PRIO CRISIS FINAL_Layout 1 17/10/2014 09:23 Page 2
Political Culture and
Behaviour in the
Republic of Cyprus
during the Crisis
This report takes a detailed look at and re-evaluates political culture and behaviour in
the Republic of Cyprus post-2012, when the financial problems of the Cypriot banks
significantly worsened the already downward trend in consumer purchasing power, job
supply, fiscal health and overall economic development. Analyzing and comparing trends
over the past two years with longer term patterns, the report aims to answer the following
overarching question: If and what changes have been witnessed in what concerns political
culture and behaviour during the crisis in the Republic of Cyprus? Traditionally, social
science research about the island has been premised on anthropological and sociological
perspectives, focusing exclusively or primarily on the Cyprus problem and minority issues.
Lying at the crossroads of political sociology, political science and political economy, this
report seeks to bring politics “in from the cold” and initiate a process of reflection on the
state of Cypriot democracy during the crisis and especially during the time in which the
Troika (International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank)
bailout has been in effect (2013-2014).
The report can be ordered from:
PRIO Cyprus Centre
P.O.Box 25157, 1307 Nicosia, Cyprus
Tel: +357 22 456555/4
[email protected]
PCC REPORT 2/2014 Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
ISBN 978-82-7288-565-5 (print)
ISBN 978-82-7288-566-2 (online)
Giorgos Charalambous
PCC REPORT 2/2014
PRIO CRISIS FINAL_Layout 1 17/10/2014 09:23 Page 1
About the author
Giorgos Charalambous is a political scientist and holds a PhD in Politics from the University of
Manchester. His research interests lie in the areas of political behaviour, political parties and
ideologies, the domestic politics of European integration and south European politics. He is a
Senior Research Consultant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo Cyprus Centre and also teaches
as part-time Lecturer at the University of Cyprus. In May-June 2011 he was a visiting Fellow at
the Hellenic Observatory, LSE and in 2012/2013 he was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies, University of London. Since late 2012 he is a founding member and
Secretary of the Cypriot Association of Political Science (KYSYPE). His monograph European
integration and the Communist Dilemma: Communist Party Responses to Europe in Greece, Cyprus and
Italy has been published in 2013 with Ashgate.
The report can be ordered from:
PRIO Cyprus Centre
P.O.Box 25157, 1307 Nicosia, Cyprus
Tel: +357 22 456555/4
[email protected]
POLITICAL CULTURE
AND BEHAVIOUR
IN THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS
DURING THE CRISIS
Giorgos Charalambous
PCC Report 2/2014
Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO)
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reviewed journals and book series, as well as in PRIO’s own Report, Paper and Policy Brief
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honour for the hypotheses, theories, findings and views expressed in our publications
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© Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), 2014
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or utilized in
any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without permission
in writing from the copyright holder(s).
ISBN 978-82-7288-565-5 (print)
ISBN 978-82-7288-566-2 (online)
Cover design: The cover photo is the property of the Public Information Office (PIO) of the
Republic of Cyprus
Production: Action Global Communications
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................. V
chApter 1:
IntroductIon ............................................................................................................................... 1
chApter 2:
economIc crIsIs In the republIc of cyprus .................................................................... 5
chApter 3:
polItIcAl culture And behAVIour: defInItIonAl Issues ......................................... 19
chApter 4:
polItIcAl culture And behAVIour In the republIc of cyprus:
some hIstorIcAl clArIfIcAtIons ........................................................................................ 27
chApter 5:
polItIcAl culture, polItIcAl behAVIour And
economIc crIsIs In the republIc of cyprus .................................................................. 51
chApter 6:
conclusIons................................................................................................................................ 93
AppendIx:
schedule of InterVIews ........................................................................................................ 95
references .................................................................................................................................. 97
V
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A
s the report was coming into fruition, its author has inevitably become indebted
to various individuals for their support. The author would like to thank the
following for comments on parts of the report: Christophoros Christophorou,
Olga Demetriou, Ayla Gürel, Mete Hatay, Gregoris Ioannou, Direnç Kanol and Adonis
Pegasiou. The report has also benefited from the valuable administrative support of
Guido Bonino and from interesting and constructive discussions with Harry Tzimitras.
Maria Pelekanou has provided the author with important data and the proof reading
and copy-editing by Kathleen Stephanides was exceptionally helpful. Any errors remain
the author’s own.
1
chApter 1:
INTRODUCTION
T
his report takes a detailed look at and re-evaluates political culture and behaviour in
the Republic of Cyprus post-2012, when the financial problems of the Cypriot banks
significantly worsened the already downward trend in consumer purchasing power, job
supply, fiscal health and overall economic development. Analyzing and comparing trends over
the past two years with longer term patterns, the report aims to answer the following overarching question: If and what changes have been witnessed in what concerns political culture
and behaviour during the crisis in the Republic of Cyprus? Traditionally, social science research
about the island has been premised on anthropological and sociological perspectives, focusing
exclusively, or primarily, on the Cyprus problem and minority issues. Lying at the crossroads
of political sociology, political science and political economy, this report seeks to bring politics
“in from the cold” and initiate a process of reflection on the state of Cypriot democracy during
the crisis, and especially during the time in which the Troika (International Monetary Fund,
European Commission and European Central Bank) bailout has been in effect (2013–2014).
