Cyprus Mail: Press Review in English, 99-03-18

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From: The Cyprus Mail at <http://www.cynews.com/>

Thursday, March 18, 1999

Government in crisis after resignation

THE RESIGNATION of government spokesman Christos Stylianides overshadowed everything else in yesterday's papers. Stylianides had submitted his resignation because of disagreements over President Clerides' handling of the Ombudsman's report about Interior Minister Dinos Michaelides.

Simerini said there was a "government crisis", caused by Clerides' "obstinate insistence to back the Interior Minister". It was obvious that Stylianides could not defend publicly the Council of Minister's decision that found Michaelides free of any wrongdoing, it said.

Pressure for a cabinet reshuffle was mounting. The United Democrats, one of the smaller parties participating in the government, threatened to walk out if Clerides failed to carry out a reshuffle and sack Michaelides. They also wanted an above-party spokesman to replace Stylianides. Similar demands had also been made by the Renewal Party.

Phileleftheros said the resignation had rocked the government. It warned that failure to take speedy political decisions that would open the way for a more broadly representative government and restore its credibility could have disastrous effects on Cyprus' EU accession course.

It quoted Disy leader Nicos Anastassiades demanding a reshuffle and the creation of a more broadly representative government that would include people from the centre and the left. Anastassiades, like the United Democrats, was opposed to a one-party government.

Politis said the resignation had led to a confrontation between Clerides and the parties that were still supporting him - Disy and the United Democrats. Their calls for an immediate cabinet reshuffle and Clerides "emphatic no" to this demand were bound to cause problems.

An associate of the president put the problem in a nutshell. He told the paper: "Knowing how stubborn Clerides is, I wonder if he would be prepared to be seen to give in to pressure from the two parties." The Free Democrats had made the reshuffle a condition for staying in the government, the paper said.

Haravghi described the government as a "sinking ship", the captain of which was "in complete isolation" after the resignation of Stylianides, which had not been unexpected. In a front page editorial, the paper said that Clerides' culpability for today's mess was greater than that of Michaelides, because the president had backed and covered the minister.

The paper called for the resignation of Clerides as his government had been a "complete failure" in all fields. Cyprus needed a new president who could stop the slide and offer solutions and radical changes, it said, concluding: "The best thing for the government to do is to follow the example of the European Commission and resign en masse."

Alithia led with a report about the collective resignation of the European Commission, but in its front page editorial took it upon itself to defend the government. It claimed that "the creation of wrong impressions and the circulation of undocumented accusations led to the corruption of political life".

Opponents of the government resorted to negating everything, while "the people accepted unquestioningly the demagoguery and verbosity of some". The paper conceded that not everything was rosy, but things were not as bad as people made out. As for the president, he was doing a good job running the country.

© Copyright Cyprus Mail 1999

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