The government ruling forces have created havoc for people and society
Statement by Eleni Mavrou, AKEL Political Bureau member
AKEL C.C. Press Office, 1st February 2020, Nicosia
“We have changed Cyprus,” said DISY President Averof Neofytou today. Our country has indeed changed and the government ruling forces have created havoc for the people and workers.
There isn’t one thing that the banks and big capital have demanded that DISY and its government have not been fanatically promoting. Privatizations, foreclosures, the sale of the Cyprus Cooperative Bank, the deregulation of labour relations, while they are now targeting the semi-governmental organisations Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (CYTA) and Cyprus Electricity Authority (EAC), working people’s welfare funds and anything else that big private interests want to put under their control.
When the DISY President speaks about the Left’s “outdated perceptions”, he really means the defence of working people’s rights, the protection of our country’s wealth, the promotion of policies to provide relief to the less privileged, the defence of the public character of the education and health system. He should be certain that AKEL will continue to oppose DISY’s policies on all these issues.
Of course their biggest reform – which has put Cyprus across the headlines of the world’s press – is something else. It is the unprecedented increase in corruption in our country. This is precisely why DISY President Averof Neophytou did not say a single word today about the issue of interwoven interests, the issue of match-fixing in football and the Cyprus Football Association; about the black spying van of foreign agents with political backers roaming Cyprus; about the President’s trips to the Seychelles and the irregular naturalizations of Mr. Anastasiades’ friends from Saudi Arabia.
The President of DISY also said that DISY addresses “serious and prudent Cypriots”. One wonders, what “serious” and “prudent” Cypriot is proud of a government that – according to a World Bank report – has recorded the biggest increase in corruption across the whole of Europe since the day it took office?
