Speech by the General Secretary of the AKEL A.Kyprianou at the event to name Famagusta Avenue to Demetris Christofias Avenue

 

30 June 2021, Larnaca

“Learn to become again the drop that lives the life of the ocean, the leaf that lives the life of the forest, the moment that lives the century”, advises the renowned progressive Cypriot poet Theodosis Pierides. This is how D. Christofias lived his life. He devoted it to the life of the many, to the struggle of Cyprus for vindication, to the struggles of the working people and the weak. That is precisely why his memory has remained alive.

Every time we talk about AKEL, about Cyprus, the Cyprus problem, the Cypriot people as a whole, what the People’s Movement under his leadership has achieved in the last decades he is one and the same, the first among equals, struggling for the many.

Christofias has now gone down in history as a political figure of international stature. Historic leader of AKEL, a President of the Republic who set an example and left a political legacy.

Christofias was everything that we see certain politicians today trying to portray themselves as. Humble, genuine, a man close to the people, with integrity, sensitive but also dynamic. A political leader who never hid. He never tried to be someone he wasn’t. He unabashedly said what he believed, what he thought.

He honored the trust of the working people and the ordinary people while he was in political struggle.

He marched without any questions about his life and path, with clean hands and with consistency to the beliefs, principles and ideals of AKEL, its world outlook and ideology.

He turned them into a torch with which he identified the needs of his era, grasped the substance and turned it into a political demand, a political proposal, taking AKEL forward.

Christofias was a man who inspired because he believed in the historic mission of the Party of the working people and in its forces. He believed in the prospect of Cyprus being reunited and in the prospect of its people building their own future together.

That is why he managed, together with the rest of his comrades, to keep AKEL standing tall during the years when the international movement was in a state of disarray with the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

That is why he managed to maintain AKEL as a leading force for the social and political progress of the country, to struggle and win social, labour and political rights. To bring renewal, to make political and cultural action a cause for the many, to reaffirm its historical legacy and to chart the way forward.

During his term of office as President of Parliament parliamentary diplomacy was taken to another level. The institutional role of Parliament was upgraded, but also its day-to-day political functioning. Steps forward were taken to enhance democracy in our country.

During his term of office as President of the Republic, no matter how much criticism he came under, there was a period during which the Cypriot people heard the truth.

People had a President who spoke sincerely and for the first time in history, submitted a feasible, workable and realistic political proposal for the solution of the Cyprus problem on the negotiating table.

Under Christofias, it was also possible, in difficult times for the economy, to open another window of opportunity: that of energy. The objective of rendering energy a factor of peace for the country and prosperity for the people was shielded by the policy pursued at that time. Moreover, in conditions of an economic crisis, a line of resistance and protection was drawn, for the benefit of workers and the vulnerable groups of the population.

Demetris Christofias was acknowledged as a political personality both internationally and as a great man, a genuine Cypriot. Wherever we have been, from New York, London, Moscow, Moscow, Beijing, Australia to the Local Clubs of the Left, popular neighborhoods, construction sites, workplaces, everyone, leaders of states and parties, as well as ordinary people who happened to meet him, speak of a man who stood out for his sincerity, humanity, directness and political thinking. They all have a story to share about him. They all always end up talking about a leader who had a vision for Cyprus, who had clean hands, was honest and sincere. A leader who, even though he reached the highest posts of the land, remained one of them, tied for life to the simple and humble, to those who struggled and who suffered with them.

That was D. Christofias.

This is all that this name means that this part of Famagusta Avenue will be called today. And so much more that each and every one of us holds in our memories from Demetris and from Christofias.