"Why ‘I told you so’ sticks in my throat"

An op-ed piece by Loucas Charalambous, available here:

Before the 2003 presidential elections, this column had tried to warn readers about the dangers of electing Tassos Papadopoulos. I argued that his election campaign stance and the promise that he would supposedly fight to improve the Annan plan, was just a thinly-disguised attempt to trick ordinary AKEL members into voting for him. Some things never change, I wrote at the time, with reference to Papadopoulos’ stance on a Cyprus settlement.

At the time, many had accused me of being excessive in my criticism of Papadopoulos. They said: “Tassos has changed. AKEL cannot be fooled a second time the first was by the late Spyros Kyprianou. It will tie him down.” I just smiled. Today, 14 months later, we are facing the horrific results of his election win. His ludicrous, tear-stained address to the people is in itself conclusive proof. I do not need to add anything else. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who thinks that this column got anything wrong in its predictions about his election.

I wish I had been proved wrong, but below are excerpts of what this column said on February 16, 2003, the day of the presidential elections:

“Today we are being asked to choose between the reunification of Cyprus or its permanent partition -- between a solution or no solution at all.

Before each one of us votes, we should ask ourselves the following questions.
Is it possible that Tassos Papadopoulos, with his well-known history as a hardliner, has completely changed his beliefs in the space of just a few weeks? Is it possible for the man who has cursed and pilloried all previous peace proposals that have been submitted by the UN to persuade us that he now favours a settlement? Is it possible that Papadopoulos could be elected president and that a few weeks or months later he would annul his presidency by signing a Cyprus solution? Does anyone honestly believe this might happen? And who can believe that he would ignore the views of all those hardliners surrounding him, who only two months ago were leading the hysterical campaign against accepting the Annan peace plan?

We should realise that electing Papadopoulos will mean that the Cyprus problem will remain unsolved. Voting for him would be tantamount to supporting his disastrous philosophy that ‘the best solution is not a solution’ and that it is ‘better to stay as we are’, something he has written on countless occasions in the past. But what does this choice mean? It means that for many years to come, the UN will not undertake another peace initiative. Partition will become permanent.

This is what we have to mull over before casting our ballots today. It does not matter what party we vote for as long as we vote for a solution, for peace, for the reunification of the island.”

Dear readers, friends of AKEL and those who thought I was being excessive in my criticism of Tassos, what is your opinion today? Can a dyed-in-the-wool hardliner ever become a supporter of a solution? Of course not, and this is why we deserve what we get.

n This column was written before DISY’s decision on what line to take in the referendum, which together with AKEL’s bizarre decision I will write about in my next column. This will be before the referendum.