Our View: Communication tricks will not make video go away

From the moment the eight-minute video about the suspect fundraising methods used by President Nikos Chrisodoulides’ entourage for the election campaign appeared on the ‘X’ platform the government has been at pains to discredit the report.

The video was dismissed by government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis as “hybrid activity,” directed against the Republic of Cyprus. The competent state agency, “suggests the video is malicious and the product of montage/splicing,” he said in a written statement, adding that “it uses false and misleading claims and arbitrary conclusions in order to harm the image of the government and of the country.”

Discrediting the content with claims that did not stand up to rational scrutiny was the first step. Is there any video that is not edited before being made public and how can the spokesman talk of “false claims,” when none of the three men that appeared on it denied the veracity of their words; they said they were taken out of context, which would support the claim they were misleading.

The second step was to present the video as a suspected criminal offence that had to be investigated by the attorney-general and the police. This supported the effort to create a siege mentality, the government making out that this was an attack against the country – not on the president.

The third step was to put out a narrative to explain the “false claims”. The discussion of funds with potential investors and contributions to the Social Support Agency, were part of the government’s drive to attract foreign direct investment in the economy. This was the reason the president had visited the United States some months ago, Letymbiotis explained.

The government’s damage limitation campaign did not have the desired results, with opposition parties as well as pro-government Diko taking the allegations made by the video very seriously and demanding explanations.

Akel chief Stefanos Stefanou held a news conference on Friday at which he called for the resignation of the director of the president’s office, Charalambos Chralambous, for advising investors how they could curry favour with the government. He also demanded the abolition of the Social Support Agency, which is run by the first lady who has obdurately refused to disclose the names of donors, raising more suspicions about the funding.

As a last resort, the government went on the offensive, the director of the president’s press office, Victoras Papadopoulos, attacking the parties that were demanding explanations from the government. Papadopoulos said on a TV show that the government did not accept lessons from parties that were caught red-handed putting bribes into their bank accounts. It is an idiotic argument, as it implies that the government’s alleged wrongdoing was somehow acceptable because other parties had received funding from dubious sources.

Finally, on Friday afternoon, 24 hours after the story broke, the president decided to speak. “I call on anyone who has evidence about direct or indirect pay-offs made to me, to submit them immediately to the relevant authorities of the state,” he said.

The video has done that, which is why there must now be an investigation of allegations by an independent committee. The matter will not go away with communications tricks.