Stefanos Stefanou’s big bet is to succeed in reshaping AKEL. If he wins the bet then he will be able to stop the electoral decline. The party has lost 52,258 votes in a decade. Obviously, Mr Stefanou is the only one who could do this, but he cannot do it without the support of the base, of party members, but first and foremost of the voters. The electoral decline, the inability to intervene in society, the involvement of party members in scandals, the general discrediting of the party system, have created a situation that, if left unchanged, will lead to continued decline.
The constitutional changes, which were approved last Sunday, are aimed at improving the functioning of the party, but at the same time – and this is the most important thing – it will help it to keep pace with society. This, of course, remains to be confirmed in practice. Because citizens are not interested in how a party functions, but in what policies it expresses and what degree of influence it has on their implementation.
AKEL has lost touch with social reality, and this is causing an identity crisis, which is not a recent development. AKEL, as its General Secretary has said a handful of times since last Sunday, is a Communist Party. It is not, and they know it. Because the main thing is not what is said in its activities, but what policies are implemented. Because no one can deny that it is a systemic party, with close relations – sometimes mutual support – with the economic establishment. It has been said that it resembles a Labour party. How are workers represented in parliament? Where is PEO? With a nomenklatura and established party families change is not possible. Can a systemic party change the system as it proclaims?
On the Cyprus problem, the leadership expresses an extreme policy, which can only go along with a part of DISY (the one that sided with it in the second round of the last presidential election). AKEL, which has the best contacts with Turkish Cypriots compared to the other parties, knows both the limits and the new approaches expressed on the Cyprus problem. This issue cannot be dealt with in dead-end recipes. The components of an agreement must first and foremost prevent anything divisive. An agreement which divides citizens on the basis of ethnic origin strengthens and perpetuates nationalism. An agreement in which citizens express themselves on the basis of ideological and political affiliations is consistent with democracy. And since AKEL identifies as a left-wing party, anything that leads to discrimination should be a red line.
At Sunday’s congress there was no reference – in the speech of the General Secretary – to the five years AKEL was in government. No evaluation, no self-criticism. Not mentioning it does not make it… disappear. In order for that five years not to be, for AKEL, a parenthesis of power, it must evaluate them and deal with them for better or worse.
Stefanos Stefanou and his colleagues, as is evident from the changes that have been adopted, are attempting to make a fresh start. In a climate of depreciation, with the right sunk in its internal contradictions, the so-called centre unable to take steps towards enlargement, AKEL is first called upon to win… itself. Its bureaucracy and its obsessions. To be able to find partnerships and make a political mark. Only with proposals and policies that offer a way out can it find its feet. The balances in a democracy require strong party organisations, such as AKEL with its history. But this does not happen automatically, nor is it hereditary.
P.S. The fear of the rise of the far-right is addressed by policies on migration as well. You cannot, for example, have one line centrally and the elected representatives stating something different.
