Cyprus-Forum.com

[turkcyp]

What we have in all Federation is that each state has equal number of senators, but nobody can restrict based on racial discrimination the citizens of the country to choose which state they wish to live in (with full political rights of course). Do you know any state in the US that can say "We accept only 30% blacks in our state"?

Hey Piratis,

Haven't you yet realized. We are never going to accept your kind of federation where there is no ethnic seperation in term of federal level equality.

In case yopu have not yet understand. That is the basis of the whole problem. We are two seperate ethnicity who have strong reservations for the other. Unlkie USA system. So any federation you propose that is going to dilute the equality of TCs vs. GCs in federal level will not be accepted.

You like it or not. If you want you can wait another 30 years so that 'balance of power' can shift towards your way and you can find a TC society that will accept your views, or find a world that will force TC society to accept your views.

[Piratis]

Haven't you yet realized. We are never going to accept your kind of federation where there is no ethnic seperation in term of federal level equality.

Don't.

[turkcyp]

Don't.

Cool....

[insan]

Insan,

Personally, I do not much care what the "hellenic ruling elite" thinks about these issues ... as I said before, I consider them irrelevant, and, may I add, they will not much influence the final negotiating position of the GC side. Tassos is going to bargain hard, but within the domain of realism, not fantasy.

Tassos is known one of the greatest defenders of Hellenism in Cyprus. I don't think he'll dare to act against what he preached through the decades. Someone like Tassos is impossible to change like Denktash. Soon we'll see, anyway...

No one is seriously going to contest that the senate should be 50 - 50. This is a standard feature of all Federal Systems. Some people might contest that the senate should be voted according to ethnicity, but even if their position prevails - something I consider unlikely - TC interests will not be particularly hurt: You would still elect TCs as your 24 senators, even if 20% of your voters are GCs ...

If I didn't misunderstand what you pointed out above; you claim that in a senate even if it has been composed of 18-82, TCs interests will not be particularly hurt? Is it what you are trying to say?

What is going to be seriously contested, is the "qualified majority" system of the Senate ... firstly, because it doesn't exist in other Federal systems, and secondly, because some will convincingly argue that it is unnecessary for your protection ... as I said before, the fact that the senate is 50 - 50 will mean that no law can pass without your approval also. Of course, someone may argue here that the GCs could collude as a block with one TC party and thus exclude the majority of the TCs, but I think this scenario is far-fetched given that such collusion would be severely punished by the TC voters in the next election.

Is this what you refered?

Foundation Agreement

Article 2 The United Cyprus Republic, its federal government, and its constituent states

4. The Constitution of the United Cyprus Republic may be amended by separate majority of the voters of each constituent state in accordance with the specific provisions of the Constitution.


Comments

This method of amending the constitution is hugely expensive to implement, completely inadequate and unworkable and will make it impossible to effectively implement Article 2 Paragraph 1 b, so that Cyprus can function as a member of the European Union.

Amendments to the constitution should require only a qualified majority in both house of the Federal parliament. Article 2. 4 must therefore be amended as follows

Amendment Required



“4. The Constitution of the Republic of Cyprus may be amended by separate majority of the voters of each house of the federal parliament in accordance with the specific provisions of the Constitution which will incorporate simple mechanisms for speedy resolution of any deadlock that may arise.“

http://www.argyrosargyrou.fsnet.co.uk/a ... cle2-4.htm

I agree with that since the TC senators are the representatives of TC community there's no need for seperate majority of the voters of each constituent state.

Now, concerning the Presidential Council, I doubt that Tassos would seek to bring back a President - Vice-President system: The Presidential Council system is one of the very few provisions of the Annan Plan that he actually liked. All he wanted for the Presidential Council was for just two of the members to rotate as President - VP, and he has already got that. What Tassos will contest, is the requirement that each decision must have the approval of at least one council member from each side.

Hmmm... Even the decision has been rejected by rest of the members of presidential council; the approval of two members from each side will be adequate to put the bill into implementation? One approval from each side will be adequate but one refusal from each side won't be adequate for decision making? Can you elaborate this please?

[magikthrill]

Assuming that a 50/50 power share exists in the senate, composed of GCs and TCs, then my question is, wouldn't it be better if GCs could also vote for TC senators and GCs to vote for TC senators as well?

ALso, does this plan of a 50/50 senate, mean a "bizonal" federation where the right of a citizen to exist in one of the two zones would be limited?

[insan]

Alexandros,

I think you mean, there's no need for giving TCs a veto power on all matters unless the matters are not related with their constitutional rights; religion, culture and education.

On the other hand you imply that it is a must to give GC community full control of all matters via Central Government because they have concerns about their security.

Annan Plan envisaged to give both parties a kind of veto power via 24/24 composed Senate, Presidential Council and Judicial System.


Now I think you are implying that GC should keep the kind of veto given to them by Annan 5 but the kind of veto power given to TCs should be weaken. Because....?


Because TC community constitutes only the %18 of the population and thus they are a minority and shouldn't have any veto power on all matters except the minority rights; that are related with Religion, Education and Culture?