There is broad agreement that politics in Cyprus embodies a corporatist and deeply
partitocratic pattern of norms and behaviour. In view of the momentous changes that have
been unfolding in the Cypriot economic sphere, it is important to ask if and how Cypriot
political culture, which is currently under scrutiny by numerous organizations and individuals,
has also been changing since the onset of the crisis and due to the significant economic and
financial developments unfolding because of it. Political culture is broadly defined here as the
beliefs, values, attitudes, habits and behaviour patterns that characterize a political community.
Thus several constituent parts of political culture will be assessed and re-evaluated: inter alia,
these concern attitudes towards democracy, trust in political and social institutions, political
participation, party identification. Political behaviour as a concept that is semantically close
to political culture is also considered; there has been immense attention paid to the financial
aspects of the economic crisis in southern Europe, but little has been said about its relation
to the political process. More specifically, the report looks at the dynamics of three distinct
levels or arenas of interaction: political competition, the internal practices of political parties
and the relations between political elites and social groups in the sphere of policy-making.
Political-cultural and behavioural traits, such as political participation and elite-elite
interaction, depend on a variety of factors. These include the number and nature of the main
social cleavages and the institutional composition of the political system. Further, cultural
traits depend on behavioural ones – for instance, political participation is traditionally seen as
2
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
due, at least in part, to the intensity of political competition. But are political culture and
political behaviour necessarily affected when the foundations of the economy are shaken?
Combining insights into political culture, political behaviour and their interaction, the report
draws conclusions about the extent and manner in which these have changed during the
crisis years. Democracies function in particular and historically entrenched ways, and accordingly absorb the repercussions of crisis differently. The research undertaken herein, therefore,
has wider implications for the capacity of Cypriot democracy to adapt. Importantly, a serious
possibility (Chilton 1988) is considered: that we can no longer speak of a single, indivisible, or
fixed modus operandi; rather, we are witnessing the emergence of other political-cultural,
sub-cultural or counter-hegemonic norms and practices on the island.
The report additionally focuses on how the crisis may have impacted on the social and
political dynamics surrounding the Cyprus issue. More specifically, the research will investigate
whether, and in what ways, the economic situation in Cyprus has resulted in any prospects,
complications or changing standards for a solution to the Cyprus issue, as well as any (real or
potential) avenues of social mobilization for bi-communalism and rapprochement. Political
culture both affects and is affected by the system of governance as a whole and its manifestations; therefore study of the culture can help bring into focus any newly emerging nuances
in the Cyprus issue, as a policy-making, discursive and cognitively entrenched problem (see
Dietz and Tocci 2009). Whether the crisis years result in realignment or inertia can, therefore,
have an impact on the emergence and development of citizens’ peace-building efforts on the
island, as well as on the political parties’ policies on the Cyprus issue. In 2004, with the Annan
Plan referendum and the local developments that followed, important changes unfolded in
the political culture in relation to the Cyprus issue (see Faustmann 2008; Christophorou 2006).
But has the recent crisis sharpened these new divisions or is it perhaps reconsolidating the
pre-2004 cleavage?
Overall the report will investigate the following four research questions:
n
n
n
n
Whether and in what ways have political parties undergone any substantial, formal or
informal, organizational or mobilization-related changes in light of the crisis?
Whether and how have the attitudes of citizens towards politics changed?
Whether and how have the strategies of social groups vis à vis the political process
changed?
With reference to political cultural dynamics during the past two years, what are the
challenges and prospects for a solution to the Cyprus issue?
The investigation looks into relationships both within the political sphere and between the
political arena and society at large. This is because the environment in which the political
process unfolds is by definition relational. As Lawson (1988: 15) has argued, ‘Everything political
happens through an interactive connection’. In this vein, political units and collectivities (most
importantly, political parties, but also institutions such as the parliament, and individuals
such as party leaders) will be investigated both as subjects and objects of political socialization.
Introduction
3
Concerning the political angle, above all, parties are thought to respond to two sets of
politically active actors, together making up the pool of societal resources upon which
parties must draw: party members and social groups. A focus on links with members and
other, non-party organizations reflects directly and sufficiently the attempts of these parties
to either survive, renew their appeal, revive or enhance their mobilization mechanisms or,
more broadly, overcome organizational and electoral obstacles that may arise in their immediate environment (see Schwartz 2005).
Party delegimitization as a source of identity crisis, and the internal conflict that this
usually entails, commonly lead to an increase in intra-party democracy and more reliance on
members’ activism (Scarrow, Webb and Farrell 2000). On the other hand, during a crisis,
parties’ relations with their members may deteriorate because the leadership may place more
emphasis on the party in public office than on the party on the ground (see Katz and Mair
1996). Overall, parties’ approaches towards their membership will determine whether their
social roots will weaken or strengthen, and whether or not politics will be insulated from
societal dynamics. In terms of non-partisan interests, opening up to social groups may be
seen as a way to satisfy the need for broader alliances and influences – instead of relying
solely on the party’s own organizational confines. During an economic crisis, new limits on
the parties’ ability to distribute favours and patronage, in addition to the contingencies that
arise out of social upset, can lead parties to open up and diversify their contacts and links with
CSOs. But have Cypriot parties done that? Have they become more receptive to the appeals
of social groups, or has the crisis been accompanied by the hardening of parties’ shells? How
do parties adjust their strategies towards those – whether professional organizations or other
sectors of society – that have been hit hard by the crisis?
