The Cyprus Negotiations and “the one person-one vote principle”: Examples of Divergence from Democratic Federations

Neophytos Loizides, Queen's University - Belfast

Abstract

Much of the recent political debate in both sides of the island has centered on a proposal by the Greek Cypriot negotiating team for weighted-voting between Greek and Turkish Cypriots in the island. Specifically, this proposal will allow all Cypriots a double vote, one in their ethnic community and another (with a standardized weight of approximately 20%) in the other community. In the election of President, every person will have one vote therefore Turkish Cypriots will be an electoral minority of around 20%. In a second election, Turkish Cypriots will vote for the Vice-President. Greek Cypriots will participate but with a weighted vote of about 20% (same percentage as Turkish Cypriots in the electoral rolls). Thus, the Greek Cypriot vote will be weighted and the community will become an electoral minority of the Turkish Cypriots. The Greek Cypriot President will be the Head of government for 2/3 of the time; the Turkish Cypriot will rotate as President for 1/3 of the time. In cases of constitutional deadlock, the acting President will have the winning vote. Following this proposal, it has been argued that weighted voting is a Cypriot innovation with no international precedents. The memo questions this view by demonstrating that weighted voting systems are neither new nor particularly exceptional. About 40 percent of the population of the planet currently lives in democratic or democratizing federations. By their own nature, federal systems try to balance individual rights with those of the governing federal units, drawing on weighted voting systems to do so. The memo summarizes examples of federations departing from the “one person one vote” principle by using some form of weighted voting comparable to the one recently proposed by the Greek Cypriot negotiating team.