Cyprus-Forum.com

[insan]

1 The agreement on Cyprus was aproved by the Greek Parliament on 28 February, by 170 votes to 118 by the Turkish Parliament on 4 March, by 347 votes to 139 with 2 abstentions, and by the House of Commons on 19 March with no division, after an opposition amendment criticising the Government's policy since 1954, had been defeated by 299 votes to 246. On 10 November 1959 agreement wns reached on the question of executive authority in the new constitution. On 13 December Archbishop Makarios was elected first President of the future republic ot Cyprus, he received 70 per cent of the votes. The state of emergency on the island ended on 4 December 1959.

http://www.kypros.org/Constitution/treaty.htm


About 1/3 of Greek parliament and 1/3 of Turkish parliament were against the agreement ... Does anyone know which political parties were against the agreement of 1959? And who were the candidates of first presidential elections of Cyprus? Makarios had recieved %70 of the votes, so to whom the rest of the votes had gone?

[erolz]

About 1/3 of Greek parliament and 1/3 of Turkish parliament were against the agreement ... Does anyone know which political parties were against the agreement of 1959? And who were the candidates of first presidential elections of Cyprus? Makarios had recieved %70 of the votes, so to whom the rest of the votes had gone?

I believe (from memory - will check sources when I get a chance) the main politcal oponent to Makarios who stood on a platform of rejecting the 1960 agreements was Glakos Cleredis' father?

Yep just checked my 'references'.

From John Reddaway's book 'burdened with Cyprus' page 124

"It has been argued that the Agreements did in fact receive popular endorsment fom the Greek Cypriots. In the first Presidential elections held in December 1959 John Clerides stood against the Archbishop on a platform of opposition to the Zurich/London settlement. The Archbishop won by a two to one majority."

I understand John was Glafkos' father?

[Piratis]

Makarios had recieved %70 of the votes, so to whom the rest of the votes had gone?

To Ioannis Cleredes, the father of our former president.

[Bananiot]

AKEL was against the signing of the London-Zurich agreement because they laid the tomb stone for ... enosis. During the first presidential elections AKEL decided not to support Makarios because of the fact that he signed the agreements! It is true AKEL supported Glafkos Klerides's father, Ioannis Klerides and did quite well under the circumstances. Remember, AKEL was branded "traitor" because the party not only did not participate in the struggle but also called EOKA members pseudo fighters and fake. EOKA killed more AKEL members and sympathisers than brits and turkish cypriots put together. The theoritician for the killings of leftists was a young layer at the time and close associate of Yiorkatzis, Tassos Papadopoulos.

Talking about that period we should remember that the nationalists of both sides only saw the agreements as a stepping stone for futhering their respective aims, taksim for Denktash and his associates and enosis for Makarios and Grivas and their associates.

Makarios proclaimed this in a number of public speaches he made during the period between 1960 and 1963. A forgotten text found in the office of Koutsuk (some claim it was found in the office of Blumer, the TC Agriculture minister) says "we accepted the London -Zurich agreements as an interim situation and this is why we signed them. If they constituted the final solution we would have never signed them. We would have escalated the clashes between the two communities and we would then go to the UN and ask for partition".

You see my friends, in the hands of the nationalists Cyprus had no chance. The game was fixed. It was lost before it started.