Concerning the societal angle, the research is interested in both individuals and groups.
One of the two main goals of this research is to identify if there have been any changes in
citizens’ outlooks towards the political process. The second important aim concerns the
strategies of organized social groups ‘as the realm of organized social life that is voluntary,
self-generating, (largely) self-supporting, (officially) autonomous from the state, and bound
by a legal order or set of shared values’ (Diamond 1994: 228). For a holistic understanding of
political culture, these cannot be treated simply as a target for political or state actors, or as
passive listeners that stand still and have no problems and dynamics of their own. Without
knowing how one of the two agents in a strategic relation thinks and behaves, we cannot
uncover the factors that condition the nature of that relationship. The state, nature, size and
future prospects of groups that are active in the political process but non-partisan in
orientation are taken here as an important facet of political culture.
Together, the attitudes and behaviour of citizens towards politics and the overall efforts
of social groups to engage with political organizations or the state can help us understand
the quantitative aspect of society’s approach to the political process and thus the societal
dimension of political culture. Has political trust or participation declined and, if so, is this
connected to worsening economic conditions? Has Greek Cypriots’ sense of political efficacy
4
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
changed over time? How about attitudes towards bi-communalism and rapprochement? To
what extent do social groups try to bypass political parties during the crisis and influence
bureaucrats directly? At the same time, the methods that citizens and social groups use to
influence political actors or bureaucrats are significant for the qualitative aspect of society’s
approach to the political process. Is it only the party-affiliated and financially powerful organizations that are effective in influencing policy-making? Further, has the economic crisis led to
the emergence of new and perhaps innovative forms of political mobilization by citizens and
social groups? Are alternative forms of political participation emerging?
The central methodological guidepost is the tracing of any potential associations
between the economic crisis and political culture. To this end, three sources of data are used.
At one level quantitative data will be employed, especially from the last four European Social
Surveys, the Eurobarometer surveys and various domestic polls carried out at particular
points in time. These will serve to map the climate among the public. Guided by methodological considerations, the report reverts from utilizing all available data and concentrates on
data collected using solid methodology. The data is utilized to discern any potential changes
in citizens’ attitudinal characteristics and identify their conditioning factors.
Data has also been collected through primary research, focusing on the discourse, organizational changes and societal mobilization strategies of political elites. Discourse analysis
has been employed in order to decipher the societal appeals of political parties. Third, semistructured elite interviews have been carried out in order to triangulate findings or uncover
informal or unpublished practices, interactions, perceptions and customs. The interviews
concern three groups of actors: partisans; social groups, including organizations traditionally
affiliated with the main parties, and ones that are officially supra-partisan; and for selected
cases, government officials.
5
chApter 2:
ECONOMIC CRISIS IN THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS
The Cypriot economy: a brief historical overview
From 1974 until 2011 Cyprus suffered neither an economic crisis nor a major downturn in
economic activity. Throughout most of the 37 years following the division of the island (with
the exception of 1974–1977), Cyprus experienced robust growth, job creation, an increasingly
improved standard of living among the population and very low levels of unemployment,
social exclusion and poverty. Both substantively and compared to the European and EU
averages, the post-1974 period could be described as a “golden era” for the Cypriot economy.
Figure 1 illustrates the high levels of growth and very low levels of unemployment throughout
this period. Although neither poverty nor social exclusion disappeared, for the majority of the
population, especially in the 1990s, this was a period of prosperity. The so-called economic
miracle was generated in part by the Turkish occupation of the north part of the island in 1974
and the subsequent rapid expansion of the tourist industry – an expansion that had started
in the 1960s and continued after 1974 only in the southern part of the island (Christodoulou
1992). Furthermore, the de facto division of the island greatly damaged the agricultural sector
and thereby rendered redundant the links between the state and the farmers; thus, an important impediment to economic growth was removed (Panayiotopoulos 1995: 29). Housing,
and more broadly the construction industry, grew considerably, as the refugees needed to
be permanently settled. Cheap labour was provided by these Greek Cypriot displaced
persons, who were living in government refugee camps. In a structuralist sense, therefore, as
Trimikliniotis (2013) explains, a process of ‘accumulation by dispossession’ set in, reminiscent
of the early industrialization of western Europe. The “miracle” discourse, therefore, has to be seen
in relative terms. After all, Cyprus partly depended on foreign loans and the concrete results
of development became apparent only at the end of the 1980s (Panayiotopoulos 1995).
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
6
Figure 1 Unemployment rate and GDP Growth (1975 - 2011)
&'(
&)(
$'(
$)(
)(
%'(
1975
1976
1977
1978
1979
1980
1981
1982
1983
1984
1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1990
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
'(
%$)(
%$'(
%&)(
%&'(
GDP growth
Unemployment
source: Eurostat.
In labour relations, a rather consensual climate marked a divergence from the tensions and
conflicts of the 1940s, when under colonial rule labour protests were the main form of
“discussion” with the administration. In the 1970s and 1980s, although the number of unionized labourers grew, both the left-wing trade union (PEO) and the right-wing union (SEK)
pursued nothing more than piecemeal demands, never challenging the systemic logic of the
island’s economic foundations. The new situation was reflected in the Code of Industrial
Relations signed in 1977 and still in effect today. This essentially crystallized and extended
the national industrial relations system that was established in the 1960s on the basis of
free collective bargaining, through a “gentlemen’s agreement” lacking legal status (Ioannou
2011: 41). In Cyprus, therefore, a voluntary system inherited from the British characterizes the
process by which the labour market is regulated, instead of collective agreements produced
by the state and having a binding character, such as those in Greece or France, for example.
