Blame game persists as Cyprus’s quest for a bailout has turned into a saga

Cyprus has been locked out of international markets for more than a year now and it is only thanks to a Russian loan that it managed to postpone a bailout request from the EU last summer. With the Russians being hesitant to renew their lending to the Cypriot government, President Christofias has been left with no option but to seek aid from the IMF and the EU. Nevertheless, he is still being accused by the opposition parties of trying to further delay the adoption of any measures, at least so until the presidential elections which are scheduled to take place in February 2013 – the burden of a possible ‘surrender’ to the IMF ‘neoliberal’ doctrine may prove unbearable for AKEL (Cyprus’s communist party currently backing the government).