Cyprus-Forum.com

[Nikitas]

No. I cannot be sure. On the other hand, Papadopoulos is a Barrister, a very specialised kind of lawyer, who tends to go to the other extreme and stick on details of legal documents. In any case, the President has dozens of lawyers in government service to advise him on any legal issues. Same goes for international relations.

But there is another side we have not paid much attention to as Cypriots- COMMUNICATIONS in the sense of Public Relations. We have failed miserably in this area and the current preoccupation with the "isolation of the Turkish Cypriots" is just one example of how we have failed. What the RoC needs more than a good diplomatic or legal service is a decent PR service.

Having been both a lawyer and a communications man let me tell you GR, good PR wins over legal stuff every time, legal stuff is boring and no one pays attention to it. Tony Blair realised this and that is why he never behaved like a lawyer while in office, even though he is one.

Chrisofias would be a plus precisely because he rides a tractor! In fact if I was handling his international PR image I would put his photo driving his tractor on the front page. That would guarantee us the sympathy of the eastern EU states, plus the whole of non urban America! To give an example of how not to do PR, the time when Simitis, then PM of Greece went to an EU summit meeting in (if I remember) Holland. The delegations were given bicycles to ride, he and all his entourage refused and walked. First, it was an insult agains the hosts (cycling is synonymous with the Dutch), second it showed lack of humor, third it showed bad understanding of environmental issues.

Of all the candidates the only one who uses Cypriot phrases when interviewd by mainland Greeks is Christofias which shows he has balls enough not to pretend he is a good Greek boy.

[Talisker]

Talisker, you are right, if I were in Cyprus and voting, then Christoifias would get my vote even though I am anything but a communist. He is the one cadidate who has common sense and a natural communicative style. These are qualities valuable both in telling people what is what and also in contacts with foreign officials. To foreigners he ( I think so anyway) would present the friendly face of Cyprus even when he is saying no. And above all, he has direct contacts with Turkish Cypriots and understands their concerns, something the other two lack, they keep the TC community at arms length.

Nikitas, glad my hunch was correct. I found the following links to official websites of the three candidates elsewhere in the forum and thought this would be my means to finding out their policies, but none of them seem to have the information in English (or am I just failing to spot the link?). Bit disappointing, and also strange, as the posts following on in that thread indicate that English (and even French for one of the candidates) was available.

http://www.tassospapadopoulos.com/

http://www.christofias.com.cy

http://www.kasoulides.com.cy

Interesting reasons you give for supporting Christofias (nicely stated above and in response to GR), and I hope that if I can get access to English-translated websites or documents so I can make my own judgement too. Not that it matters of course regarding the election itself, except personally it is good to know what is on offer, and to be able to converse knowledgeably about the differences between the candidates, particularly as I suspect this will become a major topic within the forum in the next couple of months.

Interesting comment in your post to GR re: Tony Blair, and completely agree with you. Although ultimately he will probably be judged harshly in history, he was a genius at PR. Otherwise, how could he persuade us in the UK to go to war on such a flimsy pretext? Unfortunately I count myself as someone who believed him at the time, and felt, and still feel, horrendously cheated and aggrieved when the truth came out..........

[Nikitas]

Talisker,

Thanks for the links. It is interesting that the point about communications I had made is reflected in the opening pages of the candidates' web sites. Papadopoulos stresses confidence, Kasoulides says a lot which is hidden behind his photograph (which does not show his face!) and Christofias says most of all. He is also the only one who has a poll up front on the issues visitors consider most important, and which do not include the Cyprob, another wise choice from the PR point of view.

It will be an interesting campaign.

[Talisker]

Talisker,

Thanks for the links. It is interesting that the point about communications I had made is reflected in the opening pages of the candidates' web sites. Papadopoulos stresses confidence, Kasoulides says a lot which is hidden behind his photograph (which does not show his face!) and Christofias says most of all. He is also the only one who has a poll up front on the issues visitors consider most important, and which do not include the Cyprob, another wise choice from the PR point of view.

It will be an interesting campaign.

I wish I could read and understand Greek (despite many attempts to learn through evening classes I'm still useless, and realise I need to live in a Greek-speaking society to become a fluent speaker, and able to comprehend the more complex literature) so that I can understand what the policies of the candidates are.

Any idea where there are English versions of these sites?

[Get Real!]

A note for Nikitas and Talisker…

Cyprus has already utilized a flamboyant PR president fashioned after the British in Glavkos Clerides, but that only resulted in Cyprus getting outsmarted by the EU sharks by getting committed to the infamous Anan plan, which is what led to the “TC isolation” stories I might remind, while Clerides was sipping his scotch and smoking cigars thinking that he was a great statesman while everyone else was rooting him from the rear!

