Speech by the General Secretary of the C.C. of AKEL Andros Kyprianou to the Organizational Conference of AKEL Limassol District Party Organization

Ayios Athanasios Municipal Hall, Limassol

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 22 September 2018, Nicosia

On behalf of the Central Committee of our Party, I congratulate the AKEL Limassol District Party Committee for holding today’s Organizational Conference.

I hope the decisions you approve will mark the beginning of the further organizational revitalization of your District Organization. I particularly wish that the decisions to be approved will be put into practice. I say this because unfortunately there is a phenomenon that we see in our Party, and we have to admit it in order to be to deal with it. That is to say, we approve decisions that often aren’t put into practice. If we don’t do all it takes to fulfill these decisions into practice, then be sure that we will not move forward.

AKEL has always been distinguished for its organizational skills. There are still many people who believe it has enormous organizational capabilities. We have to be down to earth and sincere. We do have great organizational capabilities, but we don’t make full use of them; we need to utilize them, to make use of them all the time.

The electoral percentages gained in the 2016 parliamentary elections were a resounding reminder that our contacts with the people have weakened, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The distortion and inadequate presentation/projection of our political positions by almost the entire mass media makes our political duty of strengthening our contacts with the people even more imperative. We must intensify these contacts that quite rightly are considered as oxygen for our Party and not permit these contacts to become fragmentary or occasional.

Many efforts have and are being made, but we still have some way to go. We must broaden and deepen our work among the people, be at the frontline of struggles together with the various social movements and be everywhere, addressing and fighting for the major, but also “secondary” problems people face. Let’s look at how we should keep our door open to contacts with people beyond our political spectrum, with whom we can work together to take society forward. We must enhance our day-to-day work among the people, reinforce creative monitoring and control, and be bold in the process of renewal in practice and not in words. We should pursue a tangible policy of promoting and developing militants/cadres and, above all, don’t engage in sloganeering but do nothing. We should set realistic and specific goals and work collectively to fulfill them.

The situation is such in society that it is imperative that AKEL emerges from this Conference as a decisive, consistent, militant and dynamic force. Six months have passed since Mr. Anastasiades was re-elected to the presidency of the Republic, showing that we have yet to see the worst.

Having secured his re-election and in a new atmosphere, the Anastasiades-DISY Government is acting with unprecedented arrogance and authoritarianism. This was demonstrated by the government’s stand with regards the ongoing crisis in education. They are the ones that have provoked this crisis. They are perpetuating it with their dogmatic obsessions, and insisting on not accepting the self-evident which the opposition as a whole is pointing out: the suspension of their unilateral decisions, as well as the decisions of the educators and that an institutionalized dialogue should be conducted with teachers as has been the custom for so many years. The dialogue is first and foremost about the numerous and substantial problems education faces and not just concerning teacher’s rights.

The government and ruling forces think they will rule by issuing decrees and pursuing obsessions, demanding that no one protests. We said it before and we shall repeat it once more. The denigrating and defaming way they have treated teachers must concern all working people. Before the teachers we had the example of the bus drivers, then came the nurse’s mobilizations and subsequently the doctors. There will be other sections of the working people. They are deprecating public education and working people, paving the way for the collapse of the public health system so that in the end they’ll be telling people that there is no other way other than the upgrading of the private sector’s role in education and health.

Most tragic of all is that they are seeking to take control of everything public, invoking as an argument of workers on 500 Euros in the private sector.

But which government has arbitrarily rejected any thoughts of a minimum wage?

Which government has imposed work on Sundays?

Which government rejects any discussion on respecting, strengthening and extending collective agreements?

Which government tolerates the abolition of labour rights?

It is the Anastasiades-DISY Government.

They invoke every taxpayer’s money.

But which government has loaded future generations with billions of Euros of debts, leading the Cooperative Bank to dissolution and to its eventual sell-off?

They talk about savings that need to be made.

But which government has hired an army of “advisers/councilors” doing unidentified tasks to improve the government’s ability to respond to us and satisfy pre-election expediencies paid by taxpayer’s money?

They have been celebrating over the last few days about Cyprus’ upgrading by the rating agencies. This is a positive development as Cyprus will borrow cheaper money. However, how this money will be allocated is more important.

Where is the upgrading of people’s living standards?

How does society itself benefit from their economic policy?

