Cyprus-Forum.com

[Kikapu]

"BBF" Power Sharing in the "New Cyprus Federation"

The Turkish Cypriots claim that they need "safeguards" in any New Cyprus Government and also have a say so in decision making for their future so that the the majority (GC's) does not push their will on the minority (TC's). This can be achieved if we were to follow some basic Democratic methods practised by the Americans in their running of the Government. For this Federation to work in Cyprus, there has to be certain condition met in order to be successful, therefore compromises need to be made, particularly about land sizes for each state which will be in the New Federation Cyprus. We will discuss the land issues later. Also, for this method to work , almost all of the TC's will need to live in their northern "TC" state.

Unlike the United States where power is shared between political parties based on ideology and not ethnicity, ethnicity power share will be the case in Cyprus, but fortunately, the same democratic principle can apply to power share based on ethnicity for the foreseeable future until the nation of Cyprus is ready and politically mature to rule herself based on ideology and not on ethnicity.

The "political equality" only means one man one vote but for the TC's, they claim in needing "equal power" as it was described in the 1959 Zürich Agreements as a means of "safeguard". Although those agreements were undemocratic, the BBF agreed for a solution for Cyprus can give the TC's "equal power" that comes with True Federation all the same, because all the states in a Federation government enjoy equal representation in the Federal legislator ( Upper House only) where bills are passed to govern the country's business.

Federal Government

Federal Government will have it's own constitution where the constitutional protections for all citizens will be installed . The Federal Constitution will be the law of the land and cannot be overridden by any state constitution written by the north and the south states. Federal Laws will be supreme and protected by the Supreme courts should these Federal Constitution Laws be challenged by individual state or the Upper and Lower House representatives in trying to pass laws that will be in violation of these Federal Laws.. However, Federal laws does not interfere with state laws as long as state laws do not breach any of the Federal Laws. Each state will run their own state as they please within the Federal Laws. This is very important, that states cannot violate any citizens rights by implementing their own laws that would violate the Federal Laws. This is why, any and all concerns of “safeguards” that the TC’s or the GC’s may have, is to have them in the new constitution which cannot be changed unless the constitution is amended, and to amend the constitution, we will have a system where both state will need to approve it.

Federal State Governments

Federal state Governments, both south and north will operate almost as if they are a sovereign nations, but under the umbrella of the Federal Government. Federal States will have control of all institutions within their state, except for Federal institutions, such as Ports, Federal Land and Parks etc, etc, etc.!. However, they will not be able to make any International policies or act outside Federal Governments International Policies. Each Federal States will also have their own State Constitutions and their own State Senate in writing laws and passing bills, their own Supreme Court, and their own leader, in the form of a Governor.

Amending Federal and state Constitutions

To amend the Federal Constitution, both states will need to approve it by 75% majority voted by the state legislators. To amend the state constitution, approved by simple majority of those citizens from that particular state.

Upper and Lower Houses

There will be 2 Houses in the government to pass bills before the President can sign them into law. The elected members of the Lower and the Upper Houses will come from the 2 states in the Federation. The number of members in the Lower House is base purely on the size of the population in each of the 2 states. The Upper House will have exact same number of members from each state regardless of their population size.

Just for the purpose of this exercise I'm going to use the following numbers to show how to work this system of power sharing Democratically. Lower House will have 50 seats and the Upper House will have 10 seats.

Just for practical purposes, lets just say that the north state will have 20% of the population of Cyprus ( TC citizens) and the south state will have 80% of the population of Cyprus (GC citizens). This would give the north state 10 seats and the south 40 seats in the Lower House based on these population numbers. The Upper House will have equal members from each state, therefore 5 seats for the north and 5 seats for the south states. Let me make this very clear that these seats in the Upper and Lower Houses are given to the 2 states and not to each community. These seats belong to the states and not the ethnic groups. The fact that the north state will be mostly TC's and the south state will be mostly GC's, will by default utilize these seats as their own is another matter, but the seats are only given to the states as a matter of allocation in a Federation system, and nothing more.!

President and Vice President

According to the 1960 Constitution in Cyprus, the President has to be a GC and the Vice President to be a TC. At the present talks, it has been suggested to have a "rotating Presidency", where a GC will serve for a while, then a TC, and then a GC and so on. I would even suggest that every Presidential candidate and their Vice Presidential nominee run together as one ticket, so that they are both supported by the people from all the communities. The reason why I bring this up, is because, it is to be part of the power sharing to work with checks and balances that will be explained later, so that the TC's will not need to have a Veto Power rights as before. So lets take it for granted, that there will be a GC and a TC in the positions of a President and a Vice President. The Vice President does not have any executive powers however, but is only a ceremonial position as well as being next in line to be the President should the current President dies or is removed from office.