The new procedure of conflict resolution agreed upon was rather long and included the
extensive participation of the state as a mediator between the two sides. The first stage
comprises direct negotiations between the trade unions and the employers’ representatives.
Failing to reach a mutually accepted agreement, one or both parties may resort to state
mediation. If the government-proposed solution is not accepted by one or both parties, a
deadlock is announced, with each side being free to take measures including industrial
action. A “voluntary” yet “binding” arbitration occurs if both parties agree to it, and the possibility of a public inquiry exists as a fourth stage (Sparsis 1998).
economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
7
As the party system became stabilized by the 1980s, with four main parties – the left-wing
Progressive Party of the Working People (AKEL), the right-wing Democratic Rally (DISY), the
‘centrist’ Democratic Party (DIKO) and the social democratic United Democratic Union of the
Centre (EDEK) – dominating various aspects of social and economic life, trade unions were
increasingly incorporated into the dynamics of domestic party politics. In the words of Ioannou
(forthcoming): ‘As the parties constituted themselves as the absolute mediators between
social and economic interests on the one hand and state authority on the other, the trade
union apparatuses became the basic arm of the parties in the labour market, at the workplace
and at the local community’. In spite of their differences, both main unions (PEO and SEK)
espoused a ‘patriotism’ expressed in ‘a willingness to collaborate with employers in the “national
interest” in a number of state sponsored tripartite bodies’ (Panayiotopoulos 1995: 25). Similar
to what Ancelovici (2011: 134) illustrates for the case of France, Cypriot trade unions tend to
stress the necessity of social dialogue and generally engage in contention to force employers
to negotiate with them or improve their negotiating leverage. Within this context, strikes and
protests over economic matters, but also more broadly, became very infrequent, and any
conflicts between capital and labour took the form of roundtable negotiations, in which a
deadlock rarely occurred. Table 1 illustrates the general calmness in Cypriot social affairs;
notably there were no general strikes between 1983 and 2010. Largely due to the politicization
of the labour movement, rarely did PEO and SEK agree on a common platform against capital.
Which of the two was willing to go on strike or launch a street challenge usually depended
on which party(ies) was in government.
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
8
Table 1 Social contention in the Republic of Cyprus (1983–2010)
Year
General Strikes
1983
0
1984
0
1985
0
1986
0
1987
0
1988
0
1989
0
1990
0
1991
0
1992
0
1993
0
1994
0
1995
0
1996
0
1997
0
1998
0
1999
0
2000
0
2001
0
2002
0
2003
0
2004
0
2005
0
2006
0
2007
0
2008
0
2009
0
2010
0
source: Databanks International.
economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
9
Stability and relative quietness in social and labour relations may have been further ensured
by public sector employment (central government, local authorities and publicly owned
enterprises), which provided a great many families with a reasonable income. Such employment can often overshadow the inequalities that exist and it also counterbalances the limited
state expenses on social protection.1 Public sector employment grew, especially after the
1980s, partly due to the new needs of the state and partly due to party patronage. In terms
of two main indicators – compensation of public employees as a percentage of general
government expenditure in the EU, and the increase in the number of employees within the
government and wider public sector (1995–2011) – the Cypriot state is by all accounts a
sizeable one, even if this is often overplayed in comparative terms. Party governments from
the Kyprianou presidencies (1977–1988) to that of Papadopoulos (2003–2008) created the
conditions whereby jobs in the public sector were distributed in the form of favours, and
hiring lacked transparency and clear-cut criteria (Faustmann 2011). An oversized public
service in terms of the number of employees, and one where meritocracy was largely absent,
in turn gave rise to productivity problems.
Economic growth, low levels of unemployment and poverty, substantial benefits for civil
servants and the absence of intense labour disputes overshadowed the perils inherent in
becoming a service economy, preparing for entry into the EU, and increasing immigration
and imported labour, which began in the 1990s. By the 2000s, the Republic of Cyprus
economy was heavily dependent on services – financial, banking, tourism and education.
During 2004–2008, the services sector expanded even more, by 40,000 jobs (Trimikliniotis
2012). The Republic of Cyprus became a tax haven that attracted large sums of foreign direct
investments, mostly but not exclusively from Russian capital. Agriculture had become a
peripheral economic activity with a negligible contribution to the national output, while
secondary industry accounted for only 11% of the GDP, down from 18% in the 1980s
(Panayiotopoulos 1996). The 1990s was an important period for the arrival of immigrants on
the island; these were brought primarily from third-world countries as contract, domestic and
farm workers. In 2004, entry into the EU meant an additional influx of labourers from EU
countries, which amounted to 83,387 by 2009. In the same year, the number of third-country
nationals had increased to 57,460, up from 26,398 in 2000 (Labour Statistics, cited in
Charalambous and Ioannou forthcoming).
