SUNDAY’S parliamentary elections had no big surprises in store. The domination of the two biggest parties, which took two thirds of votes cast, was preserved, while the rest struggled to maintain the share of the vote they had secured five years ago. Only EDEK succeeded, with the rest of the smaller parties – DIKO, EUROKO – seeing their share of the vote decrease by about two percentage points.
The main talking point of the elections was the low turn-out, by Cyprus standards, with most politicians expressing great concern about voter apathy. One fifth of registered voters did not vote, but such an abstention percentage, in most countries, would be considered pretty low and certainly no cause for concern. Here, politicians had been accustomed to a very high turn-out, but this may have had a lot to do with the law forcing people to vote.
With more and more people realising that this law would not be enforced, the abstention rate has steadily risen. In the 2001 parliamentary elections, abstention was a paltry 4.19 per cent, rising to 11 per cent in 2006 and 21.3 per cent on Sunday. A few months before these elections, the Attorney General publicly admitted that the law on compulsory voting was a dead letter – the sheer number of people who would have to be prosecuted made it impossible to enforce, he said. Without the fear of prosecution, the abstentions doubled.
If the coercive voting law did not exist perhaps the abstention rate would have been as high in the past as it is now. It is therefore difficult to accept the prevailing view about growing disillusionment with politics and politicians. This may have existed all along, but was not reflected in elections because people obeyed the law. On the other hand, growing voter apathy could be an indication of a society that is maturing politically, citizens taking a stand against the political system.
We should not forget however, that close to 80 per cent of the voters exercised their democratic right and that this would have been a very impressive turn-out in most democratic countries. What should cause some concern is the predictability of the results – this time DISY won one seat more than AKEL, which had taken one seat more in 2006.
The big parties have such a strong hold over their respective supporters, we are unlikely to see any major changes in our political system, in the foreseeable future. If this election showed one thing it is that the two big parties will keep growing while the smaller ones will be struggling to keep their share of the vote.