Selecting the Lower and Upper House Representatives

The Lower House Representatives will be elected from the districts from both the states. There will be 40 districts in the south and 10 districts in the north. Only those living (citizens) in those districts can vote for the House members running in those districts. For the Upper House Representatives, 5 members each for both states, can only run state wide without districts, therefore all citizens from the north can vote to elect their 5 Senators , and the south will also do the same to elect their 5 Senators.

To vote on a bill

In order to vote on a bill in the Lower and the Upper House, certain procedures will need to take place. Bills can be introduced by both the Houses as well as the Executive branch, the President. The bill will need to pass both the Houses by a simple majority before it can be signed into law by the President. This is how it will work.

A bill is drafted by a member of the House. The Speaker of the House will decide to introduce the bill to be voted or not in the Lower House. The speaker of the House will be from the south since they will have the majority with 40 seats, but he or she will not vote on any bills, unless there is a tie, and then they will cast the tie breaking vote. If the bill is introduced to be voted on, then the bill will be voted on by the 49 members in the LH. Only those members who are present and cast a vote will be counted, and if the majority approve, then the bill will go to the Upper House for their vote.

The upper house is where the power is 50-50 between the north and south state. If the bill is not what the TC’s want, this is where they can block it from passing, if the Vice President is a TC, because the Vice President gets to vote only if there is a tie, and if the bill is tied at 5 v 5, then the TC vice President can break the tie by voting NO on the bill and that will be the end of it unless the Upper House can make some changes to please the other sides concerns, and if that is done, it will be sent to the Lower House to be voted on once again , and if passed there, then it will go to the President to sign it. If the Vice President was a GC and casts the tie breaking vote to a YES vote, then the President would be a TC, in which case, he would not sign it into law and the bill will just fail to materialize. If a bill does pass both the Houses and the President refuses to sign it, then the Upper House can overturn the President’s veto by having 6 out of 10 voting to over rule the President and the bill will go forward. In this round of voting, the Vice President will NOT be voting. This is where the main “safeguards” for the TC’s are protected without ever needing a veto vote power.

Bills introduced for voting in the Upper and the Lower Houses are mainly on Federal level matters and not what goes on in individual states, therefore bills passed will effect all citizens and not one state over the other. Most bills will pass after some “Horse Trading” is done between the members of the both Houses, but if a bill is likely to harm one state over the other, then both the south and the north have a way to block it in the Upper House, either by a tie breaking vote by the Vice President or a direct veto by the President, therefore both states have a protection built in, in the Upper House. This is how Federation USA style can be used by Cypriots.

How much land for each Federal States

As I said from the beginning, there needs to be compromises made on land, if the above power sharing to work. In order for the TC’s to maintain all of their seats and 50% power in the Upper House, almost all the TC’s will need to be in the north state, and far less GC’s in the same state. If we take the present land sizes in the north and the south and kept it that way, within a short period of time, the TC’s will lose one or two Upper House seats to the GC’s if 200,000 GC’s (refugees) move to the north where their land is and where they once lived. There will be no other way to overcome this than giving most of the GC land back to them in the north. Do not forget, that being in the EU, there will be complete freedom of movement, therefore neither state will be able to prevent any citizen from living where ever they want. If the TC’s on the other hand lived almost only on their land and made that to be their state in the north, then most of the 200,000 GC refugees will be on the southern state if they returned to their properties in what is the “trnc” today. It may well be, that the north state may not all be in one piece, but in 2 or 3 pieces. Also, it is possible, that some of the GC land given back may also be in large parcels and not actually connected to the southern state. For instance, Kokkina will remain part of the northern state, but will be a separate parcel of land than the rest of the northern state. Same if the Karpaz region was returned, that it may be a separate parcel of land than the rest of the southern state. Again, compromises needs to be made. For the TC’s, they need to maintain their population in one state and land that they own, or else they will risk losing their Upper House 50% power to the GC’s, because they will also be able to vote and run for office in the state that they live in where they pay their taxes to the local government. There is no way to prevent this from happening if the TC’s do not give back substantial land back to the GC’s. I can’t stress this point enough.

[Tim Drayton]

Thank you for going to the trouble of preparing this and sharing it with us.

[insan]

Thx for ur efforts, kikapu. I'll examine it later when i have time and contribute ur thread with my opinions.

Cheers

[Kikapu]

Thx for ur efforts, kikapu. I'll examine it later when i have time and contribute ur thread with my opinions.

Cheers

Looking forward to it, Insan.!

Thanking you also, Tim.!

[Viewpoint]

I congratulate you on your hard work and effort to find a balanced structure that will provide both sides the right to stop laws that are not wanted. As a TCs where do you see the risks for us and can it be manipulated in favor of the GCs so as to take away the right to say no?

