Onasagoras
Finally! The night we've all been waiting for. Tonight at 7 p.m., Cyprus will witness a grand moment—not the Eurovision finals, but something equally thrilling (or so we’re told). President Nikos Christodoulides will deliver his much-anticipated review of the year and outline his grand vision for 2025.
For Greek speakers, the official title of the speech is Government Planning, which, let’s be honest, sounds a bit dull and uninspired. But in English? Now, that’s where the magic happens: State of the Union. Wow!
Some particularly enthusiastic supporter of the Cyprus-U.S. alliance even suggested that tonight’s speech be delivered in English so that Americans could follow along.
It does have an American ring to it, but that makes sense given Cyprus’ recent strategic alliances with the U.S. Personally, it reminds me of my annual New Year’s Resolution—every year, I vow to lose 10 kilos, and by the end of the year, I usually end up gaining 10. But hey, it’s the thought that counts, right?
Meanwhile, over at AKEL—the party of eternal opposition—and among the more flexible parties that alternate between government and opposition (DISY, DIKO, and EDEK), reactions have already been prepared, whether in the form of praise or fierce criticism, before they’ve even heard a word of the speech. As someone in the presidential gardens whispered, "Hear me out first, then strike me down."
Some particularly enthusiastic supporter of the Cyprus-U.S. alliance even suggested that tonight’s speech be delivered in English so that Americans could follow along. When this rumor reached AKEL, they were outraged, counter-proposing that it should be given in Russian—for the benefit of Limassol residents. To avoid a full-blown crisis, it was ultimately decided that the President would stick to Greek. I am so happy.
"I don’t attend memorials that cause public division," declared DISY MP Dimitris Dimitriou, referring to the annual (and let’s be real, 51-year-old) controversy surrounding the Grivas memorial. In a single sentence, he summed up everything that needed to be said about the issue. After all, history is starting to form its own verdict on what Makarios and Grivas did—or didn’t do—and it doesn’t look like it will be particularly flattering for either of them.
So maybe, instead of clinging to their mistakes, we should actually learn from them. But I fear that once again, we’ve failed to turn our past misfortunes into lessons. Speaker of the House Annita Demetriou’s attempts to prevent votes from leaking to ELAM are understandable, but surely there are better ways to go about it. As for AKEL, it has become utterly predictable in its desperate attempt to retain votes by stoking polarization over an issue that, as we used to say on Facebook, is complicated.
"Elon Musk’s far-right rhetoric is pure nonsense," says Bill Gates. So, after years of the Trump vs. Biden feud, featuring public insults and name-calling, we now have a fresh billionaire showdown—Elon Musk and Bill Gates exchanging jabs. This whole spat reminded me of the legendary clash between Fidias Panayiotou and Christoforos "Never Surrender" Tornaritis.
Speaking of which… whatever happened to that guy and the political party he was supposedly forming?
*This op-ed was translated from its Greek original
