Nikos Christodoulidis, took over as President of the Republic at the age of 48. He was the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Government Spokesman of the Anastasiades Government – Democratic Rally from April 2014 until January 2022. Almost 8 years.
In Cypriot society he was promoted as something new, but:
– He created the image of the moderate, who did not break with the opposition. He used certain mass media outlets, more easily passing the government narrative to society.
– In essence, he was a key member of the previous government, which implemented unprecedented anti-popular policies to ensure the growing riches of the few, at the expense of the many. He is jointly responsible for the redistribution of wealth for the benefit of the few, significantly shrinking the incomes of 90% of our people, disintegrating the middle class, further impoverishing the working classes, with homeless, long-term unemployed, deregulating labor laws at the expense of workers while the youth ended up receiving low wages in a very hostile work environment.
– He is also known for his negative role in the last negotiations on the Cyprus issue, which led to an impasse that continues to this day under the responsibility of the then President Anastasiades. It’s the biggest stagnation ever.
– It seems that he will be a continuation of the previous government. It is noteworthy that in the second round of the 2023 Presidential Election, the majority of the youth voted for Andreas Mavroyiannis and not for him.
Annita Dimitriou, is 37 years old. She was elected Member of Parliament in 2016, took over as President of the Parliament in 2021 and has been President of DISY since March 2023.
She promotes the image of a young politician, with a progressive profile, who can bring renewal to the political scene of Cyprus.
However, as a member of parliament for DISY, who was also the Press Representative of the election staff of Nikos Anastasiadis in 2018, she supported all the anti-popular policies implemented by the Anastasiadis – DISY Government in the last decade. She is equally responsible with Nikos Christodoulidis for the situation that prevails in Cypriot society today, especially today that she leads the party of the Right.
It is noteworthy that he was elected Speaker of the Parliament with the votes of the fascist ELAM.
Sotiris Ioannou, is 28 years old. He was elected with ELAM as a member of parliament in 2021 and a municipal councilor of Larnaca in 2016.
He is perhaps the youngest member of parliament in the history of the Republic of Cyprus. He is also an executive of the neo-Nazi ELAM, an offshoot of Golden Dawn which was condemned as a criminal organization in Greece, for murders and practices of violence and hatred against immigrants, refugees, democrats and leftists.
He is a fascist who expresses his racist, homophobic, intolerant and misanthropic views inside and outside parliament. He is the man who got upset when an academic said he would cut Hitler supporters from his class.
Sebastian Kurz, he is 37 years old. Chancellor of Austria in 2017-2019 and 2020-2021. Also Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2013-2017.
He was the leader of the People’s Party (OVP), Austria’s Christian Democratic conservative party, which in 2020 co-governed with the nationalist “Freedom Party”. In his prime ministership, he paid attention to his image and to the exploitation of apt themes such as: fear of illegal immigration, concern about employment, decline of welfare.
He implemented a mix of far-right and liberal policies, such as closing the borders to immigrants and strengthening the country’s Catholic identity, alongside anti-worker and pro-industrial policies, such as extending the working day to 12 hours and abolishing of the 8th hour, the reforms in tax, pension, labor law, etc.
He resigned as prime minister in October 2021 and retired from politics until the end of the same year after being accused of corruption and involvement in scandals over rigged polls and media articles.
Is the participation of women in state offices and decision-making centers a sufficient condition in itself for the “women’s issue”? Does it matter what policies the participating women promote?
With the term “women’s issue” we refer to the complex social problem that stems from the class character of the dominant economic system – capitalism – and is traced in the relations between the two sexes through economic, political, cultural and other forms of inequality and discrimination against women . The real liberation of woman and her real equality with man can only be realized by the abolition of this exploitation.
The bourgeoisie is trying to cultivate standards and shape consciousnesses that will not question the root of the problem, their policies and their power. They deal with the issue only as a racial one and not as a class one with racial characteristics, especially today when working class women, especially young women, are acutely experiencing exploitation and racial oppression.
Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady”
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979 – 1990). Leader of the Conservative Party (1975 – 1990).
– Cut the budgets for Housing and Education. She liberalized regulations on university fees, leading to a rapid increase in them.
– Abolished free milk in schools for 7-11 year olds.
– It led to an increase in unemployment – 3.6 million unemployed.
– Implemented the economic policies of Milton Friedman, those followed by the Chilean dictator, Augusto Pinochet, leading the Chilean people to complete impoverishment.
– Introduced a head tax, further shrinking the incomes of the middle and poor classes.
– She supported the reinforcement of NATO with nuclear weapons systems.
– For the first time in history, she applied terror to football and introduced compulsory fan ID – exacerbating the problem and the violence.
– Privatized – sold off many profitable public sectors, while attempting to privatize profitable mines.
– She attacked the labor unions for limiting their action.
It further impoverished the majority of the UK people for the profit of the few. This impoverishment had a greater impact on women of the working class, the small and middle classes and the popular strata.
Georgia Meloni
Prime Minister of Italy from October 2022. A relatively young woman, but at the same time with dangerous far-right political positions.
– At the age of 15, she enlisted in the youth of the Italian Social Movement (MSI), heir to Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party. She describes Mussolini as a “good politician”.
– Moved to the National Alliance, successor to MSI, became a member of Parliament in 2006 and founded in 2012 the Brothers of Italy, a far-right party with intolerant rhetoric, taking over its reins in 2014.
– She herself publicly adopts a xenophobic and racist discourse following the permanent populist policy of far-right formations worldwide.
– With her election as prime minister, she appoints the neo-Nazi Galeatso Binyami, who in 2005 was photographed wearing a Nazi armband, as deputy minister of infrastructure.
The dangerous positions of far-right and neo-fascist organizations on the “women’s issue” are well known, as well as their role as a reserve of the Right against workers’ struggles, thus also against working women.
Hillary Clinton
U.S. Secretary of State (2009-2013), U.S. Senator (2001-2003), candidate for the U.S. presidency in 2016. She is active on the “women’s issue,” but through the urban approach, while simultaneously serving the exploitative system faithfully.
– Supported the military interventions in Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq in October 2002, which left behind death, destruction and impoverishment.
– As Secretary of State in the Obama administration, he maintained military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq while bombing Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria.
– During her tenure as Secretary of State, the US participated in “counter-terrorism” operations in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Uganda, while bolstering other countries’ militaries in parts of North and West Africa and Eastern and Central Europe. Pentagon special operations units are deployed in at least 133 countries – that’s 70% of the world.
It is responsible for the crimes of NATO imperialism and the USA against the peoples of the world, including the people of the USA – and against millions of women on the planet.
Is the election to power centers of people from vulnerable groups of people – refugees, immigrants, victims of racial discrimination, minorities, etc. – a sufficient condition for progressive treatment of issues such as racism, refugees, immigration, intense economic and social inequalities?
Barack Hussein Obama
First African American President of the USA. In 2009 he were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, during his presidency:
– Involvement in Libya in 2011 with approximately 10,000 dead and 4,000 missing.
– Instead of ending the multi-year war in Iraq, as he promised, in June 2014 he ordered a new invasion.
– He implemented the imperialist plans in Syria, supporting armed “opposition”, strengthening the “Islamic State”, contributing to the massacre of innocent citizens, as in Ukraine, with the coup and the massacre of the Ukrainian people that followed.
He became President in 2008, in the midst of a capitalist crisis. He proved himself to be the one to implement policies to revive the profitability of big business at the expense of the US people. He was fooling the manufactured “progressive” and extroverted political profile he was promoting.
– Continued the logic of the state and employers not contributing to social security, health and welfare. The contribution should be from employees only.
