ALTHOUGH the parties with a hard line on the Cyprus problem tried, during the election campaign, to capitalise on their supposedly uncompromising views, the ploy proved a big failure.
EDEK, which made a big song and dance about rotational presidency, ended up with the same share of the vote it had secured in 2006, when the ‘no’ campaign and the referendum were still fresh in people’s memory. DIKO, although it had toned down its hard-line rhetoric slightly during the campaign, in order to keep its alliance with AKEL alive, saw its share of the vote fall by two percentage points on Sunday.
As for EVROKO, the most hard-line of all the parties, it only managed to have two deputies elected, its share of the vote falling by more than 30 per cent. This is the party that strongly opposed a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation and had been advocating the nebulous ‘European solution’, which would allegedly ensure the return of all refugees to their homes and a ‘one-man, one-vote’ constitution. The share of the vote they took was a paltry 3.88 per cent, suggesting the majority of people perceived the ‘European solution’ as nothing more than cheap demagoguery.
Could we conclude from the decrease in support for the hard-line parties and the increase in the share of the pro-solution DISY and AKEL that people were ready for a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation? Not necessarily, because their respective increased share could be related to a number of unrelated factors, not to mention the 20 per cent abstentions. What we could conclude is that the exploitation of the ‘no vote’ in the referendum is over for good, as it gave no electoral advantage to parties which tried to use it in the campaign. The use of defiant slogans also failed to work.
For the election results to be turned into public support for a settlement, President Christofias would need to publicly invite DISY to a formal co-operation on the Cyprus talks, something he has shown he is unwilling to do. He would rather maintain his alliance with DIKO, which constantly attacks his choices, because he has one eye on the next presidential elections.
There is also no guarantee DISY would accept such an invitation as it may also have set its sights on the elections and would be reluctant to offer support to Christofias.
But even if there is no deal between the two big parties, the fact that the cheap exploitation of the Cyprus problem by the hard-line camp no longer moves voters was the most encouraging sign of these elections.