[doesntmatter]

It may well be, that the north state may not all be in one piece, but in 2 or 3 pieces.

Preferably in the middle of the island witout access to the sea and surrounded by Greeks and GCs. Just in case the GCs and Greeks start their enosis campaign again it'll be a lot easier for them to stop any outside help to the TCs.

Very clever piece of work Kikapu, you are doing your people proud.

[skipper]

Kikapu,

You've obviously put a lot of effort into thinking this through some of the thinking seems very similar to the Annan plan. For example in the last plan around 50% of displached GCs (90,000) would be able to return home under the GC state (28.6% area for TC state) and GCs returning under the TC state would have a transitional 18% limit of the GC population (33,000 assuming TC state had a total population of 180,000 including GCs) also there where a number of villages (including all of the all GC villages in karpaz) which did not count in that 18% (as far as I recall) that would basically be autonomous from the state government in education, cuture, etc with the same provisions for certain TC villages in the GC state.

The federal state had upper and lower houses with the lower house seats divided by federal states population and the upper house GC/TC 50/50 plus atleast one seat each for each latins, armenians, maronites. Both houses pass legislation with simple majority with the upper (senate) requiring an additional atleast 25% GC/TC votes to pass through. This would allow for safeguards plus allow co-operation between say AKEL + CTP. Every citizen would vote for where they reside except for the upper house where GC votes and TC votes would go to the the appropiate community representatives.

The Annan plan had a "presidential council" to resolve deadlocks which is significantly different to your proposal though.

Also there are no refugees in cyprus since you cant be a refugee in your own country according to the UN the definition is internally displaced people.

You also say 200,000 as a number although I'm sure there was a discussion here where it was actually 180,000 (or was it 160,000?).

You also assume that everyone who can go back would go back. For example how many children of the displaced (that are counted as refugees) are willing to leave their jobs and homes to reside in the TC state? And since refugee status is passed down I read that refugees will make up the majority of GCs within a generation.

We also dont know how many originally displaced people have left cyprus with no intention of returning even if there is a settlement.

Then there are TCs communities that came north from different places in the south but want to be relocated as a community in the new TC state rather than go back south.

If these statistics could be attained we could get a much better idea of what kind of compromises could be made although last time I suggested this I had a barrage of comments calling me a thief etc even though I am from the north and have n't recieved any GC land so who gets to go back does n't affect me.

[Viewpoint]

I really believe Kikapu will have bigger problems selling this to the GCsi are there any that would like to comment seems to be a lck of them when anything is out forward by a TC. Would GCs agree to such a structure which is nearer to the AP.

[Kikapu]

I congratulate you on your hard work and effort to find a balanced structure that will provide both sides the right to stop laws that are not wanted. As a TCs where do you see the risks for us and can it be manipulated in favor of the GCs so as to take away the right to say no?

I have given you how I see a Power Share that is aimed at protecting the interest of the TC's and at the same token, the interests of the GC's, because the Upper House cut both ways as I described. As long as the Presidents' and the Vice Presidents' positions are held by the TC's and GC's, irrespective who has what position, I do not see how the TC's can lose the right to veto a bill. However, if there were to be another Federal State created in Cyprus at later stage, then they too will have equal representations in the Upper House, which would mean that all 3 states will have to share the 100% power at 33.333% each.! Not likely to happen, so lets not talk about it.!

Why don't you tell us your concerns where you think that the TC's are vulnerable in your opinion and we can discuss them. Did I miss anything that you would like to add, always bearing in mind, that it has to be Democratic and allowing freedom of movement for all Cypriot citizens, which the AP did not allow for. The GC's and the EU will not have it any other way.!

[Viewpoint]

Kikapu your points are valid but when we cut to the basics we find that the whole system revolves around the veto issue of either the president or the vice president, the lower house with its 40 vs 10 split means that all bills can be passed without contention so its function it purely for debating and raising bills, they will automatically be passed to the upper house where the balance will be 5 vs 5 pending on a deciding vote by either the President or Vice President, then whats the function fo the lower house? Your propose structure is just a rehasing and dressing up procedure to meet "EU requirements" do you think you will be able to sell this to the GCs who have yet to comment.

Another important factor as you to mention is to keep the balance of 5 vs 5 which will for a risk factor when you consider that it can be manipulated through free movement to gain the seat that will swing the whole system in favor of the GCs. To guarantee this imo a upper limit must be applied otherwise we run the risk of losing control, this upper limit may become redundant over time but in order to persuade TCs this is vital.

If this balance can always be guaranteed I think TCs would accpet such a power sharing balance do you think you cna sell it to the GCs....any GCs want to comment?