www.talkcyprus.org

[turkcyp]

It seems that Greek Cypriots are dead against separate election rolls. I understand their concerns but I think they do not understand ours.This issue has been discussed so many times but I think I need to beat the dead horse one more time.

The reason Turkish Cypriots are opposed to mix cross voting is that their true representatives will not be chosen to the posts. The issue is not whether a Turkish Cypriot will be chosen to a post (that can be guaranteed with quotas of say 80/20) but rather if the Turkish Cypriot chosen will be true representative of Turkish Cypriot community that it supposedly represents.

Let me give an example. Let’s assume 1960 constitution. A Turkish Cypriot should be vice president right? If we have mixed voting for example and let’s say if Sener Levent and Denktas running for the vice presidency from Turkish Cypriot community. It is very safe to assume that with mixed voting Sener Levent will be chosen due to massive amount of Greek Cypriot vote he will receive and Denktas will loose due to lack of Greek Cypriot support. Even though Denktas can be said to be a better representative of Turkish Cypriot community he is not chosen. So in effect Turkish Cypriot vice president that we have chosen become a true representative of Greek Cypriot community not the Turkish Cypriot community. This is the real danger that Turkish Cypriots fret about.

How can we eliminate this danger, make the Turkish Cypriot vice president that is a true representative of Turkish Cypriot community instead of Greek Cypriot community. For this I will propose the following system. I have thought about this system while we were discussing this issue with Alex at the other forum. So let me bring it one more time.

This is a two tier election system. The final elections are done mixed by all society but there will be primaries that are done by the communities that decide who can run for the post. In other words who are the Turkish Cypriot candidates running for vice presidency is decided by Turkish Cypriots only. Kind of in USA, as Democrats and Republicans decide who is running for presidency from their parties.

So let’s say that vice presidential election will take place on first of April. Turkish Cypriots goes to election polls in 15th of March for vice-presidential primary and Greek Cypriots goes to polls n 15th of March for presidential primary. Whoever gets the highest two votes from these primaries goes to run in the real election which is done by the mixed voting. In this way Turkish Cypriot/Greek Cypriot candidates that are chosen by their own communities are in effect true representatives of their communities but also the have to appeal to the other community in the real elections.

The down side of this system is that it can only be used for single post elections like presidential and vice-presidential elections but it can not be used for parliamentary elections, unless we switch to single representative districts like the one in USA and UK.

This system seems like a compromise. The final election is made among all citizens, but it make sure that Turkish Cypriot candidates which are chosen are actually true representatives of Turkish Cypriot community.

What do you say?

[cypezokyli]

sorry turkcyp didnt really get it.
after the Greek Cypriots voted for president and Turkish Cypriots for vpresident, whats left to be voted on ?


as for the mixed, system and your fears that i totally understand (i dont challange the bicommunal idea).
but just for the sake of discussion i could add an old alex (i think) proposal:

it works like that. both communities keep the power of the veto in some form (two co-president, rotating presidency, equal representation in upper house and any other you can imagine). i take the copresidents as means of simplicity.

each president will be elected by both communities, but the weight of the other community will be significantly less. so for the Greek Cypriot president, the Greek Cypriot votes will count for 75% and the Turkish Cypriot for 25% (you can choose any number, 70-30, 66 - 33 etc) and the same for the Turkish Cypriot president.

the advantages that i see in this voting system are:

1. a copresident elected only by his community will inevtably try to promise as much as possible to his own community - usually at the expense of the other community. in this way the candidates will be forced to take into consideration the opinion of their compatriots, and.... who knows? perhaps force them to realise that they are elected to rule cyprus and not just their community

2. it could force Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot parties to create alliances and cooperate

3. its a way of lowering signifigantly the represantation of nationalist parties in the central goverment. moreover such parties will start realising that they should start approaching the others if they would ever try to succeed.

4. considering the veto , it is imo needed by the Turkish Cypriots for specific "critical issues". it is that, after a point it has also gained a symbolic effect. in saying that, i believe that the Turkish Cypriot want and will use the veto only on those critical matters and not to block all decisions of the central goverment (our fear ) . moreover if we manage to reach that state, were the two sides wont agree on anything the republic wil collapse in any case, whether Turkish Cypriots have the veto or not.

now put yourself in the shoes of a Turkish Cypriot (or a Greek Cypriot) politician. his only purpose is to be elected or reelected (thats my opinion about politicians :wink: ). being rational, that is realising that he needs the Greek Cypriot (Turkish Cypriot) votes, he is going to think twice before he will decide to use the veto. it will force him to use all possible alternatives/discussions/negotiations before he makes himself an unpleasant figure to the voters of the other side.
as a concequence the time he will decide to use the veto in practise, will be exactly on what u refer as the "critical issues". the reason is that he will be sure that the Turkish Cypriot community will all unite and vote for him (because the issues is critical) and as a concequence , the low weight Greek Cypriot vote will be for him not that important anymore.

