CYPROB POLITICS, NOT ISSUES, DOMINATE MUNICIPAL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 NICOSIA 001964 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL CY SUBJECT: CYPROB POLITICS, NOT ISSUES, DOMINATE MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS RUN-UP ¶1. SUMMARY: Greek Cypriots head to the polls December 17 to elect mayors, municipal councils, and, for the first time, school board members. Other than vague demands for greater autonomy from Nicosia, issues have taken a back seat to politics in the months-long elections run-up. Garnering the majority of media coverage are battles amidst the governing coalition -- composed of the EDEK, DIKO, and AKEL parties -- over mayoral candidate selection for Cyprus's largest cities. Experts lament that such negotiations essentially anoint favored nominees, since combined the parties control two-thirds of registered voters. Historically, however, personalities, not party allegiance, drive municipal races, presenting opportunities for opposition candidates and independents. Opinions are divided over the significance of the municipal campaign: some claim victory at the local level portends greater success in the presidential elections fourteen months hence, while others argue little linkage exists. In addition to this overview, Post will offer details and predictions for key city races Septel. END SUMMARY -------------- Election Fatigue Looks Certain -------------- ¶2. 2006 has proven a tiring year, elections-wise, with a Parliamentary race occurring in June and ecclesiastical elections to choose the Cypriot Archbishop concluding in November. On December 17, Greek Cypriots again trudge to the polls. Up for grabs are 33 mayorships (24 in the government-controlled areas and nine north of the Green Line),city council slots in those municipalities, and 466 village elder slots ("kinotarhes" in Greek, "Mukhtars" in Turkish) and corresponding community boards. For the first time since Cyprus won independence, voters will choose municipal school boards (although, with curriculum dictated by the Ministry of Education and Culture, their power appears scant). Another first, as a result of Cyprus's 2004 accession to the European Union, non-Cypriot EU citizens may cast ballots December 17 and can even stand for election in all but mayoral races. According to Ministry of Interior statistics, these EU "green card" holders comprise approximately one percent of registered voters. -------------- What They Are, What They Do -------------- ¶3. As one might expect of an island of one million residents, the political system of Cyprus leans heavily toward centralization, not federalism. Unlike in the United States, for example, Cypriot municipalities and villages do not control schools, police, emergency services, nor hospitals. Like U.S. counterparts, however, their responsibilities include road construction and maintenance, sanitation, and zoning enforcement. Property taxes represent local governments' greatest funding source, followed by national government transfers and user fees (parking meters, parking fines, and the like.) Larger municipalities can issue bonds for capital improvements; many, including Nicosia, are heavily indebted and have turned to the central government for relief. ¶4. Local elections first occurred in colonial Cyprus after the outbreak of World War II; Communist AKEL, the nation's oldest and largest party, dominated. Colonial administrators would clamp down on all forms of electoral activity during the subsequent struggle for Cypriot independence, but the birth of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 brought renewed politicking and elections at all levels. Once Turkish Cypriots withdrew from all government institutions in response to heavy intercommunal fighting in 1963-64, however, the Greek Cypriots remaining in power altered the status quo. For over twenty years, Nicosia appointed mayors, councilmen and village elders, until Parliament in 1986 passed legislation breaking the RoC's stranglehold on power. -------------- An Election Day Primer -------------- ¶5. Over 500,000 are expected to cast ballots December 17, MoI Director for Elections Demetris Demetriou informed PolChief November 6. Voting was mandatory for all Greek Cypriots over 18 and for registered, non-Cypriot EU citizens residing on the island. The latter list held 4,000 names; most hailed from Greece or the UK. Non-Cypriots might even run for council or school board seats, Demetriou noted, although their chances of victory looked remote. Candidates had to announce their intention to run by November 17. ¶6. Voters in municipalities would file three separate ballots, Demetriou continued: one for mayor, one for the city council, and one for the school board. Regarding the latter, multi-seat contests, Cyprus employed a modified candidate-list system in which voters selected both their preferred party and their favored individuals within it. Such a system was more democratic than a straight candidate list, where parties, not voters, rank-ordered candidates. "Refugees" -- those Cypriots who fled south to the RoC-controlled areas in 1974, plus their descendants -- could vote in both their city of domicile and their original, now-"occupied" municipality. ¶7. Election preparations were proceeding smoothly, Demetriou offered, although he expected minor difficulties in smaller villages, where residence requirements for candidacies sometimes