DISY NARROWS THE GAP BUT PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS

C O N F I D E N T I A L NICOSIA 000708

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/12/2021
TAGS: PREL PGOV CY
SUBJECT: DISY NARROWS THE GAP BUT PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS
FAIL TO GENERATE MUCH EXCITEMENT

Classified By: Ambassador Ronald L. Schlicher; Reason 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: With less than a week to go before
parliamentary elections in Cyprus, the parties have failed to
generate much in the way of enthusiasm among their
supporters. In the most recent polls, nearly ten percent of
the Greek Cypriot public claim they will cast a blank ballot
on May 21. Another 8.5% are still undecided. Among those
expressing a firm opinion, AKEL maintains a slight lead over
the opposition DISY, although the gap is narrowing. Some
pundits believe that the majority of undecideds are DISY
supporters who are reluctant to reveal their choice for fear
of retribution. If the breakdown of undecideds follows the
pattern from the surprising European Parliamentary elections
in June, DISY could pull a rabbit out of a hat and emerge as
the largest single party on Cyprus. This would not mean much
for the Cyprus problem in the short-run, but could position
DISY for a strong showing in Presidential elections in 2008.
Our own best guess is that AKEL will hold onto its leading
slot, but only by the slimmest of margins. The numbers for
Papadopoulos' own DIKO are somewhat weaker than many had
supposed, even with the government's aggressive attempts to
spin a recent oil exploration deal with Egypt as heralding
the dawn of a new petro-economy for Cyprus. Papadopoulos has
begun taking a more active role in the campaign and may well
have another card or two to play before voting day. End
Summary.

A Referendum on a Referendum
--------------


2. (C) No one on Cyprus seems terribly excited about the May
21 Parliamentary elections, not even the candidates.
Enthusiasm among the general public is low and turnout at
campaign events has been -- for the parties at least --
disappointing. These elections in this strongly presidential
system do not seem to be about anything in particular and
there is no sense of something important at stake. In large
part, this is a function of the lack of settlement activity,
which is the animating issue that gives energy to political
campaigns in Cyprus. President Papadopoulos and DIKO are
trying, however, to frame the May 21 elections as essentially
a referendum on the outcome of the referendum on the Annan
Plan. A vote for DIKO, in the preferred rhetoric of the
party, is a vote in support of the President's courageous
defense of Cypriot Hellenism in April 2004. Papadopoulos
himself made the point at a DIKO event that "many people
abroad and here are awaiting the outcome of the elections
with great anxiety. They want to see whether the President's
Cyprus policy has the backing of the majority of the people
or if the 'yes' forces are on the rise as they hope. With
your efforts, with your hard work, we shall disappoint them."


3. (C) DISY, meanwhile, is running away from its support for
the Annan Plan in 2004 and doing everything it can to keep
the focus on social and economic issues. Stella Kyriakidou,
a child psychologist running on DISY's Nicosia ticket, told
us that she has focused her own campaign exclusively on
social concerns. "This is our comparative advantage," she
observed. "We can't compete with the President over the
Cyprus issue." Averof Neophytou, DISY Deputy leader and
overall party campaign manager, complained that the outcome
of the Paris meeting between Papadopoulos and UN SYG Annan in
February had hurt DISY by making it appear as though the
President's Cyprus policy was producing results. If it
hadn't been for Paris, he maintained, DISY would be at least
a point-and-a-half ahead of AKEL.


4. (C) The Paris meeting isn't the only thing the government
has been spinning to considerable effect in the weeks before
the election. Cyprus and Egypt have just signed an agreement
to cooperate in exploring for oil and gas deposits in the
Mediterranean. To judge by the President's cryptic but
encouraging public comments, Cyprus is sitting on enormous
exploitative reserves of both gas and oil. Lack of evidence
to support this notwithstanding, most Greek Cypriots seem
inclined to accept that Cyprus is on the verge of morphing
into Dubai. The recent announcement that the government has
signed an agreement with the American-Norwegian company
Petroleum Geo-Services for a seismographic search of the
seabed has reinforced this view. With characteristic lack of
subtlety, Papadopoulos explained that the government would
use "political as well as economic criteria" in assigning
drilling concessions. Papadopoulos' aggressive, nationalist
rhetoric disproportionately benefits the hard-liners on the
DIKO ticket. Achilleas Kyprianou -- a DIKO candidate in
Limassol and the son of the former President Spyros Kyprianou
-- complained to us that Papadopoulos' public appearances
were costing him votes and boosting the campaigns of his more
conservative competitors.


