Pyrpolizer wrote:Devil,
Even high school kids know the reason the Swiss developed so much is because they are a crossroad in Europe. All European highways pass from there.
I really doubt it has anything to do with such a complex political system you are having over there.
Such a system requires the communities to be naturally split and own their own lands. So to apply such a system in Cyprus we need to first legalise the results of the Invasion and lose our properties.
Nonsense! There are a number of cantons which have more than one ethnic community or language. The communes may own a certain amount of land, but there is no reason why anyone should lose land. A Swiss from any canton has the right to own land and live in any other canton.
Personally, my feeling is that, if a confederal system were to be put into place here, there should not be two "cantons". I would suggest that a good start would be made by having several, such as defined by the pre-1974 District boundaries. A lower House would be elected with ~50 representatives with constituencies of ~16,000 electors and the Senate with two persons elected from each canton. As Cyprus can be ethnically childish, constitutional safeguards would be necessary to ensure that deputies/senators could not steam roll legislation through by numerical majorities (i.e., any bill would have to have a majority from both TC and GC members). However, one of the best safeguards is the right to popular initiatives and referenda whereby any group of, say, 15,000 citizens would require any controversial project to be put to the people to decide, with a majority of citizens of both major ethnicities and of the cantons required (simple majority of votes and of cantons except for constitutional changes 75%). It would soon be realised that the communities would achieve nothing by partisanship. In Switzerland and in Singapore, with its three very distinct ethnicities (Chinese, Malaysian and Indian) and its subcultures, this works extremely well and all citizens are treated as equal. However, it took 10 or 15 years before the Singaporeans really started to see the advantages of all the groups pulling in the same direction. They had a strong leader during those formative years, though. I don't see any strong leader in this country at this time. Another very important point, and I know the Greek Orthodox Church would object like hell at this, is to have a complete separation of religion and state.