5. if the overwhelming majority of Turkish Cypriots want denktash they can still manage that, bc their weight is bigger. at the same time, they will have the opportunity to vote for parashos in our side.

so what do you think ?

[Dhavlos]

I think turkcyps idea is a very good one...and could work...


each community votes for two(or however many) candidates for the presidency, and the WHOLE population vote from the final shortlist.

My 2 cents:
I always thought that if the vice president and the president were to be elected together, as a 'couple' then you would not have two extremists come to power, since no two extrmeists would ever want to work together! So you would always get 'moderate' politicians. - it also forces cooperation...and the pres/vicepres will be ideologically similar, not trying to just get one over the other community.

Im not sure how they would be elected, but the way turkcyp has suggested is good.

[turkcyp]

cypezokyli wrote: sorry turkcyp didnt really get it.
after the Greek Cypriots voted for president and Turkish Cypriots for vpresident, whats left to be voted on ?

No Greek Cypriots/Turkish Cypriots initially vote among themselves to decide who will run for the presidency/vice-presidency respectively. They will choose the 4 candidates (2 for each post) separately (Greek Cypriots will choose 2 candidate for president and Turkish Cypriots will choose 2 candidate for vice-presidency). Later this 4 people will be going for a race to earn the post in mixed ballot.

cypezokyli wrote:
it works like that. both communities keep the power of the veto in some form (two co-president, rotating presidency, equal representation in upper house and any other you can imagine). i take the copresidents as means of simplicity.

each president will be elected by both communities, but the weight of the other community will be significantly less. so for the Greek Cypriot president, the Greek Cypriot votes will count for 75% and the Turkish Cypriot for 25% (you can choose any number, 70-30, 66 - 33 etc) and the same for the Turkish Cypriot president.

I see. Well I had given a thought on this system before as well. I dislike it because it is significantly more complicated, and weight will always create disputes. The major disadvantage of this system is that because weights are fixed Turkish Cypriot community will always be in disadvantage position and therefore the same problem of true representatives will not be elected. Because of the sheer size of the Greek Cypriot community the weights have to be very extreme.

cypezokyli wrote:
the advantages that i see in this voting system are:

1. a copresident elected only by his community will inevtably try to promise as much as possible to his own community - usually at the expense of the other community. in this way the candidates will be forced to take into consideration the opinion of their compatriots, and.... who knows? perhaps force them to realise that they are elected to rule cyprus and not just their community

2. it could force Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot parties to create alliances and cooperate

3. its a way of lowering signifigantly the represantation of nationalist parties in the central goverment. moreover such parties will start realising that they should start approaching the others if they would ever try to succeed.

4. considering the veto , it is imo needed by the Turkish Cypriots for specific "critical issues". it is that, after a point it has also gained a symbolic effect. in saying that, i believe that the Turkish Cypriot want and will use the veto only on those critical matters and not to block all decisions of the central goverment (our fear ) . moreover if we manage to reach that state, were the two sides wont agree on anything the republic wil collapse in any case, whether Turkish Cypriots have the veto or not.

now put yourself in the shoes of a Turkish Cypriot (or a Greek Cypriot) politician. his only purpose is to be elected or reelected (thats my opinion about politicians :wink: ). being rational, that is realising that he needs the Greek Cypriot (Turkish Cypriot) votes, he is going to think twice before he will decide to use the veto. it will force him to use all possible alternatives/discussions/negotiations before he makes himself an unpleasant figure to the voters of the other side.
as a concequence the time he will decide to use the veto in practise, will be exactly on what u refer as the "critical issues". the reason is that he will be sure that the Turkish Cypriot community will all unite and vote for him (because the issues is critical) and as a concequence , the low weight Greek Cypriot vote will be for him not that important anymore.


My system has the same advantages as well but significantly less complicated and more effective.

cypezokyli wrote:
5. if the overwhelming majority of Turkish Cypriots want denktash they can still manage that, bc their weight is bigger. at the same time, they will have the opportunity to vote for parashos in our side.