These processes did not harm the economy in the short term, in and of themselves, but
they did make it more difficult for the country to absorb exogenous shocks. Indicatively, the
boom in the construction industry between 2000 and 2008 led to a housing bubble, driven
in part by foreign demand for retirement homes near the seaside (mainly English and Russian
buyers), but also due to relatively low interest rates that enabled developers to borrow
money from the banks and with minimum payment guarantees. The ongoing financial crisis
1
Compared with elsewhere in the EU, Cyprus records the lowest expenditure on social protection (Taki and Officer
2013: 22).
10
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
has, naturally, hit the construction industry in particular, with a resulting high number of nonperforming loans from developers that have further exacerbated the banks’ capital
requirements and adversely affected employment opportunities and labour relations in the
industry. More generally, the expansion of the Cypriot economy during the first decade of the
2000s, and especially after 2004 when the country entered the EU, was based on fragile
foundations. The construction industry was very sensitive to fluctuations in demand, and
private consumption was based on lending and low interest rates.
Importantly, the banking and financial sector grew extremely rapidly in the last two
decades, and by 2010 its volume in capital terms reached almost 8 times the country’s GDP
(Stefanou 2011). Banking and, more significantly, the race to attract offshore capital, became
conceptualized as the motor of the economy and was insulated from restrictions and strict
regulations (Charalambous and Ioannou forthcoming; Stefanou 2011).
Cyprus and the economic crisis
When the global economic crisis of 2007/2008 started spreading panic domestically, there
were still no significant signs of negative effects on Cyprus. Cypriot banks were not directly
affected by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, although the resulting shockwaves would soon
touch upon the Cypriot economy through the Greek sovereign crisis. In February 2008 the
left entered the executive for the first time as the main party of government, and before long
it confronted mounting opposition with respect to its economic policy. The government kept
affirming that the country’s economy would face no particular problems, while the three- and
then five-party strong opposition was daily and fiercely criticizing Christofias and the Minister
of Finance (then Charilaos Stavrakis) for a lack of “boldness” in dealing with public finances,
and was insisting on budget cuts.
Austerity hit the island in 2011, as the economy started underperforming, and international
credit rating agencies, as well as the European Commission, issued various statements and
evaluations that painted a negative picture of public finances. The reason was that in 2011
the country could no longer borrow from the markets, with the credit-rating agencies highlighting, among other things, the exposure of Cypriot banks to the Greek economy as a primary
factor for the country’s loss of credibility. By 2012 it was apparent that the Cypriot banking
sector was experiencing trouble. Almost all – 97 per cent – of the total assets of banks with
Cypriot parents were in the hands of the three leading banks (Bank of Cyprus, Popular and
Hellenic), which overall controlled 55.6 per cent of domestic deposits and 48 per cent of
domestic loans (IMF 2011, cited in Pegasiou 2013: 343; see also Table 2). In the middle of the
global economic crisis, Cypriot banks were investing billions in Greek sovereign bonds,
buying from the secondary market (mainly German banks), at a time when most other banks
were selling. Cypriot banks’ investments in Greek sovereign bonds were completely derailed
following the voluntary private sector involvement (PSI) in the Greek debt haircut in February
2012 as part of the Eurogroup agreement (Pegasiou 2013: 344).
economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
11
Table 2 Size of banking sector: Total assets of credit institutions as percentage of GDP (2009)
Country
Ireland
Greece
Percentage 809.3% 206.4%
Spain
Italy
Cyprus
Luxembourg
Malta
Portugal
326.6%
242.8%
822.4%
2,118.4%
721.0% 310.3%
source: Pegasiou (2013).
The banks lost up to 75 per cent of the value of the bonds overnight, an amount equal to
around 4.5 billion and close to 25 per cent of the country’s GDP. It thus became impossible for
the Cypriot government to provide the financial assistance that was required for bank recapitalization, without national debt rising to unmanageable levels (Pegasiou 2013; see Table 2).
When the European deadline for recapitalization approached in June 2012, the two major
banks acknowledged that they needed support from the state. President Christofias was
convinced to request financial aid after the Central Bank Governor’s warning that otherwise
Laiki Bank would collapse. In June 2012, the Cypriot government applied to the European
Financial Stability Fund (EFSF), with the Troika visiting Cyprus for the first time in July, in order
to begin negotiations. Although the end result in terms of policy making makes the Cypriot
socio-economic environment very similar to those of the rest of southern Europe (Greece, Italy,
Portugal and Spain), in terms of causes, the Cyprus case diverges from the case of Greece.
Although domestic debates largely revolved around the problems caused by the public
sector in terms of accumulated debt and public expenses (Panayiotou 2013), it is clear from
Figure 2 that, as in Spain and Ireland, neither public debt nor the budget deficit were real
problems in the sense of climbing to very high levels. In 2009 and 2010 the public debt of
Cyprus was around 60%, compared to 80% in the Eurozone. Figure 2 makes clear that the
public debt shot up in 2012, after the crisis began, and hence budget deficits alone were not
sufficient to cause the dire straits in which the Cypriot economy finds itself today. The
increase in private debt, on the other hand, came much earlier, as shown in Figure 3, and can
be accounted for by the banks’ foreign investments.
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
12
Figure 2 Percentage of Debt-to-GDP levels for 2006–2012
(EU17 and Southern European Countries)
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
EU17
Greece
2006
Italy
2007
2008
Spain
2009
!Portugal
2010
Malta
2011
Cyprus
2012
source: Pegasiou (2013).
