Donald Trump’s return to the top of US politics may be a triumph or a disaster, depending on who you ask. One thing’s for sure, though: such an electoral shock to the system would be impossible in Cyprus – especially when you consider the well-known disruptors and mavericks in Trump’s corner.
Elon Musk will apparently be placed in charge of a Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with cutting spending. Robert F Kennedy Jr, who’s spent years railing against the influence of pharmaceutical companies, has been picked to head the HHS, the top public-health agency.
Both men have a large personal following, indeed their presence may have been what tipped the election in Trump’s favour. They’re likely to get a chance to pursue the wholesale change they’ve been calling for.
We don’t pretend to know if these characters will be successful, or even if they mean well. RFK may be a crackpot and Musk a corrupt businessman looking to help his own companies, as many are claiming. Trump himself is deeply flawed and was largely ineffectual in his first term. Still, all this vigorous desire for change in the world’s most powerful country is in sharp contrast to our own situation.
Our president – as even his biggest supporters must admit – is a career civil servant whose only experience is within the institutional setting of the public sector. He’s been embedded in the system his whole life. Inevitably, his most obvious talent is for doing what pleases the most people – and/or the most powerful people – most of the time.
One may lament what might’ve been different if Christodoulides hadn’t been elected. But the answer is that nothing would’ve been different. His opponent in the election was Andreas Mavroyiannis, another career civil servant who would surely now be governing in exactly the same way.
Indeed, even the man commonly cited as our biggest dissident, the new broom that could sweep the place clean – namely, former auditor-general Odysseas Michaelides – has spent a lifetime in the public sector and is not opposed to its bureaucracy and over-regulation, in fact he’s even more of a stickler for the rules than other politicians.
This is not to say that Cyprus needs its own Trump – but why, in such an obviously stagnant system, has no Trump-like figure emerged, an outsider from the private sector running on a promise to shake things up?
After all, our only past experience with outsiders was a positive one. George Vassiliou, a successful businessman before he entered politics in 1988, is widely esteemed as an effective president, and also came second (after Clerides) in a poll last month asking respondents for the most honest Cypriot president.
One obvious problem is that Cyprus is unionised, to an extent that the US is not. Any wealthy maverick thinking of running for president knows that making any meaningful change would be near-impossible. Any attempt to impose fiscal discipline or cut the public payroll would be met with a furious reaction by unions demanding their entrenched ‘rights’, probably backed by the courts.
Then again, couldn’t a determined outsider – unafraid of what people think, willing to face the chaos of strikes and stoppages, and not caring about re-election – withstand the storm of protest and push his agenda through? Hard to say – but if an outsider can’t do it, there’s no way a career politician will ever do it.
Another factor is that Cyprus is completely dominated by party politics (even Vassiliou couldn’t have become president without the backing of Akel), making it impossible for an independent. Then again, the same is true of the US, and Trump still prevailed. We may even be approaching a point where parties are losing their primacy, as shown by the shock of Fidias Panayiotou’s MEP victory a few months ago.
Obviously, MEP is not the same as president. Fidias was the beneficiary of a protest vote and may be turning into an embarrassment in any case – though the howls of protest at his antics come mainly from the old guard of politicians and EU mandarins, always a good sign for an outsider. Could he be the shape of things to come?
This is not a plea for populism, more of a thought experiment. Our presidents tend to be ruled by vested interests because they’re career politicians – but what if we had someone who wasn’t? They’re tempted by systemic corruption – but what if we had someone who was independently wealthy? They’re used to operating by consensus, in a sluggish institutional way – but what if we had an entrepreneur from the world of business, used to taking risks and thinking outside the box?
Maybe the answer is that Cyprus politics – and EU politics, which are actually far more important in this scenario – are too ruled by collective thinking for a disruptor to make any difference, unlike the more vigorous American system. Maybe it would just lead to deadlock and conflict. Still, local voters – and potential mavericks – would do well to keep a close eye on what happens across the Atlantic in the next few years.