5. (C) On top of that, DISY is still struggling to
compensate for the split precipitated by the party
leadership's decision to back the Annan Plan. Four DISY
deputies broke off to form a new party to contest the June
2004 European Parliamentary elections. Their party, "For
Europe," succeeded in capturing one of the six seats and
establishing its credibility as a viable political force.
Three of the four renegades form the core of "The European
Party (EVROKO)," which is polling well and siphoning support
away from DISY. EVROKO has now joined forces with Dinos
Michaelides ADIK to contest the May 21 elections. Many see
the hand of Tassos Papadopoulos behind both the creation of
EVROKO and the party's marriage of convenience with ADIK.
DISY leader Anastassiades has said publicly that "some of the
political parties participating in these elections have been
formed at the suggestion and recommendation of others in
order to harm DISY." If that is, in fact, the intention, it
is working well.

But It's Still Close
--------------


6. (C) Even with all of the advantages at the disposal of
the ruling coalition, DISY has managed to make it a close
race. The most recent polls leave AKEL in first place with
26.8% of the vote, DISY nipping at the communists' heels with
25.3%, DIKO at 16.9%, EDEK at 5.3%, the European Party at
4.1%, the Greens at 1.7% and the United Democrats at 1.3%.
There are, however, still a large number of undecideds (8.5%)
and an astonishing 9.4% told pollsters that they intended to
cast blank ballots. (Note: Under the Cypriot system, in
which voting is mandatory, blank ballots are simply
discarded). Depending on the assumptions one uses in
distributing the undecideds, the final outcome could look
quite different. Standard practice in Cypriot polling is to
distribute undecideds in proportion to those who identified a
specific preference. Under this formula, AKEL would end up
with a final tally of 32.6% of the vote and DISY with 30.8%.
At least some observers believe the undecided voters include
significantly more DISY supporters who are reluctant to
reveal their political leanings to anonymous pollsters for
fear of retribution. This is particularly true for
government workers or for those who do business with the
government. This fear is not entirely irrational. There are
precedents for political parties (AKEL in particular)
conducting mock polls of members as a kind of loyalty test.
The opposition newspaper Politis ran the numbers using the
distribution of undecideds from the June 2004 European
Parliamentary elections and got a very different outcome.
Politis is predicting that DISY will ultimately garner 33% of
the vote to AKEL's 28.9%. This would be a shocking outcome
for the Cypriot political establishment and a real defeat for
both AKEL General Secretary Demetris Christofias and
President Papadopoulos.

What Do We Think?
--------------


7. (C) Predicting elections is a mug's game. No one on the
political scene here anticipated that AKEL would perform so
poorly in the June 2004 Euro-elections. There are reasons to
believe, however, that those elections were a one-off.
Voting in the Euro-elections was not mandatory, and many
Cypriot voters elected to spend what was a wonderfully sunny
day at the beach instead of the polling booth. Moreover,
optimism among the Annan Plan's supporters was still running
high a mere two months after the referenda and those who
voted "yes" were convinced they had made the right choice.
Now, many seem to be having second thoughts. Support for the
Annan Plan has dropped and leading politicians are still
calling on those who publicly advocated for "yes" to
apologize. Supporters of the plan do not advertise the fact.
It is a decidedly unfashionable -- even vaguely shameful --
position.


8. (C) Our own best guess -- and here we would ask to
stipulate all of the usual caveats -- is that AKEL will
retain its position as the largest political party in Cyprus,
but by only the narrowest of margins. DIKO will do well, but
not as well as the party faithful had hoped. Papadopoulos'
party will pick up a seat or two but seems unlikely to crack
the psychologically important 20% barrier. EDEK will be
happy to hold onto roughly 6% of the electorate, and this
seems the most likely outcome for a party that has struggled
to define itself. The results for the smaller parties are
harder to predict. The electorate here is quite small and a
shift of a few hundred votes can make all of the difference.
We believe that EVROKO and the Greens at least will have
parliamentary representation. The United Democrats and
Michael Papapetrou are right on the bubble. We hope the
strongly pro-solution Papapetrou wins a seat and estimate his
odds at better than even.

So What?
--------------


9. (C) Elections are always (more or less) entertaining, but
this one is probably not particularly significant. The
Cypriot political system is heavily-weighted in favor of the
President. This is especially true with respect to the
management of the Cyprus issue. AKEL and DISY are after more
than bragging rights, however. A DISY win would help the
party set the stage for a strong showing in the 2008
Presidential elections. In their more candid moments, our
DISY contacts acknowledge that this is their fundamental
objective. The AKEL leadership would be seriously
embarrassed by a second-place showing, but it would take a
truly dismal outing by the communists to put real pressure on
the AKEL-Papadopoulos alliance. That outcome is highly
unlikely.


10. (C) Papadopoulos has to be somewhat disappointed with
DIKO's numbers right now. A showing in the mid-teens would
demonstrate weakness. Papadopoulos has recently begun taking
a more active role in campaigning to forestall a poor showing
by his party. There are still a few more days to go before
the election, and it is hard to believe that the President
doesn't have another card or two up his sleeve.
SCHLICHER