Shortly to say I couldn't quite understand what you are trying to say but I'm sure Tassos and his team's aim is this. Tassos has always emphasized that %18 cannot be politically equal to %82... What he wants is to have the full control of Cyprus and give TCs the so-called minority rights he will always be able to exploit and oppress TCs to flee other countries. Actually his first target is the settlers. I'm sure his oppression plan based upon kicking out the settlers out of Cyprus has already been prepared. After he has kicked all of the settlers out of Cyprus by oppression, it won't be hard for him to do the same to the TCs which he considers as the trojans of Turkey...

[insan]

Assuming that a 50/50 power share exists in the senate, composed of GCs and TCs, then my question is, wouldn't it be better if GCs could also vote for TC senators and GCs to vote for TC senators as well?

This is a very good idea magicthrill... The question is, how can the senators be elected by mixed vote of Cypriots? For instance the candidates who have taken at least %3 of the votes of the voters of each constituent state?

ALso, does this plan of a 50/50 senate, mean a "bizonal" federation where the right of a citizen to exist in one of the two zones would be limited?

There are two political systems im my mind that I think they would be fairer, functional and viable.

1- A senate composed as follows:

24 GCs(20 from GC constituent state + 4 from TC constituent State)
24 TCs(23 form TC constituent state + 1 From GC constituent State)

The number of Senators from each constituent state may vary in the course of time, dependent on population percentage of each communities members living in the other constituent state.

The other important issue here what's the most democratic and fair voting method in Senate for passing the bills?

One man one vote? I don't think so.

For some matters, 1/4 from each group in Senate? And for some matters 2/5 from each group in Senate?


The other political system that I put forth for consideration can be found under the thread "Political equality for all".

I think, these are the key pointss we should discuss about the political system of United Cyprus.


My analysis tell me that the Hellenic Rulin Elite is in favour of "one man one vote" and will never accept "political equality" of two communities. It is obvious to me that Hellenic Ruling Elite has injected this idea into the brains of vast majority of Hellenes; including the vast majority of GCs.


[/quote]

[Alexandros Lordos]

Shortly to say I couldn't quite understand what you are trying to say

I didn't understand what you are trying to tell me either, so that makes us even ...

I think you are trying to read into my words opinions that you heard from other GCs, and that's why we got confused ...

I never said anything about "limiting veto power to cultural issues only" - all I said was that critical federal functions such as the approval of budget should be under normal qualified majority (at least 25% of senators from each side to approve it, as well as simple majority of the house) rather than special qualified majority (at least 40% of senators from each side plus simple majority) ... this does not mean I would deny you your veto, since you are still 50% of the senate ( I never said anything about 82-18 ), and since at least a quarter of your senators would have to agree. If a budget or law is really prejudicial against the TC community, I am sure it would not get a single vote in favour from a TC senator, let alone 25% of senators ...

Also, I was trying to say about the presidential council that vetos should apply only for political decisions, not procedural decisions. eg Raising VAT or building a Federal University is a political decision, but implementing a new federal law about, say, regulations for hiring people in the civil service, is just a procedural decision ...

So you see, I am not really asking for any earth-shattering amendments.

(also, I read in the news today a very interesting proposal from AKEL, that the heads of various federal services should just be appointed with a quota (eg 6 GCs to 4TCs) rather than each service having a chairman and vice-chairman from different communities who would both have to agree to each decision ... you see, small things like that could make a big difference when it comes to avoiding deadlocks, without going into philosophical diatribes about the nature of democracy and equality)

[boulio]

there were many points today that the cypriot council came out with concerning there recommondation for changes to the annan plan.

[Alexandros Lordos]

Assuming that a 50/50 power share exists in the senate, composed of GCs and TCs, then my question is, wouldn't it be better if GCs could also vote for TC senators and GCs to vote for TC senators as well?

This is a very good idea magicthrill... The question is, how can the senators be elected by mixed vote of Cypriots? For instance the candidates who have taken at least %3 of the votes of the voters of each constituent state?

The way this would work, is by the method known as "weighted cross-voting". This works in the following way:

- Each ethnic group has its own list of candidate senators. (ie we have 2 lists, one for GCs and one for TCs)

-Each Cypriot, GC or TC, votes in both ballots.

- This way, you end up with four different sets of results: a) GC votes for GC senators, b) GC votes for TC senators, c) TC votes for TC senators and d) TC votes for GC senators.

- Then you aggreagte the result as follows:

- to get the GC senators, you allow for the GC ballot for GCs to count for 80% of the total vote, and the TC ballot for GCs to count for 20% of the total vote. In other words, the votes are weighted so that each community has only the pre-agreed level of influence on the election of the other community's senators.

- to get the TC senators, you allow for the TC ballot of TCs to count for 80% of the total vote, and the GC ballot of TCs to count for 20% of the total vote.

In this manner, you get senators who essentially represent their own community, but are at the same time careful not to offend the basic sensibilities of the other community. The only politicians who would survive are those who are open-minded, co-operative, but at the same time protective of their community's interests ...

Cool, huh?