$
Figure 3 Percentage of Private Debt-to-GDP levels for 2006–2012
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
2001
2002
2003
2004
Ireland
2005
Cyprus
2006
2007
Greece
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Germany
source: Eurostat.
In March 2013 the Euro Group reached an unprecedented decision regarding the Cyprus
economic crisis, as well as the Eurozone more broadly. Although the initial proposal penalized
small savers as well, the plan that was adopted imposed a haircut on deposits above 100,000
euro. At the same time the Popular Bank was dissolved and merged with the other (but less)
problematic bank, the Bank of Cyprus. The President, who had pledged to reject any kind of
economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
13
haircut a few months earlier, said that this was the only option after all, and that Cyprus’s
partners in the EU threatened to let both banks collapse if a haircut were not implemented.
The parliament initially voted down the haircut but within a week it reconsidered its vote,
given that their haircut concerned only deposits higher than 100,000 euro.
Soon after, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Cypriot government
and the Troika, reinforcing or supplementing a chain of austerity measures (initiated by the
previous government) similar to those of Greece, Spain and Portugal. Beyond the fact that all
civil servants on the island (numbering around 50,000) have been adversely affected, austerity
has touched benefits and institutions (such as the semi-governmental organizations providing electricity, communications etc., and the cooperatives, which have a history of several
decades) that have been traditionally considered as important parts of the Cypriot social
contract. Further, the Troika imposed a drastic reduction of the banking sector and an increase
in the corporate tax rate, spreading further concern that Cyprus’s status as an international
financial centre would suffer severely.
Even before the haircut, however, the economy had already been severely damaged, in
turn, affecting the majority of middle and lower class households. A sharp drop in the purchasing power of citizens, as well as a significant rise in the unemployment rate (INEK 2013:
23, 67) carried important implications. In a country where unemployment rates have been
traditionally low due to peaceful industrial relations and very high economic growth (Iosif
2010), employees, especially in the public and banking sectors that thrived since the 1990s,
were accustomed to secure, well-paid jobs, a multiplicity of benefits, steady salary increases
and overall good working conditions. It was thus highly likely that any changes in this domain
of the economy would be intensely felt by the local populace, especially since the increased
unemployment has had an impact on working conditions (Pegasiou 2013: 143).
The government formulated, in conjunction with their international lenders, a series of
austere economic policy packages intended to minimize public expenses, steer competitiveness and increase productivity. The final Cyprus Economic Adjustment Programme includes
a number of conditions that were activated by the Troika’s Memorandum of Understanding
(MoU) agreement, which was endorsed by the House of Representative on 30 April 2013: the
recapitalization of the entire financial sector while accepting a closure of the Laiki bank, the
implementation of the anti-money laundering framework in Cypriot financial institutions,
fiscal consolidation to help decrease the Cypriot budget deficit, structural reforms to restore
competitiveness2 and macroeconomic imbalances, and a privatization programme targeting
semi-governmental organizations. A list of the more detailed measures taken by the Cypriot
government and the Troika between 2011 and today is presented in Table 3. As in other
2
By decreasing labour costs a depreciation of the real exchange rate is achieved, which is in turn thought to improve
competitiveness.
14
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
similar cases, these include eliminating or limiting subsidies, cutting or capping the wage bill,
increasing consumption taxes on goods and services, reforming old-age pensions, rationalizing and/or further targeting social safety nets and reorganizing labour markers to render
them more flexible. These measures, however, began earlier than the MoU. Three austerity
packages were implemented by December 2011 (with the third package being especially
austere – see Charalambous and Ioannou forthcoming) and another one followed in
December 2012, before the MoU initiated a larger process of structural and fiscal adaptation.
As in the rest of southern Europe, enormous sacrifices are being asked of wage earners and
pensioners (Table 3) – cuts to wages and pensions, particularly those of public sector workers
and pensioners, the relaxation of redundancy rules, an increase in the public sector working
day, the reduction in the number of vacation days, the freeze in pensions, an early retirement
penalty, a reduction in social transfers and many more; essentially the only measure that
targets capital is the rise (by 2%) in corporation tax.
Unsurprisingly, the main ongoing debates today revolve around austerity. On the one
side, advocates of state and fiscal retrenchment suggest that prudence is necessary to restore
competitiveness. Due to lower unit costs, prices are expected to fall and result in higher real
wages and lower nominal wages. In this way, competitiveness and aggregate demand can be
expected to rise, leading to increases in exports and decreases in imports, in turn pushing
unemployment downwards and allowing the GDP to rise. On the other side, there have been
objections as to the overwhelming economic and social costs, the effectiveness of the austerity
recipe and the period of time needed to exit the crisis. Yet, as Koutsambelas and Polycarpou
(2013: 3) suggest, the motives for welfare state cutbacks often go beyond arguments about
competitiveness and may stem from social and political configurations, the dominant ideas
and ideologies and the interests that tie political and economic agents together. In this light,
the recent (last few years) public-private debate in Cyprus – over who is primarily to blame for
the state of the economy and whether economic policy should divest the state of some of its
economic power – is especially important for understanding the situation that unfolded in
the political realm. During the Christofias government’s last two years (2010–2012) especially,
intense polemics were exchanged on a daily basis between those in office and the opposition
as to whether it was primarily government economic policy and recurring budget deficits or
the unregulated activities of the banks that caused the economy to sink. The result is that,
inter alia, austerity measures have divested.
economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
15
Table 3 Austerity Measures in the Republic of Cyprus (2011–2013)* (indicatively)
Social provisions
Taxation
Public Sector
2011 Re-examination of all state
benefits with a view to their
reduction through the
introduction of income
criteria
15% reduction in all shift
benefits of nursing personnel
for night shifts and 35% for
Sundays and public holidays
Freezing of the Cost-of-livingadjustment (COLA).
