The column evaluates yesterday’s speech by the president of DISY, Annita Demetriou, at the beginning of the discussion on the state budget for 2024, as disappointing.
She deliberately chose to appear as an advocate for the Anastasiades government and, at some points, for the former president himself, something few do anymore.
Especially in the part where she wanted to address the – justified for everyone except herself and a few others – defamation of Cyprus. She almost scolded us for falling into the trap and adopting what large foreign news networks, journalist cooperatives, international organisations, and other governments accuse us of.
She reacted to the social and institutional measures and announcements that had been invoked a little earlier by speakers from opposition parties to praise the Christodoulides government in its early stages, saying that “to be fair,” most of these measures were initiated or decided by the previous government—both positive evaluations and upgrades, etc.
However, she repeated that the current government set a record with a 14% increase in the salary scale within a year. But how was the salary scale increased? With the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), one might say. Well, wouldn’t the Anastasiades government provide COLA? It would. It had announced it before the elections and even budgeted COLA for public servants in 2023 as part of state expenses, setting it at 50%. The new government increased it to 66.7%. To avoid a frontal clash with the unions, including PASYDY.
Would the government reject the increase in the COLA performance rate (which stemmed from a previous agreement with partners and the government), risking disturbances to labour peace? The column doubts it. However, the new government should be credited or blamed, depending on political stance, only for the difference between 67% and 50%.
The restoration of benefits and allowances in the public sector and the broader public sector was initiated by the previous government, and some decisions, effective in 2023 or even 2024, were made before the presidential elections and are now being implemented. To be fair, these funds should not be credited or debited to the current government.
Mrs Demetriou did not criticise the previous government at all. All other political leaders did. Yes, she is the president of DISY, and perhaps no one expected her to criticise the party for its decade-long governance. Since she had no such intention, however, she should avoid giving suggestions to Nikos Christodoulides and his ministers to do things that the President and ministers of the DISY government did not do. It hasn’t even been ten months since they left power, and it’s a challenge, Mrs Demetriou, to tell us that “vision, foresight, and long-term planning are needed.” Don’t we have those? What about Cyprus 2035? Up in smoke?
It is a challenge, Mrs Demetriou, to ask – without the slightest criticism or self-criticism for what preceded – for measures and prospects for “households, the middle class, and small and medium-sized enterprises, which have suffered the greatest impact due to successive crises,” even for the “prohibitive cost of housing,” which is an “achievement” of the DISY government. Heritage, since you like the word. It is indeed a challenge to tell us – with a disdainful tone – about a “picture (i.e., a corrupt state) that some deliberately try to maintain for other reasons and continues to undermine the credibility of our country,” instead of correctly and bluntly saying “never again.”
It is sad, but we have a President of the Republic who is a continuator of the previous government and a President of the House who advocates for the previous administration, which the majority of those who voted decided to oust.