Not necessarily true. Your system will result in nationalist Greek Cypriots being elected and pacifist Turkish Cypriots be elected. Because weight system will not help Turkish Cypriots affect Greek Cypriot vote but on the contrary weight system will not prevent Greek Cypriots affecting Turkish Cypriot elections.

Let me give you an example.
1000 total, 800 Greek Cypriot 200 Turkish Cypriot. And lets still go with your analogy of 75/25% weights.
Let’s say in Greek Cypriot side we have Kifeas and Bananiot. Even Kifeas gets 55% Greek Cypriot vote and Bananiot gets 45% Greek Cypriot vote and all Turkish Cypriots vote for Bananiot still Kifeas will be elected. (Kifeas 440x3=1320 vs. Bananiot (360x3)+200=1280) but on Turkish Cypriot side lets say Ericdayi is running vs. Mete. And Ericday gets 100% Turkish Cypriot vote but only gets 10% Greek Cypriot vote, but still Mete wins. (Ericday (200*3)+80=680 vs. Mete 720, and this is an extreme example where Ericdayi gets all Turkish Cypriot vote if he gets only for example as much (55% like Kifeas did for Greek Cypriot vote) of Turkish Cypriot vote, only around 50% of Greek Cypriots can block him.) At one point even 100% Turkish Cypriot vote cannot stop Kifeas being elected but on the other hand even around 50% Greek Cypriot vote prevents Ericdayi getting elected.

I hope you understand what I mean better now. IN this system even a small Greek Cypriot can block a Turkish Cypriot candidate being elected but even the whole Turkish Cypriots can not easily block a Greek Cypriot candidate being elected. SO this will result in hardliners being elected by Greek Cypriots and moderates being elected by Turkish Cypriots.

[Alexandros Lordos]

Well, as Cypezokyli says, the method that I have always favored is for weighted voting, so that each community has a significant BUT LIMITED influence in the choice of the other community's representatives. So it wouldn't NECESSARILY work out with the scenario that Turkcyp puts forward, i.e that Sener Levent would ALWAYS be elected over Serdar Denktash. Let's test this example with real numbers, and with a 25% weight for Greek Cypriot votes in the north. I will, however, add Mehmet Ali Talat in the equation for reasons that will become obvious later.

Support for Serdar Denktash, 20% of Turkish Cypriots, 5% of Greek Cypriots
Support for Sener Levent, 5% of Turkish Cypriots, 85% of Greek Cypriots
Support for Mehmet Ali Talat, 50% of Turkish Cypriots, 10% of Greek Cypriots

Now, if we add the weighs:

Serdar Denktash: 20% of 75% from Turkish Cypriots = 15%
5% of 25% from Greek Cypriots = 1.25%
TOTAL PERCENT: 16.25%

Sener Levent: 5% of 75% from Turkish Cypriots = 3.75%
85% of 25% from Greek Cypriots = 17.5%
TOTAL PERCENT: 21.25%

Mehmet Ali Talat: 50% of 75% from Turkish Cypriots = 37.5%
10% of 25% from Greek Cypriots = 2.5%
TOTAL PERCENT: 40%

So Mehmet Ali Talat wins an easy victory, becase of his great popularity with the Turkish Cypriot community. Serdar comes third, because of a combination of zero support from Greek Cypriots and only modest support from Turkish Cypriots. Sener Levent comes second beause of the overwhelming support of Greek Cypriots.

Now, with these figures I do agree with turkcyp that there is a problem. Sener Levent should not have come second, it is too much for someone who has no support from his own community, and it is an invitation for some Turkish Cypriots to play the good boy of Greek Cypriots, not caring at all for the Turkish Cypriot public, because 20% is all they need. This might be more true in parliamentary elections where 20% can mean a lot of seats, but even in presidential elections if the electorate is fractured 20% can be a winning percent. So turkcyp is right, this system is not good enough.

I can envisage two solutions, either lower the weight to something like 15%, or hold primaries as turkcyp suggests. But the best solution is probably to do both, because if you ONLY have primaries and then it is one man one vote, then in the second round of elections the Turkish Cypriot who is favoured by the Greek Cypriots will always win over his opponent.

So, lets take another scenario, in which we have primaries FOLLOWED BY weighted cross voting: The Turkish Cypriots at some point in the future have three candidates, a moderate social democrat with 40% of Turkish Cypriot votes, a nationalist also with 40% of Turkish Cypriot votes, and a "pan-cypriot" ideologue with 20% of Turkish Cypriot votes. A realistic sceario, don't you think?

