AKEL lash out at Kasoulides while reaching out to Tassos

WITH only two candidates left in the election run off, the AKEL knives came out yesterday against DISY rival Ioannis Kasoulides.
Throughout the election campaign, AKEL and DISY had focused their bile on Papadopoulos. With his ouster last Sunday and with both camps competing for DIKO’s support yesterday, AKEL fired the first shot at Kasoulides.

AKEL spokesman Andros Kyprianou defended Papadopoulos, with whom his party broke ranks last year to field their own candidate Demetris Christofias.

He said, on the other hand, that Kasoulides and DISY leader Nicos Anastassiades had been offensive in their criticism of the outgoing president.

“We may have disagreed with some of the President’s choices but we generally follow the same common course,” said Kyprianou.

“Our criticisms were soft and mainly constructive, compared to those of Messrs Anastassiades and Kasoulides.”

Kyprianou also slammed the rival camp’s handling of the Cyprus issue and reared the spectre of the hated Annan plan.

“We seek a solution that would be consistent with international and European rights as well as international conventions on human rights that will foresee the withdrawal of Turkish troops and settlers, restore the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of Cyprus and which will exclude the right of unilateral military intervention,” said Kyprianou.

He added the party would also accept the political equality of the two communities as determined in UN resolutions.

He then said the DISY camp would follow a different course and referred to their “thoughtless yes” to the Annan plan.

Kyprianou also attacked the economic and social policy of the opposite camp, and praised Papadopoulos’ handling of these issues, even though AKEL did not agree with everything he did.
He referred to Kasoulides’ polices as “neoliberal” and indifferent to their social cost.

Kyprianou also said Kasoulides was merely a front for Anastassiades. The latter was the most powerful of the duo, and Kasoulides would have a “hypothetical presidency”, Kyprianou said.

“Others will be in charge and take all the major decisions,” he added.

(Source: Cyprus Mail)