Cyprus-Forum.com

[zan]

A shameless ploy to win votes
WITH the support of all the Greek Cypriots who are opposed to the idea of re-unification in the bag, President Papadopoulos has now decided to turn his attention to the voters who are in favour of a settlement of the Cyprus problem. Posing as the courageous leader who will protect Cyprus from evil foreign conspiracies aimed at imposing an unfair settlement will secure him a sizeable number of votes, but not enough to win him the elections. Neither will the constant harking back to the referendum and his role in securing the overwhelming rejection of the Annan plan, which he and his supporters have been bringing up endlessly in the campaign.

His advisors must have done their homework – listened to the focus groups, analysed the many opinion polls, studied voting patterns – and realised that selling Papadopoulos as the bulwark against the unfair settlement could not get him re-elected. To win in February he needs to attract votes from the pro-settlement camp. It may sound cynical, but this is the main explanation for his political transformation and sudden interest in setting up meetings with Mehmet Ali Talat, opening the Ledra Street crossing and proposing confidence-building measures.

The truth is that he underwent a similar transformation before the presidential elections of 2003, when he temporarily discarded his hard-liner persona and presented himself as man committed to delivering a settlement. As late as Novemer 2002, he had been calling for the outright rejection of the Annan plan, but a couple of months before the February elections he started promising that “I will work for a settlement of the Cyprus problem based on the Annan plan”. We were bombarded with this pledge in television advertisements, which were broadcast 10 times a night before the elections, even though he had no intention of honouring it.

Could anyone with a basic memory and a modicum of intelligence believe that he is being sincere this time? Certainly not, given that since the referendum his actions showed a president who was not only content to maintain the status quo, but went out of his way to poison the climate between the two communities. As one politician argued on television a few days ago, Papdopoulos not only rejected the Annan plan, but encouraged general public opposition to any settlement. In fact, since the referendum, he has shown no interest in pursuing negotiations, his only concession to the peace process being the July 8 agreement – a preparatory process that never got off the ground because of disagreements over the procedure to be followed.

For a whole year, he had no problem with the fact that the procedure went nowhere – his submission of 90-plus chapters for discussion contributed to this failure – but six months before the elections decided that something should be done and invited Talat to a meeting. He had publicly refused to meet Talat for three years on the grounds that he was Ankara’s puppet and that he was only prepared to talk to the Turkish government. Six months before the elections, he not only decided he wanted to talk to the puppet but he wanted to have more than one meeting, even though there had been no progress on the July 8 agreement, which he had previously set as a condition for such a meeting. It was the same with the Ledra Street crossing – he refused to open it because he disagreed with the demarcation line drawn by UNFICYP, but five months before the elections he has forgotten his “point of principle”, which he had declared non-negotiable.

But if there is one thing that exposes Papadopoulos’ transformation as a complete sham, it is the suggestion, included in his proposals to the UN Secretary-General, for the establishment of a forum, in which citizens from the two communities would be discussing issues relating to a settlement. This proposal comes from the man who spearheaded the nasty hate-campaign against all bi-communal NGOs in 2004, which accused the Greek Cypriot participants of being paid agents of the Americans; the same man who never took a stand when the media was branding Greek Cypriots who had contacts with the other side as traitors.

Some newspaper analysts have suggested that Papadopoulos’ initiatives were forced on him by the realisation that his sterile hard-line policy was leading to partition. Others have argued that he was trying to score a diplomatic victory over the Turkish side by exposing its intransigence. Neither theory is correct. His only concern is to win votes from pro-settlement supporters. He fooled them once in 2003 and believes he can do it again in 2008. Only this time, he realises that oral promises will not be enough and his commitment to a settlement must be backed by some practical steps.

Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2007

[Get Real!]

A shameless ploy to win votes
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2007

Zan, I assure you we all read the Mail so you need NOT repeat it in here all the time. Thank you. In fact if you look at the bottom of the forum's home page you'll find plenty of CM articles scrolling along!

[zan]

Not everything is about you GR Some might have missed it.....They have a right to know

[Piratis]

So whats new Zan? That the Turks and the Anglo Americans (who fund the Cyprus-Mail) do not want Papadopoulos?

Papadopoulos represents all the patriots who want liberation for their country. Thats why those that want to sell off 1/3rd of Cyprus to the Turks do not like him.

[zan]

So whats new Zan? That the Turks and the Anglo Americans (who fund the Cyprus-Mail) do not want Papadopoulos?

Papadopoulos represents all the patriots who want liberation for their country. Thats why those that want to sell off 1/3rd of Cyprus to the Turks do not like him.

HEY! You didn'y answer my post on another thread about your Freudian slip....Are you part of TPaps government`?????


This line you have used over and over again to discredit the man and not answer the accusations doesn't work any more Piratis.....Why is he trying to get the votes by lying to the people. They are much wiser after the Annan Plan shit he gave them....

[Oneness]

.... the Turks and the Anglo Americans (who fund the Cyprus-Mail)

Piratis, what exactly do you mean by this? Do you mean that a private English speaking community fund the newspaper or do you mean that the funding comes from English and American public organisations aiming to use the newspaper to promote their political interests?

Do you have evidence of this?

[Piratis]

Cyprus-Mail is lying no Papadopoulos.

Oneness, Cyprus-Mail serves the interests of the Anglo Americans (and with that of course I don't mean English Cypriots). So are they trying to harm Cyprus just because they hate Cypriots, or because they have some financial interests from doing so? What do you think?

[Viewpoint]

Piratis and GCs like him are obviously happy with the progress or more like the lack of progress he has made over the last 5 years, so they will blindly vote him back in. But for people like me its a blessing as the following 5 years are vital for the TRNC and he is our best candidate to help us progress as the world gets more andmore pissed of with his intrangience and arrogance. viva la Papadop.

[Piratis]

You invaded our country, occupy 1/3rd of it illegally and then you have the nerve to talk about "intrangience and arrogance"? There has been no progress for the simple reason that you will accept nothing short of Turkifying the north part of our country. Progress will come when the invaders are forced out from our island, and only then.

[Viewpoint]

You invaded our country, occupy 1/3rd of it illegally and then you have the nerve to talk about "intrangience and arrogance"? There has been no progress for the simple reason that you will accept nothing short of Turkifying the north part of our country. Progress will come when the invaders are forced out from our island, and only then.

Its called survival against all odds and that really sticks in your throat. Progress will come when you realize we are equal partners in any future unification and that you will not have it all your own way, the name of the game is compromise and obviously you and the man you support are not prepared to do this. viva la TRNC.