Now, in the primaries that you propose the pan-Cypriot ideologue would be excluded, and in the second round the two remaining candidates would be neck-to-neck in the Turkish Cypriot community. There, the Greek Cypriot vote would make the decisive swing, getting the social democrat in power rather than the nationalist.

If there were no primaries, however, then most of the Greek Cypriot votes would be "wasted" on the pan-cypriot ideologue, who would still fail to be elected, rather than help to make the differentiation between the two Turkish Cypriot favored candidates. Thus, if the nationalist has a slight lead over the social democrat, in a scenario without primaries he would be MORE likely to be elected. I hope you are following me.

So, as a result of this analysis, I would say I agree with turkcyp that having primaries would be an improvement ... but you would still need to have weighted voting in the second round, perhaps with a 15% weight.

[Alexandros Lordos]

As for adopting a "primaries followed by weighted cross voting" system in the case of the federal senate, I can see it working like this.

Total seats for senators are 48, 24 for Greek Cypriots and 24 for Turkish Cypriots.

In the mono-communal primaries, EACH community selects 48 candidates out of the x that put themselves up for election.

More specifically, each political party will be allowed to put forward 24 candidates, and each voter will be entitled to 24 crosses of preference. There will be no districts, and horizontal voting will be allowed (i.e. people will be allowed to vote across parties).

Then the crosses of preference are counted up, and the 48 with the most votes make it to the final round. These candidates might be from 2 parties, 24 each, or 24 from one party, 12 from a second party and 12 from a third party and so on.

Before the final round, enough time is given to the finalists to campaign in both communities, so that the public of the other community is given the opportunity to also develop an opinion about them. Say, 3 months?

In the final round, all Greek Cypriots and all Turkish Cypriots vote to elect, 24 Greek Cypriots from the 48 available, and 24 Turkish Cypriots from the 48 available. When the votes are counted up however, the special weight is put in so that Turkish Cypriot Senators get 85% of their vote from Turkish Cypriots and only 15% of their vote from Greek Cypriots,and vice versa.

After the weights have been taken into account, the 24 Greek Cypriots and the 24 Turkish Cypriots with the highest number of "votes" are sworn in.

The Presidential Council of 6 (4 Greek Cypriots and 2 Turkish Cypriots) is then elected by the Federal Senate, as per the Annan Plan. Executive decisions will require the participation of at least one member from each community

How does this sound now? :)

[turkcyp]

Dear Alex,

The combination of primaries and weighted voting seems a good improvement. Good work.

But this primary business are actually best suited for single post elections. Like choosing president or choosing a single senator from each district. So that people will be choosing only 2 people.

For congressional elections, I am not a very big fun of multiple post districts. Or proportional voting if you may. I always feel that congressman that are chosen always loose the touch of their constituencies while they go to congress and start doing lip service two their party leaders. It will be way better if we can bring politics more into society and make the politicians responsible directly for their constituents. And the best way to achieve this is "single post districts" with "instant runoff voting" so that we make sure that elected candidate gets majority vote (not plurality) instantly without the need fr going second round of voting.

The proportional system has got some advantages over "single post districts" because it let's minority opinion be on the congress as well.

So we can have two assemblies (a) Senate (b) House of Representatives. (a) is chosen with the method of "single post district"s and (b) is chosen by the way you have described.

Also I am a reluctant fun of term limits. I think every president or vice president or Senator we choose should have term limits of 2 elections. And also every senator which is chosen should also be forced to quit his party affiliation after election and could only be an independent candidate in the next elections.

I do not trust politicians....PERIOD....

[cypezokyli]

Quote:
No Greek Cypriots/Turkish Cypriots initially vote among themselves to decide who will run for the presidency/vice-presidency respectively. They will choose the 4 candidates (2 for each post) separately (Greek Cypriots will choose 2 candidate for president and Turkish Cypriots will choose 2 candidate for vice-presidency). Later this 4 people will be going for a race to earn the post in mixed ballot.

thanks turkcyp. now its clearer.
doesnt that have the same problem, as the other ?
if we assume 51% denktash , 40% talat , and 9% levent.
then only talat and denktash go to the second round, and denktash always looses, despite having the majority in the Turkish Cypriot community.

thats the advantage i think for having the small but significant weight.

