By Zina Lysandrou-Panagidi *:
First of all, I want to emphasize that this issue concerns only the citizens of the city of Famagusta and no one else. If I express my opinion, it is to record on the computer some of my thoughts about our Diocese, our Queen and the one who will succeed an Alexis Galanos!
Famagusta, unintelligibly, was the Riviera of the Eastern Mediterranean, the city that differed greatly from the other cities of Cyprus in the economic but, mainly, in the spiritual sector. A beautiful historic city that for its various interests was left to have for its inhabitants all kinds of reptiles, while it could have been handed over to its rightful inhabitants from the first years after the invasion.
The mayor of such a city may not be the first to be lucky, but a brilliant personality worthy of a lord Alexis Galanos. An Alexis Galanos cosmopolitan, decent, convincing, demanding, perfectionist, militant, who was respected and respected in all the lengths and breadths of the earth, to whom all the doors were wide open and who fought for 45 years for his great love, the sandy His city, for which he succeeded in the two UN resolutions, in 550 and 789. An Alexis Galanou, who was the only member of the Republic of Cyprus who for years did not receive a salary, a patriot of politics who entered it full. That he entered politics, when he became a refugee, when, as he said, "our wings were cut off, while we were flying high and landing on the ground".
Personally, I consider myself lucky to have had him as Chairman of the Committee of Occupied Municipalities, because we learned a lot from him, but most of all, I admired him. I admired him very much for what he achieved, for his political judgment, his perspicacity, his humanity, his intelligence, his intelligence, his multifaceted and exuberant character, his political experience, his knowledge, his compromising, his pragmatism, his mature political thinking, his sensitive heart, his kindness, his moderation, his ethos and his honesty.
As the former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Giannakis Kasoulidis, said at his funeral: “He was a front-line politician with prestige and international renown who achieved the internationalization of the Cyprus problem and managed to have a paragraph on Famagusta in every Parliament Report. repeated visits to Brussels ".
He wanted to be the first citizen to enter his city. He left with a complaint, because he could not die in Famagusta.
The Mayor, who will succeed Alexis Galanos, must be a man who has also dedicated, all these 45 years, his life for Famagusta and its inhabitants. Like the mayor of every occupied city and town, he must have passion, love and worship for his city, have a vision, have connected his life with the service of his conspirators. One cannot be absent all these years, caring only for one's own prosperity, to put it more elegantly what others would say "it was only about how to make money".
The mayor who will succeed Alexis Galanos, at least, if he does not have his political experience, must inspire respect in us who are his colleagues.
Respect that is certainly not related to age, but to the personality and quality of his character.
I could mention many more facts, but I stop, with the wish that our Famagusta will have a new Mayor, worthy of her nobility and majesty, someone or someone that we can be proud of and that will leave his / her mark in its History Our queen, of our sea-loving city.
* Mayor of Lefkonikos.