Immediate early retirement
penalty of 6% of the
Government Employee
Pension Scheme (GEPS)
Increase of 2% on VAT, a tax
increase of 3% on income
from dividend
Increases in the excise duties
for tobacco, alcoholic drinks,
and motor fuel
Increase in tax on dividends
by 1% and on deposits by
0.015%
General freeze on all wages in
the broader public sector, a 10%
wage decrease for all newcomers in the broader public sector
(also affecting all those on
temporary contracts upon their
renewal)
Small increases in the contribution of public sector workers
to various state and social
insurance funds
General temporary and scaled
contribution on all wages
(including the private sector)
Introduction of a permanent
contribution towards pension
entitlements for all government
employees
Salary cuts for all public sector
health professionals
Reduction of 13th pension by
50% in the 1000–1500 bracket
and 75% in the above 1500
bracket
2012 Reduction in social transfers
by 10%
Reduction in the Easter,
Christmas and Dietary
allowance as well as
abolishing heating allowance
Increase in the statutory
retirement age by 2 years
Further suspension of Cost of
Living Adjustment (COLA) in
greater public sector until
system of COLA reform is set
in motion
Freeze
Introduction of a 20% tax on
gains from National Lottery
winnings of EUR 5,000 or more
Tax on allowances of high
level civil servants
Increase in the standard VAT
rate from 18% to 19%
Increase in class hours for
teaching staff in public sector
Further reduction of pensions
in greater public sector by 3%
Reduction in the number of
government employees by
250 per year (1250 in total)
Reform of shift-work system to
reduce overtime remunerations
by 20% in 2013, an additional
10% in 2014 and keeping the
amount paid stable for 2015
Reduction of preferential
treatment of specific groups of
employees, like members of the
army and police force, in the
occupational pension plans, in
particular concerning the
contribution to the lump-sum
benefits
Reduction of the number of civil
servants by at least 5,000 in
2012–2016
Freeze on hiring of hourly paid
civil servants
In health and safety, one new
hiring for every five retirees
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
16
Table 3 Austerity Measures in the Republic of Cyprus (2011–2013)* (indicatively) (continued)
Social provisions
2013** Reduction in provisions for
housing plans by EUR 36
million
Further rationing of Easter
provision
10 euro fee for the use of
public hospitals
10 euro fee for public school
buses
Reduction in social transfers
by Euro28.5 million (affects
social cohesion fund, child
allowance and student
allowance)
Payment for the use of public
transport by students and
pensioners
Structural changes in
educational system (affected
teaching time, teachers’
benefits and cost of education
for evening and afternoon
classes)
Taxation
Public Sector
Increase in fees for public
services by at least 17% of
the current values
Increase in excise duties on
tobacco products, in particular
on fine-cut smoking tobacco,
from EUR 60/kg to EUR 150/kg
Increase in excise duties on
cigarettes by EUR 0.20/per
packet of 20 cigarettes
Increase in the statutory
corporate income tax rate
to 12.5%
Increase in tax rate on interest
and dividend income to 30%
Reform of the tax system for
motor vehicles, through the
annual road tax, the registration fee and excise duties,
including motor fuel duties
Property taxation of at least
70 million by updating the
1980 prices through
application of the CPI index
for the period 1980 to 2012
Increase in temporary contributions on gross benefits
and pensions of civil servants
Increase in VAT from 18% in
2013 to 19% in 2014
Increase in special taxes on
consumption of fuel
Reform of the tax system of
automobiles
Increase in contribution of
employees, the self-employed
and employers for pensionable emoluments
Privatization plans for
telecommunications, electricity
and port authority
Further decrease of 3% in the
total benefits of civil servants
(including
* These are the dates the measures were decided, independent of when they were implemented.
** The measures taken in 2013 concerned the specification or the reconsideration of measures that were discussed
in 2012 and were incorporated into the MoU.
economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
17
Independent of blame-shifting dynamics and their effect on public opinion, however, the
island’s economy has been in crisis for at least two years. Growth initially dropped to levels
relatively lower than the EU average just after the crisis hit and the first austerity policies were
implemented in 2011 (in the rest of the countries in 2009), while initially it was slightly higher.
As commercial exchanges stalled and thus productivity fell further, the growth rate became
increasingly negative (-2.4 in 2012 and -5.4 in 2013). The public debt was climbing before –
and has been doing so since – the launch of the austerity programme. Unemployment is
much higher than the EU average, with the difference increasing up to 2012, while the youth
unemployment rate is particularly more severe than the EU average. The poverty/social
exclusion rate became more differentiated from the EU average between 2009 and 2012.