Cyprus has SERIOUS problems to be dealt with that require an array of technical experts including legal, sociological, humanitarian, and God knows what else so what Cyprus really needs is a serious, experienced, patriot who will meticulously analyze every single detail in any agreement with zeal and who will not fall into the legal traps laid out by the global master-manipulators, and thus far the only person that has proven to possess these skills is none other than Tassos Pappadopoulos himself… make no mistake about that.

Regards, GR.

[phoenix]

You tell 'em GR!

Tractor-riding Presidents are fine for Ukrainians (they invented them ) but not for Cypriot Presidents.

Cypriots don't get fooled by PR, they need someone of substance and effectiveness . . . someone with integrity, who will still be around when the PR loses its shine, as it always inevitably does.

[Get Real!]

You tell 'em GR!

Tractor-riding Presidents are fine for Ukrainians (they invented them ) but not for Cypriot Presidents.

Cypriots don't get fooled by PR, they need someone of substance and effectiveness . . . someone with integrity, who will still be around when the PR loses its shine, as it always inevitably does.

Weaklings like Kashoulides and Christofias will get eaten for breakfast by the EU sharks on the first day. I pity the fools...

[Talisker]

A note for Nikitas and Talisker…

Cyprus has already utilized a flamboyant PR president fashioned after the British in Glavkos Clerides, but that only resulted in Cyprus getting outsmarted by the EU sharks by getting committed to the infamous Anan plan, which is what led to the “TC isolation” stories I might remind, while Clerides was sipping his scotch and smoking cigars thinking that he was a great statesman while everyone else was rooting him from the rear!

Cyprus has SERIOUS problems to be dealt with that require an array of technical experts including legal, sociological, humanitarian, and God knows what else so what Cyprus really needs is a serious, experienced, patriot who will meticulously analyze every single detail in any agreement with zeal and who will not fall into the legal traps laid out by the global master-manipulators, and thus far the only person that has proven to possess these skills is none other than Tassos Pappadopoulos himself… make no mistake about that.

Regards, GR.

Not surprised to read of your support for Papadopoulos, GR, having read some of your other posts on the forum. However, I'd like to make my own mind up by comparing the policies of the three candidates (not that it matters as I'm not a voter!). Although Nikitas is stressing the importance of PR, I'm sure he is not advocating that the other important aspects of politics (e.g. legal) should be ignored (although he can speak for himself on that!).

I don't know enough about the Clerides presidential tenure to comment, although I don't recall him having a major international profile, but the political landscape has shifted hugely since then - EU membership, post Annan vote, etc so I wondered if the present president/government were reacting appropriately to these changes. No doubt manipulating 'EU sharks', and other governmental figures, is a major part of the game, but GCs need to find the best way to do this to their advantage, and I'm not sure they are winning at this present time (just my view from the outside).

Of course I appreciate the Cyprus problem is SERIOUS (and COMPLEX), and requiring the finest minds to bring about a satisfactory solution. I guess I posted this thread because I wondered if the government was being 'cute' enough in getting the EU, UN, and other international bodies on board, so that the GC position was to the forefront, and that pressure could be applied on the TCs for progress to be made. And leading on from that, particularly with an election pending, one has to ask if the current president is the best of the candidates for this (I have your answer already!).

A question - are you implying the other two candidates are not 'patriots'?

[Get Real!]

A question - are you implying the other two candidates are not 'patriots'?

I'm sure the other two candidates mean well but they just don't have enough upstairs to ever be patriots because if I were to take the meaning of the word "patriot" to be... "One who loves, supports, and defends one's country" ... then both these men would fail miserably in the last prerequisite to qualify as patriots.

[Nikitas]

Get Real,

I am wary of defining patriotism and make it a rule not to doubt anyone's bona fides on that point unless there is hard evidence.

In terms of political savvy you cannot say that Christofias is far behind Pap. He is effectively Pap's vice president and has been a major pillar of the Pap government. PR is perhaps a misnomer for what I want to put across. It is something in our approach to international negotiating. We have never had it so we do not know its meaning. But you put any one of our past presidents next to let us say any president of France and immediately you get the point. We have to get out ot the stolid, conservative, stubborn Cypriot image and have a more European outlook. There are many ways to say no, it just so happens that we choose the one that loses us most friends.

Take the situation at hand. All three candidates operate web sites, not one of thse sites has even a summary of the candadate's position on the Cyprus issue in English. Talisker wants to find info and he cannot. There is a definite communications deficit there.

One smal example of our lack of an effective communications machine is the land percentage occupied by the invader. We never pointed out the obvious, which the Guardian did without our help, that 18 per cent of the populaion occupy 37 per cent of the land. These two numbers, 37 and 18 per cent should have been automatically linked in every person's mind as of August 14 1974. Insted we talk about 200 000 refugees etc because we fail to understand how non Cypriots think, they think in sports terms and short sound bites, like 18-37.