Every poll ahead of the parliamentary elections points to the same conclusion: Elam will emerge as the third largest party in the House and will become a determining force in the handling of the Cyprus problem. That is deeply troubling, given President Nikos Christodoulides's dependence on the party and its voters.
Immigration has been Elam's political weapon of choice since it first appeared on the scene, and it has proved an effective one. With resonant slogans, the party has gathered followers among the unemployed, among young people and among the middle-class urban voters who feel their interests are threatened by migrants. Its extreme nationalist ideology, which refuses equal rights to foreigners it claims contaminate our racial purity, has found fertile ground. In its early years the party imposed its views through violence, vandalism and beatings, before graduating to more "civilised" methods. Retrograde conservatism and religious fundamentalism are central to its identity, and on social, artistic and cultural matters it moves in comfortable alignment with the Church. Where the two genuinely converge, however, is on the national question, to the point where Elam functions as the Church's political arm. The Church has extended its favour to the party despite an ideology that clashes brutally with human rights, and has never once positioned itself against it.
What allowed Elam to grow into a dangerous political force was the tolerance shown toward it by both the state and society at large. Responsibility for its normalisation as a parliamentary party lies with the entire political establishment: with the exception of the left, every party has cooperated with Elam at various points and on various issues. That cooperation embedded it in the public consciousness as a party like any other. Despite the provocations of its supporters, including banners with swastikas at football stadiums and students giving Nazi salutes while being photographed with the apparent indulgence of their teachers, neither the state, nor the Church, nor local communities reacted in any meaningful way. The Ministers of Justice and Education dismissed the incidents as "youthful recklessness," which amounts to tolerance and cover.
Throughout Elam's presence on the political scene, President Christodoulides has never once disagreed with it. Not when the party articulated positions on the Cyprus problem at odds with the government's stated policy, not when it advocated for preserving the status quo. For its part, Elam has never directed criticism at the president. On the contrary, it accepts and endorses his approach, because it serves Elam's own objective: keeping things exactly as they are. Each reinforces the other, and the mutual sympathy between them is plain to see. When the time comes and Elam supporters are asked to vote for Christodoulides in a second presidential term, they will do so without hesitation.
What does Elam actually propose on the Cyprus problem? A unitary state and one person, one vote. At first hearing it sounds reasonable, even democratic, and it plays well with the crowds. But in a bicommunal state like Cyprus it is simply unworkable. In a unitary state, the numerically larger community would win every election to every institution, electing all officials, while the other community, always in the minority, would elect no one. Such an arrangement would never be accepted, and everyone knows it. What it guarantees is the perpetuation of deadlock, which is precisely what both Elam and Nikos Christodoulides are pursuing. A stronger Elam will mean a stronger negative pull on presidential decision-making, a solution will recede further and partition will harden into permanence. Beyond its antisocial and anti-human conduct, Elam will always be a permanent obstacle to a settlement of the Cyprus problem.
The writer is a political commentator.
