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Thirteen minutes is a long time in politics. For outgoing Agriculture Minister Maria Panayiotou, it was enough time to give a fairly glowing account of her 30 months in office.
At Thursday's handover ceremony, Panayiotou didn't simply say goodbye to the ministry. She came armed with a lengthy list.
Projects, funding, water infrastructure, waste management, Akamas, desalination, agriculture and fire prevention all featured as she detailed dozens of actions undertaken during her term.
Her overall message was clear: she was leaving behind a ministry that had finally stopped pushing difficult problems down the road.
Long-standing issues were brought "to the fore and addressed with actions," she said, arguing that many had already been solved and those that had not were now on their way to being resolved.
She also stressed that she was leaving the ministry "by my own choice" after 30 months in the job.
But outside the handover ceremony, some Cypriots may remember those 30 months rather differently.
Then there was the summer Cyprus won't forget
Perhaps the biggest shadow over Panayiotou's term remains the devastating Limassol wildfire of July 2025.
More than 100 square kilometers were burned. Homes and livelihoods were destroyed, and two people lost their lives after becoming trapped in their car while trying to escape.
Hundreds of firefighters, state workers and volunteers battled the flames, while ordinary people rushed to collect food, water and supplies and help communities left devastated by the disaster.
The government's response later came under intense scrutiny.
A parliamentary report published this year formally censured Panayiotou and found that she had not adequately fulfilled her duties in relation to the fire. The same report identified wider weaknesses in coordination, evacuations, and Cyprus's fire-management system.
Against that background, one line from Thursday's farewell speech is likely to raise eyebrows.
Panayiotou said the government had strengthened Cyprus's framework for fire prevention and response and that firefighting services now had more personnel and equipment than ever before.
Both things can be true: resources may have increased, while serious failures were still exposed when disaster struck.
And then there was water
Water was another major chapter of her tenure, and one every Cypriot understands without needing a government report.
Empty dams, repeated appeals to save water, emergency desalination projects, and arguments over consumption dominated headlines as Cyprus went through an extraordinary drought.
By late 2025, Panayiotou herself described it as the country's worst year for water scarcity since records began in 1901.
Her ministry responded with desalination projects and longer-term infrastructure plans, measures she highlighted among her achievements on Thursday.
But for households being asked to use less water and farmers watching supplies disappear, the experience did not always feel quite as reassuring as a list of projects might suggest.
That, ultimately, is the problem with political farewell speeches.
Governments tend to measure their terms in projects launched, millions spent, and plans approved.
People tend to measure them differently.
Was there water when they turned on the tap? Was their village protected when the fire came? Did someone answer when things went wrong?
Panayiotou clearly believes she leaves the Agriculture Ministry with a substantial record of work behind her.
The new minister, Christos Senekis, now inherits both that work and the problems Cypriots are still waiting to see solved.
