President Anastasiades Points Finger at House of Representatives in Corruption Row

In an unfortunate reference to the Nazi propagandist Paul Joseph Goebbels, President Anastasiades claimed that big lies against him were being repeated in the media while he pointed the finger at the House of Representatives (HOR) in the passports-for-cash corruption row.

Mr. Anastasiades quoted Goebbels who said the bigger the lie and the more it’s repeated the more believable it becomes. Perhaps the reference to the totalitarian Goebbels is more telling than we think amid a series of lockdowns enforced by heavy-handed and punitive measures including a ban on demonstration and a pervasive sense of fear of the authorities upon which the population has become reliant for state subsidies in an economic downturn caused by the pandemic.

On balance, some of what the president said in his speech on January 28 made sense but much of it was a series of self-justifications and it certainly wasn’t wise to quote an infamous Nazi responsible for using the media to incite atrocity after atrocity against German Jews.

What made sense

The president criticised the HOR’s hold-up of the annual state budget on the grounds of the corruption investigation. This makes sense because many people and businesses are waiting for state subsidies as they were forced to close as part of the pandemic measures. But DIKO demanded that the files under investigation be sent to the Auditor-General and the budget was delayed by a month.

The president acknowledged that the cash-for-investment programme was flawed but said that it was accepted by all the political leadership since 2017 until the time it was abolished in late 2020.

The HOR didn’t prevent the programme’s abuse but now there is the political will to punish those who acted fraudulently and take drastic measures to restore Cyprus’ credibility, he said.

The president referred to a investigative panel led by Demetra Kalogirou. The panel is investigating possible criminal offenses by specific people including the disgraced Demetris Syllouris.

Mr. Anastasiades said that the House of Representatives should exercise their constitutional powers and vote in the anti-corruption bills sent to them by the Cabinet. The House should also adopt GRECO’s recommendations on transparency and the fight against corruption, he said.

The president also pointed out that Moneyval assessements show that Cyprus has made progress in anti-money-laundering investigations.

The auditor-general accepted that the priority was for the attorney-general to investigate the corruption allegations reported by Al Jazeera’s expose of former House speaker Demetris Syllouris so there was no reason for DIKO to keep insisting that the files be sent to him, said the president

What doesn’t make sense

Mr. Anastasiades complained that the journalist Andreas Paraschos was personally involved in the political campaigning against him and had the audacity to call on the president to prove he wasn’t corrupt.

Mr. Paraschos’ report in Kathimerini cited sources close to former Greek president Alexis Tsipras and claimed that the president’s former law firm profited from the investment-for-passports scheme to the tune of hundreds of millions of Euros which was carted to the Seychelles in chartered planes. He also reported that the president must have accepted payoffs for the Crans Montana summit to fail and the resulting effective partition of the island. The story was withdrawn as it was baseless and unproven but it was repeated widely on social media and affected his reputation, said the president.

However, Mr. Anastasiades didn’t present any strong evidence that Mr. Paraschos is linked to DIKO’s campaign against the president or that the journalist lost his job and raised more questions by his repeated denials of the story. The president also did not mention that he is due to be deposed in the cash-for-passports investigation or that Archbishop Chrysostomos already gave testimony which raised questions about the integrity of the Church which sold a piece of property to a fugitive.

It is the first time that the president has not offered to resign if an investigation proves he had a conflict of interest or acted corruptly. Many politicians have family law firms and it’s likely that the president’s former law firm and many of the MP’s law firms handled investment-for-passport cases but so far there have been no specific details released in the criminal investigation.

The political ramifications

The viewers had expected a speech about new anti-corruption measures and judging from the reactions to the video on social media were not convinced by the president’s words.

No matter the results of the criminal investigation, what is clear is that there is an antagonistic relationship between the HOR and the presidency which is likely to impact negatively on the government’s ability to get new bills passed.

The corruption scandals come at an incredibly difficult time for the economy, business sentiment and morale at a time when the state needs to be organised to fight the effects of the pandemic.

As the economy crumbles, people are fed up with seeing excesses and corruption in the state sector and are likely to use their votes to show their displeasure during May’s parliamentary elections and further down the line during the next presidential election in 2023.

Since the president’s speech writer decided on an atrocious politician’s quote, it’s a good time to complete Goebbel’s actual phrase:

“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

For the current government and the HOR the consequences of the corruption scandal are out there now and it is vitally important to keep the public debate going and prevent any further attempts to repress dissent. Once the lie of the Nazi’s genocide against the Jews was revealed, nobody believed Goebbels again.

Minister of Justice Yiolitis is already in the press and public’s bad books for banning demonstrations so her presentation of the anti-corruption measures tonight will be under close scrutiny.