Just as Annita Demetriou was calling on everyone to protect the party’s unity, two new interventions by senior Democratic Rally (DISY) figures confirmed that the rift cannot be healed by repeating the need for unity, or by sweeping personal and political differences under the carpet. Invoking a unity that clearly does not exist, in the belief that the divide could somehow be bridged as if by magic, has not only failed to address it but has widened it. The two interventions also exposed two further weaknesses that undermine the party’s prospects even more: the absence of a political narrative, and the complete lack of a political plan that could lead the party to a winning campaign in the 2028 presidential elections.
Harris Georgiades and the Averof candidacy
The intervention by Harris Georgiades, announcing that he would not take part in the campaign to support DISY’s candidate if that candidate is Averof Neofytou, was telling of a party in deep crisis. It exposed troubled personal relationships, but it also exposed significant political differences. And it confirmed that DISY is heading into the elections divided and wounded. Georgiades may have justified his decision by arguing that Averof Neofytou’s candidacy is the product of political blackmail and that the positions he expresses conflict with DISY’s official positions. Even so, his intervention creates a huge problem for the party’s candidacy if Averof Neofytou is ultimately chosen. It goes beyond explaining why he will not play an active part in the campaign. It lays bare DISY’s internal contradictions, contradictions the party will certainly face during the campaign.
“No ideological differences” with Christodoulides
Shortly before that, Michalis Ioannides, in an equally (if not more) problematic intervention, said that there are no ideological differences with Nikos Christodoulides. In doing so, he demolished what is politically at stake and left everyone wondering: why, then, is DISY contesting the presidency with its own candidate? And above all, on what basis, on what clear differences, will the party fight a winning campaign? The man who is otherwise responsible for setting out the positions on which the party will campaign in 2028 effectively said there are no differences with the government, ideological ones at least. Beyond undermining the party’s aims, this also creates confusion about its positions. Is the ballooning of the public sector a DISY position? Does the party agree with the government’s untargeted handouts, which do nothing but create a Big Brother state without solving any problems? Is this unprecedented nepotism part of the party’s ideology? Does DISY endorse the President’s handling of the Cyprus problem, which in essence does nothing but push the discussion into an indefinite future? And are all these merely disagreements over specific policies, or do they go to the heart of the party’s ideology?
A campaign without a narrative
How will Averof Neofytou or Giorgios Pamborides set out their candidacy against that of Nikos Christodoulides when, 15 months before the elections, party figures are effectively questioning the need to change the current government? And with what political narrative, when that same narrative is being questioned by the party’s own senior figures, or even by the candidates themselves? When, after the proposal that DISY should back Christodoulides, two more interventions confirm that there is not even a rudimentary political narrative?
A question of leadership
This, however, is not a matter of individual party figures. It is above all a matter of leadership. The leadership should have dealt long ago with issues that go back years and have since become insurmountable. How can the party be choosing a candidate without a political programme that binds the candidates? Especially when what a potential candidate puts forward (in this case Averof Neofytou) is often in direct conflict with the party’s declared positions? And can possible alliances with other parties sit outside a collectively agreed political strategy? How will the winner unite the party the day after the internal contest and lead it into the elections, when there is no agreed programme or narrative to rally officials and grassroots around him? When the party’s candidacy is being undermined from within by people who are supposed to be there to clear the way back to power?
Accepting defeat in advance?
Unless, that is, defeat has already been accepted as a possibility. That would also explain why former and current leaders are more focused on the second Sunday of the election than on the first. Or unless, as rumour has it, some have already decided to lead the party into a Christodoulides government. But if either is true, why contest the presidency at all? No defeat comes without a cost, let alone a second consecutive failure to make it to the second-round runoff. It is as if they have set out, by every means at their disposal, to undermine the party’s candidacy and to become the strongest supporters of Christodoulides’ candidacy. All with a campaign that, so far, makes the 2013 campaign look ideal.
What is certain is that DISY is heading into the 2028 presidential elections with a unity that can no longer be considered even superficial. And with its main opponent, once again, being itself.
