Amy Marie Newcomb  01/22/2008 04:22:12 PM  From  DB/Inbox:  ECO-POLShare

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UNCLAS    SENSITIVE     NICOSIA 00898

SIPDIS
CXNICOSI:
    ACTION: DCM EXEC
    INFO:   DAO RAO ECON POL

DISSEMINATION: EXEC
CHARGE: PROG

APPROVED: AMB:RSCHLICHER
DRAFTED: POL:AMYIALLOUROU
CLEARED: DCM:JZIMMERMAN; POL:GMACRIS

VZCZCNCI576
RR RUEHC RUEHZL RUCNDT RUEHBS
DE RUEHNC #0898/01 3171158
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 131158Z NOV 07
FM AMEMBASSY NICOSIA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8313
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK 1007
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NICOSIA 000898 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL CY
SUBJECT:  ANNAN PLAN STILL DOMINATING ELECTION CAMPAIGN 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  Incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos's continuing lead 
in the presidential race is forcing his opponents to attempt to 
deconstruct the hero image that the President has forged with his 
hard-line Cyprus Problem tactics.  AKEL leader Dimitris Christofias, 
for example, has abandoned his relatively moderate criticism of 
Papadopoulos and instead unleashed an angry attack on his former 
coalition partner, publicly disparaging the President's political 
judgment and revealing their earlier policy disagreements.  As 
usual, the 2004 Annan Plan reunification effort has taken 
center-stage, with Christofias accusing Papadopoulos of mishandling 
UN-brokered preparatory talks in Switzerland, closing the doors to a 
solution with his infamous April 2004 national address, and refusing 
since to specify substantive settlement demands of the Greek Cypriot 
side.  The Papadopoulos camp retorts that AKEL had supported the 
President's every move, however, and has neither room nor reason to 
criticize.  As a result of this backwards-looking debate, real 
issues that affect Cypriots' future are receiving little attention 
this campaign season.  End Summary. 
 
PAPADOPOULOS' RESILIENCE HEATS UP THE CAMPAIGN 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶2.  (U) September and October have disappointed Papadopoulos's two 
major opponents, who were confident that the President's summer 
doldrums and then-declining popularity would carry into autumn.  A 
recent opinion poll commissioned by leading daily "Phileleftheros" 
showed Papadopoulos increasing his lead to five points over 
second-place Christofias and nearly nine over DISY-supported Ioannis 
Kasoulides.  Even more disturbing for the challengers, nearly half 
of those sampled believe Papadopoulos will be re-elected, compared 
to 35 percent in July.  The same poll contained one optimistic note 
for Christofias, however, giving him a small lead over the 
President, were the two to face off in a run-off. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Such numbers have forced the campaign teams and the 
parties backing Christofias and Kasoulides to roll up their sleeves 
and sharpen their claws.  Unable to shift the debate to the future 
and away from the Annan Plan, Christofias changed tack, deciding to 
call into question Papadopoulos's handling of the Cyprus issue.  He 
has focused on the period prior to the submission of the last 
version of the Annan Plan, which occurred on March 30, 2004. 
 
REVISITING THE ANNAN PLAN TALKS 
------------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (U) Papadopoulos actually started the fight with an October 29 
statement accusing his opponents of exhibiting poor political 
judgment in the run-up to the 2004 referendum.  It drew an angry 
response from Christofias that re-opened public debate and dominated 
the front pages for days.  The AKEL candidate countered that 
Papadopoulos himself had failed to negotiate changes to the Annan 
draft beneficial to G/Cs.  In the final stage of the negotiations in 
Burgenstock, Christofias continued, Papadopoulos had ignored his 
pleas to delineate the G/C "red lines."  Instead of the concise 
document the United Nations had sought from the sides, the lawyerly 
Papadopoulos presented a 44-page opus that had angered all involved, 
Christofias asserted.  For three years thereafter the President 
continued to refuse AKEL's requests that he present clear 
negotiating positions to the UN. 
 
¶5.  (U) Christofias next charged that Papadopoulos should not have 
consented to staging a referendum on a plan that he had considered 
unacceptable.  "If Papadopoulos was indeed the only leader with 
sound political judgment and the courage to say 'no,' he should have 
assumed his responsibility as a leader and refused to put to a 
referendum a plan he considered unacceptable," he asserted. 
Christofias recounted that AKEL's congress in April 2004 had 
recommended postponing the referenda, a position the President 
opposed. 
 
¶6.  (U) In a lengthy interview to opposition "Politis" on November 4 
and 5, Christofias revealed many of the disagreements that AKEL had 
kept under wraps in the past four-and-a-half years.  From the 
outset, he had encouraged Papadopoulos to forge closer relations 
with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other important 
international leaders in order to advance national interests, but 
the President had rejected his recommendations.  Referring to 
Papadopoulos's famous April 2004 speech calling on Greek Cypriots to 
oppose the "partitionist" Annan Plan, Christofias implied that the 
President's hyperbole had destroyed future prospects for a Cyprus 
solution.  Despite the complaints, however, Christofias insisted 
that AKEL's 2003 decision to support Papadopoulos was not a mistake 
at the time. 
 
¶7.  (U) Naturally, Papadopoulos defended his Cyprus Problem policies 
and rejected Christofias's criticisms.  The President recalled his 
"secret" meetings with Turkish Cypriot politician Serdar Denktash, 
in Christofias's presence, during which he had tried to push for 
postponement of the referenda.  Both Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot 
leadership rejected his request, however.  Papadopoulos also claimed 
that, in Burgenstock, he had given the UN a two-page document with 
the requested "red lines." 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) The President's "defiant" stance against the international 
community's "attempt to impose an unjust and unbalanced" solution 
with the Annan Plan appeals to many Greek Cypriots across the 
political spectrum.  It has created a base of support that includes 
not only the parties officially sponsoring Papadopoulos's candidacy, 
but some AKEL and DISY faithful as well.  Should he steamroll to a 
second term, the win could greatly reduce the influence of Cyprus's 
two major political parties; in response, both will attempt to 
tarnish Papadopoulos's "hero" image to get back their supporters. 
Short-term, this means a presidential campaign that leaves aside 
serious issues -- rising energy prices, trouble-plagued agricultural 
and tourism sectors, and a potentially catastrophic drought beg for 
candidates' attention -- to focus instead on "he said, she said" 
histrionics over the long-dead Annan Plan. 
 
SCHLICHER