– During 2009-2011, approximately 100,000,000 people were below the poverty line. An increase of 4.5% from 2005-2007. Not only was there no decrease among African-Americans, but it also increased among Hispanics and generally the elderly, single parents, and children. An indicative 50 million were unable to cover daily food costs and 43 million workers were not entitled to paid sick leave.
Despite his public stances on the issue of racism in the US, there have been several killings and police violence during his own presidency, mainly against African-Americans. His policies maintained social and class inequalities, the main causes of the rise of such phenomena.
Rishi Sunak
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 2022 and chairman of the Conservative Party. He is of Indian origin and only 43 years old.
Despite this, he is a multi-millionaire with a fortune exceeding £700 million. His wife’s fortune exceeds 900 million dollars. Politically, he is a staunch supporter of neoliberalism, the sell-off of public wealth and Margaret Thatcher, who impoverished the majority of the people of the United Kingdom without precedent during her own prime ministership.
He served anti-popular policies long before he was elected prime minister, most notably as finance minister in Boris Johnson’s government. It has made cuts to support programs for people suffering from poverty.
He took over as prime minister at a very critical time, when the British people were faced with the highest inflation in the last 40 years and the precision of dissolving the popular and small and middle classes. In the period between then and now, he has already moved forward with plans to reduce government spending and has publicly made it clear many times that his goal is to ensure the profitability of British monopoly groups, a price that the people must pay. It is no coincidence that in recent months in Britain there have been major labor strikes by workers – teachers, government employees, doctors, nurses, railway drivers, journalists, etc.
Although he is a descendant of immigrants, albeit affluent ones, he is a genuine representative of the UK bourgeoisie, which unhesitatingly implements policies of impoverishment of the working, working class and lower middle classes, which have an even greater impact on those from immigrant and refugee backgrounds.
The elaborate policy of deceiving the workers, the middle class and the general population is a one-way and conscious choice for the dominant exploitative class in order to enjoy their support or even tolerance.
Why is political deception a one-way street for the bourgeoisie?
In a class-separated society, with two basic classes that have distinct and conflicting interests, the existence of mutual interests does not exist, except occasionally and individually in matters that do not touch the basic oppositions of society. Thus each class consciously serves, or should do so consciously, its own interests which inevitably leads to an attempt to circumvent the interests of the opposite class.
This is why the political representatives of the bourgeoisie do not honestly project their political and economic goals, as they are directed against the majority of society.
They employ misleading ideologies and opinions that are manufactured and reproduced in many ways and means, to disorient workers from the essence of the political, social and economic struggle. The goal is for employees to judge and decide on the basis of false or insubstantial dilemmas that usually concern the surface rather than the depth, the phenomenon rather than the substance, the image rather than the content.
Particularly popular pseudo-dilemmas are the positing of age, gender, race, color, sexual orientation and other existing differentiating characteristics as the determining factor in the socio-political consciousness and action of the subjects.
Why are they false dilemmas?
They are false dilemmas, not because they are not really objective parameters that differentiate the individuals of a society, nor because they do not cause serious discrimination and inequalities which, depending on the historical situation, can take on large dimensions. They are false dilemmas because they hide the real cause of discrimination and inequality which is the exploitative society of capitalism.
Such ideologies do not aim at abolishing the exploitation of the social majority by a sad minority but at best aim at equal representation of ages, sexes etc. internally within the handful of exploiters. Of course, in the end, they cannot achieve even this insignificant goal, because as long as the system exists, which is inherently unequal and illegal, it breeds these discriminations even among the exploiters.
By extension, the ruling class mobilizes these ideologies and tries with the infinite mechanisms at its disposal to reduce these above parameters as criteria for political choice and action: It tries with an allegedly progressive and allegedly cosmopolitan narrative to lock the majority of society away from the substance and thus more easily secure the interests of the economic oligarchy.
The reality is full of examples of the implementation of urban policies by politicians who satisfy these pseudo-progressive criteria and implemented conservative and anti-popular policies even at the expense of the very social sub-group to which they belong.