The few will benefit greatly, while for the many there will be little benefit. Unemployment is falling, but wages are being curbed in the same way as labour rights. Households are struggling to pay off their loans, while they cannot meet their basic needs. 215,000 of our compatriots are experiencing poverty and social exclusion, significant material deprivation, while family income has declined significantly.

What is the prospect for the economy?

What plan in place when it seems to be based solely on policies promoting the acquisition of quick money, such as the policies on selling passports?

Where will this situation lead to?

Where else but to a new, much bigger than 2013, bubble in real estate?

I recently read a very apt title in a newspaper article. “The Anastasiades government – leads the way in corruption”. I’m not just referring to the impression that exists among a large section of society about the business deals and activities from which government-DISY cronies and the close family circle of the government and ruling forces are getting rich. I am also referring to the unprecedented cases of corruption about which the Anastasiades-DISY government anything but seems to be combating.

Take, for example, police, and public order and security issues. Six years of Anastasiades’ administration and the actions of the criminal underworld seem uncontrollable. Every day we see arson attacks on homes, restaurants and cafes. We see police members, who are facing charges relating to disciplinary and other offenses, being promoted. Trafficking and drugs have assumed uncontrollable dimensions. In Central Prisons, the problems with the deaths, crime, drug trafficking and abuse are continuing. Corrupt police officers are being assigned to serve next to institutional figures. Yet the Justice Minister and the Chief of Police seem unable to control the situation and are making statements to the media about huge successes.

Mr. Anastasiades must at long last realize that he must govern and try to rule. At present the government seems ungovernable and this is very worrying if one considers that we also have the critical developments in the Cyprus problem before us.

The phrase “end of an era” is a phrase that has begun to be heard by various people, even by governmental officials dealing with the Cyprus problem. Mr. Anastasiades and the ruling DISY party need to come to their senses and realize the dangers are both visible and immediate. The withdrawal of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force (UNFICYP) and Turkey’s intention to drill in the Cypriot Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) will lead us to new adventures. The Turkish Cypriot community feels that Ankara’s embrace is becoming more and more suffocating.

The passage of time that goes by works to our detriment, with the occupation and de facto partition being consolidated. So we have to understand that we do not have the luxury of acting as “national Ethnarcs”.

Either we will abandon regressions and contradictions and negotiate with consistency or we will open the door to the nightmare of partition.

We will not stop reiterating that we will never accept a two-state solution. If we were to do so then Cyprus will be lost forever because then we will be forced to live with Turkey in our very homeland; because then thousands of soldiers of the Turkish army and the settlers will wipe out once and for all both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots.

Unfortunately, Mr. Anastasiades did not feel the need to convene a meeting of the National Council before departing for the United Nations General Assembly. Either he is totally ignorant of the dangers, or he feels fully prepared to handle the Cyprus problem on his own.

We repeat our position publicly, as we would have done in the National Council too. Namely that the Greek Cypriot side must contribute with its stand to the resumption of the negotiation procedure with the aim of finding a solution on the basis of the agreed framework.

The UN Secretary-General in his report to the UN Security Council last September showed the way for the resumption of negotiations aiming at the solution of the Cyprus problem. He asks from the two leaders to decide together that they will proceed with the necessary political will to a meaningful procedure and go all the way to the end. He doesn’t only outline this general position, but also defines what meaningful means. That is to say, to continue the effort from where it had remained at Crans Montana.

As far as its substantive part is concerned, the convergences that have been achieved so far all through these years, the Guterres framework and the mechanism for implementing the solution should be reaffirmed.

As to the procedural part, a package negotiation of the six core pending issues should take place, which indeed he defines: Security and guarantees (at the conference table) and territory, property, the effective participation in the bodies and decisions at a federal level, the equal treatment of Greek and Turkish citizens (at the second table with negotiation between the leaders of the two communities).

As AKEL we fully agree with the above approach. At the point where we have reached, this is the correct path to arrive at a successful outcome, and indeed within a short period of time.

In closing, I want to say that as a Party we carry a huge weight of responsibility on our shoulders.

We are the force that both enemies and friends credit with consistency, clarity and honesty.

We are the force that many people are looking towards to reunite our country and people; to protect the weak and vulnerable, to defend working people, to resist the logics and policies seeking to demolish health, education, culture and dismantle the welfare state.

To carry this weight, we must first and foremost be prepared to wage the battle. This means that we must continually raise the level of our political, organizational and ideological work. Today’s Conference must provide the resources to your District Organization to contribute towards achieving this goal. I hope that AKEL will soon succeed in attaining the position it deserves in Limassol.