The Alma Movement describes the findings of independent criminal investigator Andreas Paschalidis regarding the “videogate” scandal as entirely predictable.

At the same time, the Movement takes a dig at Mr. Paschalidis’s reappointment as President of AADIPA, as well as at the timing of the announcement’s release.

“The conclusion of the ‘independent’ criminal investigator Andreas Paschalidis—that nothing reprehensible occurred in the Videogate case and that everything we all saw and heard in the video amounts to nothing more than empty rhetoric and ‘hot air,’” Alma notes.

READ ALSO: “Hot air and nonsense”: Here is Paschalidis’s statement on Videogate; he finds no violation

“A finding that, quite coincidentally, followed the reappointment, for a third term, of Mr. Paschalidis as President of AADIPA—and which conveniently coincided with the anniversary of the Turkish invasion and the adjournment of the House of Representatives,” he adds.

“Summer takes it all (or will take it all),” as Odysseas Elytis’s poem says, the Movement notes, adding that “what, unfortunately, no summer will take away is the belief that in Cyprus the exercise of public power and corruption are so intertwined that they constantly cover for one another, and indeed, shamelessly, right before our very eyes.”

“So, perhaps Mr. Christodoulides will now reinstate Mr. Charalambous to the position of Director of his Office and continue to grant political favors to businesspeople in exchange for their support for his reelection in 2028. Just as, after all, Mr. Anastasiades—of whom he is a true heir and successor—he, too, can proudly seek a second term in the highest office of our democracy from the Cypriot people,” the Movement concludes.

SEE ALSO: Paschalidis will search for the “mastermind” behind Videogate; he remains in his position as criminal investigator following Savvidis’s decision