presented problems. Parties and nominees generally respected electoral laws, he contended, and voter fraud was rare in Cyprus. To illustrate, Demetriou bragged that the EU had dispatched an observer mission before the May 2006 Parliamentary elections. The team left before the vote, however, seeing no signs of malfeasance and no need to remain. Under current RoC electoral law, no polls may be published after December 10 and all campaigning must conclude December 15. One are which ought to see reform was campaign finance,Demetriou thought. Currently the law set an asurdly low limit for spending on hic al prtes(and their electoral overseers) ignored. Efforts to revise the law and ratchet upward the finance caps had failed. ¶8. Demetriou expected a hectic day. The elections required 10,000 workers to man 1,800 voting stations island-wide, provide security, tally votes and announce results. He placed the cost at 2.5 million Cyprus Pounds ($5.5 million). This would be no high-tech tour de force -- in rural areas especially, voters feared tabulators and touch-screens, preferring paper and pen. The MoI was pushing Parliament to amend the electoral law to keep the polls open an extra hour, figuring that completing the third ballot, for school boards, would increase the average time required to vote. Regardless, Demetriou expected the first results to become available just 30 minutes after closing time. -------------- The Run-Up to E(lection)-Day -------------- ¶9. Media have paid minimal attention to candidates' platforms and party promises during the pre-electoral period. All in the race have chanted demands for additional "aftodiikisy" (autonomy) from Nicosia, but put little flesh on that bone. Of greater interest to newswriters here has proven the candidate selection process. In late summer, for example, pundits questioned whether Cyprus's current governing coalition -- an ideologically-disparate agglomeration of nationalist DIKO, Communist AKEL and Socialist EDEK -- could fulfill their intention to field joint candidates and nominee lists in 33 municipalities and numerous towns and villages. The southwestern city of Paphos proved particularly problematic, with EDEK digging in for its standard-bearer. In response to the blatant backroom dealings, commentators of varied political stripes cried foul, complaining that coalition leaders were preempting voters and "electing" their chosen few. ¶10. The partnership seems to have survived mostly intact. In the two biggest races, however, in Nicosia and the port city of Limassol, experts suspect some coalition voters will abandon the chosen candidates, respectively Eleni Mavrou and Andreas Christou. Both fervently supported the Annan Plan, the UN's 2004 effort to reunify Cyprus, and both earned the enmity of President Tassos Papadopoulos's DIKO for doing so. Nonetheless, Christou, once Papadopoulos's most popular minister, enjoys a commanding lead in Limassol, and Mavrou's numbers are climbing in the capital. -------------- Reading the Tea Leaves -------------- ¶11. Opinions differ regarding the significance of local elections in this highly-centralized state. Respected journalist and political analyst Christoforos Christoforou, for example, believes that parties which discount local races do so at their own peril. Mayors and councilmen often poll higher approval ratings than RoC officials, Christoforou told PolChief November 22, owing to constituents' beliefs they are more responsive to citizens' needs than their counterparts in Nicosia. Satisfaction -- or disgust -- with local politicians and their respective parties can affect voters' decisions in follow-on national races, the analyst contends. To illustrate, Christoforou highlighted DISY's 1991 municipal campaign. The right-wing party three years earlier had lost the presidency to a political newcomer, viewed the local races as useful springboards back to power, and fielded (and supported) top-notch candidates. DISY fared well at the municipal level and, two years hence, sent Glafkos Clerides to the Presidential Palace. ¶12. Negative electoral "leverage" existed as well. The governing coalition faced tough races in Limassol and Nicosia, Christoforou ventured. Could it survive until 2008 if it lost both? Only if its candidates dominated the remaining key races, providing party spin-meisters with necessary grist. Regardless of the December 17 outcome, however, he expected no rash decisions from either opposition or coalition regarding the presidential campaign. "Not until April will the picture become clearer," he concluded. ¶13. Other analysts consulted see zero linkage between local and national politics. AKEL-identified and/or -supported candidates would emerge the most voted December 17, they predicted, owing to the party's historic grassroots strength. The party had never proven able to replicate that performance on the national level, however, since voters, while comfortable with a "Red" mayor, would never award the Palace to the Communists. Nor would future national leaders surface from December's elections, their logic goes, since local pols rarely ascend past city halls to obtain Parliamentary or ministerial positions (those jobs normally fall to party faithful). Finally, personalities trump party affiliation at the municipal level; the popular mayor of a Nicosia suburb, running now as a DISY-supported independent, earlier had won three terms each time representing a different party. SCHLICHER