Quote: Not necessarily true. Your system will result in nationalist Greek Cypriots being elected and pacifist Turkish Cypriots be elected. Because weight system will not help Turkish Cypriots affect Greek Cypriot vote but on the contrary weight system will not prevent Greek Cypriots affecting Turkish Cypriot elections.

i hope alexandros explained it better than me. I meant that exactly the same weight that the Greek Cypriots have in the Turkish Cypriot elections, the same weight the Turkish Cypriots have on the Greek Cypriot elections. the weight as alexandros said, can be small but significant.


Quote: My system has the same advantages as well but significantly less complicated and more effective.
now that i got it - it is true.
i am in. :wink:
i am not sure though, how the Turkish Cypriots see that.

[cypezokyli]

Quote: Also I am a reluctant fun of term limits. I think every president or vice president or Senator we choose should have term limits of 2 elections. And also every senator which is chosen should also be forced to quit his party affiliation after election and could only be an independent candidate in the next elections.

I do not trust politicians....PERIOD....

you have my vote on that.

[pg]

I think that Alexandros Lordos has proven with his examples above that this is a system that will bring the communities closer to each other.

However, I wonder if a cross-voting system like this would not be even more effective in a system where the government is lead by a prime-minister appointed by a Parliament.

Also, I have also felt that having two Houses and six presidents is a bit of an overkill... (then add the constitutional state representation and government)... Who's going to pay the salaries and cars for all those boys.

Still, I'll need to do some homework in order to come up with a concrete alternative.

[cypezokyli]

to be honest pg, i also dont see the point of two hauses, in such a small country.

i would also prefer, not to have six presidents. not so much for the money, but for the ability of a president and vice president to sack someone when it is needed.

[pg]

pg wrote:
However, I wonder if a cross-voting system like this would not be even more effective in a system where the government is lead by a prime-minister appointed by a Parliament.
...
Still, I'll need to do some homework in order to come up with a concrete alternative.

I did my homework - and put it here:
http://www.talkcyprus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3266&highlight=

[Alexandros Lordos]

turkcyp wrote:
So we can have two assemblies (a) Senate (b) House of Representatives. (a) is chosen with the method of "single post district"s and (b) is chosen by the way you have described.


Ok, I think we are getting somewhere here.

If I understand you correctly, the peril we have to watch out for is not just whether the politicians are true representatives of their communities (and also open minded / respectful towards the other community as well etc. etc.), but furthermore whether the politicians are true representatives of their individual constituents, whether they really listen and care about their concerns.

In the case of Cyprus, we have the complication that one of the two federal assemblies needs to be communal in character, with equality of the two communities enshrined within it. So we do not have the flecibility that other federal systems might have.

Going back to the Annan Plan, we see that there were 2 houses, one in which the two states (or communities rather) would be represented equally, and another that would elect representatives proportionally. The Senate was meant to act as the Turkish Cypriots guarantee of political equality, while the Lower House was meant to guarantee the equal rights os individuals.

Now, if we keep this basic under-structure of the Annan Plan bicameral system, and we add our own ideas as well, the result looks something like this:

a) Federal Senate - 24 Greek Cypriot and 24 Turkish Cypriot Senators, elected through a two stage process of primaries followed by weighted cross-voting of the two communities.

b) Federal House of Representatives - each of the 48 representatives will be elected locally by his own constituency, and each constituency will be defined so as to have approximately the same number of residents. There will be no ethnic restriction on who can run for election, or on who can vote in each constituency.

Does this sound about right?

[Alexandros Lordos]

pg wrote:
However, I wonder if a cross-voting system like this would not be even more effective in a system where the government is lead by a prime-minister appointed by a Parliament.


Would the Prime Minister be Greek Cypriot or Turkish Cypriot?

I don't think we are ready for such a system now, though it may be the natural evolution over a few decades of co-existence. For now, we are not ready to judge someone purely on his merits and give him the position of Prime Minister.

For this reason, I think that for now the best option is to have a Presidential Council, where the balances between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots are kept, but without an obvious "leader" that might provoke the suspicion of the other community.

[cypezokyli]

and how can we change one member of the council , if he proves corrupt beyond no doubt ?
who will be in a position to dismiss him / her ?

considering our non-readiness at the time being , then i would go back to the president vice president system. we can still have specified numbers of ministries per community.
somehow i cannot take the idea of a leader(s) out of my head, and replace it with a "committee".
****

the proposed system... i like :)