions approved by the Council of Ministers, people from his close family circle and former associates of Mr. Anastasiades gained financial benefits.
- As President of the Republic, he traveled free of charge with private jets of big businessmen and therefore received a gift in kind valued in money as defined by international conventions. In fact, the Saudi businessman, whose private jet he travelled with to the Seychelles, subsequently received dozens of passports with the exceptional granting of citizenships, possibly illegally in some cases.
- As President of the Republic, he proposed and agreed to the haircut on bank deposits, at a time when members of his close family circle, in conditions of receiving possible privileged information, took tens of millions of Euros out of Cyprus and thus avoided the haircut on deposits.
This is the definition of institutional interwoven interests. These and many more cases have exposed the Republic of Cyprus internationally and tarnished the name of our homeland. These and many more cases have led internationally renowned organizations to rank Cyprus as the country with the biggest increase in corruption since Mr. Anastasiades and DISY came to power.
