Capital cities

[kmfw72]

Usually in federal set-ups, the capital is separate from any of the states, or is not a state or provincial capital - hence Washington DC, Canberra ACT, Ottawa.

With Cyprus it could be a headache, as you could have Nicosia as the Federal capital, Northern capital, and Southern capital. Whose laws would apply there? Would it be partitioned into two, or even three cities?

Brussels is a nightmare - it has three parliaments:

the Belgian federal parliament (Senate and House of Representatives) ;
the Brussels city state parliament; and the Flemish state parliament, as historically it's the capital of Dutch-speaking Flanders. (The French-speaking bit, Wallonia, has its capital in a place called Namur.)

The situation with Flanders is complicated: do its laws apply in Brussels? Does its government collect taxes there. It's like having your capital in another country. With Cyprus the problem might be double.

Perhaps the Northern capital should be in Girne and the Southern one in Pafos - anywhere except in Nicosia.

Giving Nicosia separate representation in the federal parliament might avoid deadlock between the North and South, and dilute the ethnic division - people in Nicosia would vote as part of a single constituency. In this example, I've cut the size of the Annan Plan's proposed Senate from 48 to 28 and increased the size of the Chamber of Deputies from 48 to 69

Senators:

South 10
North 10
Nicosia 8
Total: 28

Deputies:

South 38
North 18
Nicosia 12
Maronites 1
Total: 69

This retains the bicameral (two-house) system proposed, with a revising chamber to act as a check, unlike the existing unicameral system in which the North would always be overridden by the South. However, it would also avoid over-representation of the North, particularly in the Senate, although this would still compensate for under-representation in the Chamber of Deputies, which would be based more broadly upon population.

I'm playing Devil's advocate as to how may of the senators and deputies elected from Nicosia would be Greek and how many would be Turkish....

[cypezokyli]

interesting..
i dont think anyone bothered how nicosia would function. u see both of us have a number of other priorities.

[kmfw72]

[Gardash]

PAFOS? Brrrrr.......

Limassol surely...

[Bullika]

i say

123 DEPUTIES

72 G/C
48 T/C
3 (Maronite, Armenian and Latin)

these numbers are closer to the number of deputies in the House of Reps and the KKTC meclis, therefore it would involve less sudden changes and an easy, smooth transition to reunification by keeping the number of seats in each house as they are at present.

53 SENATORS

25 G/C
25 T/C
3 (Maronite, Armenian and Latin)

[kmfw72]