Overall, a brief look at the main economic indicators in the case of Cyprus and other southern
European countries compared to the EU average (Table 4), confirms (i) an exceptionally
gloomy picture during the crisis years; and (ii) that in Cyprus economic trends did not worsen
until 2012, in contrast to the other southern European countries and Ireland where the
economy began deteriorating in 2009. Indeed, economic conditions worsened very abruptly
in Cyprus, as compared to the other southern European countries affected by the crisis (INEK
2013: 26). A primary reason has been that it was the “bubble” sectors – construction and
financial services – which largely account for the economic contraction (Christou et al. 2013).
The third factor (iii) confirmed is that the results of the austerity programme so far have been
far from encouraging, as evident in Table 4, both in Cyprus and beyond. Given the data, it
would be very difficult for the country to repay the debt and sustain the welfare state, face the
problems generated by unemployment on the social security budget and generate growth.
18
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Table 4 Basic Economic Indicators in Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain (2009–2013) (in %)
Growth (% of GDP)*
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Cyprus
-0.9
1.3
0.4
-2.4
-5.4
Greece
-3.1
-4.9
-7.1
-7.0
-3.9
Italy
-5.5
1.7
0.4
-2.4
-1.9
Portugal
-2.9
1.9
-1.3
-3.2
-1.4
Spain
-3.8
-0.2
0.1
-1.6
-1.2
EU 27
-4.3
2.1
1.6
-0.4
0.1
Cyprus
100
97
93
91
86
Greece
95
89
81
76
75
104
103
101
100
98
80
80
77
76
75
Spain
103
99
96
96
95
EU 27
100
100
100
100
100
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Cyprus
5.4
6.3
7.9
11.9
15.9
Greece
9.5
12.6
17.7
24.3
27.3
Italy
7.8
8.4
8.4
10.7
12.2
Portugal
10.6
12.0
12.9
15.9
16.5
Spain
18.0
20.1
21.7
25.0
26.1
EU 27
9.0
9.7
9.7
10.5
10.6
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Cyprus
23.5
24.6
24.6
27.1
-
Greece
27.6
27.7
31.0
34.6
-
Italy
24.7
24.5
28.2
29.9
28.4
Portugal
24.9
25.3
24.4
25.3
-
Spain
24.5
26.7
27.7
28.2
27.3
EU 27
23.2
23.7
24.3
24.8
-
GDP per capita
Italy
Portugal
Unemployment Rate
Poverty and social exclusion rate
source: Eurostat.
* Percentage change on previous year.
19
chApter 3:
POLITICAL CULTURE AND BEHAVIOUR:
DEFINITIONAL ISSUES
Political culture
Political culture is a deeply contested concept. This makes it difficult to assess how outside
developments like the crisis might impact it. Political scientists define political culture as an
underlying system of ‘patterns of ideas and values’ – widely shared beliefs concerning the
relationship of citizens to government and to one another. In other words, political culture
reflects aggregated attitudes about what government does and what it should do, and
prevailing opinions about how a polity is structured and how it should be structured. In
Kavanagh’s (1971: 10–11) words, one can break down these orientations into: ‘cognitions
(knowledge and awareness of the political system); affect (emotional disposition to the
system); and evaluation (judgment about the system)’. Similarly, Dawson and Prewitt (1969:
27) view political culture as the pattern of orientations that members of a political community
have towards politics’, with ‘orientations’ referring to ‘all the perceptions (cognitions, knowledge), affects (feelings and attitudes), and evaluations (values and norms) through which a
person relates himself to social objects’.
Traditionally, culturalists advocating these or similar analytical perspectives have employed
thin descriptions – that is, mass surveys of public opinion – to document continuities or
changes in political culture, either nationally or cross-nationally. Although, as Reisinger (1995:
329) argues, from this angle ‘political culture remains no more than a rubric under which
different authors focus on different individual orientations’, given that the political constitutes
a notion of institutional power and any forces, actors and behaviours that relate to it, as well
as any attitudes toward certain universal and/or country-specific political phenomena and
institutions, cannot remain unobserved and untested in any study of political culture. Given
that the underlying assumption is this equation of politics with government, we can identify
a number of factors that reflect how people relate to the political sphere. These include:
attitudes towards political institutions (essentially, parliament, parties, the national
government and politicians), satisfaction with the way democracy as a whole works in the
country, the psychological ties of citizens to political parties (party identification), political
interest and participation, and life satisfaction.
These factors also indicate a common underlying dimension – of democratic legitimacy
– that emphasizes three key components of democratic politics – participation, repre-
20
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
sentation and deliberation as fundamental aspects of liberal governance. But there are also,
of course, factors that are specific to given contexts. To take Cyprus as an example, attitudes
about the Cyprus problem (as the “national issue” driving political competition for decades),
corruption and clientelism (very salient topics in domestic discussions about ongoing
reforms) and the EU (as an issue of importance in terms of policy-making for the past decade
or so) can reveal the political cultural nuances of the cumulated historical experiences of
Cypriot citizens. Two questions are particularly important in relation to such indicators: if and
how the data for Cyprus conform to patterns elsewhere in Europe and especially countries
currently hit by the crisis, and whether there have been increases, drops or fluctuations
during the past few years.
The second definition of political culture looks beyond aggregate attitudes, and views
culture as a set of symbols (or rituals that embed those symbols) or norms, rather than a set
of attitudes (Geertz 1973; Elkins and Simeon 1979; Laitin and Wildavsky 1988). In Dittmer’s
(1983: 23) words, ‘[p]olitical culture is not just a haphazard collection of beliefs and values, but
a system in which the various parts must bear an integral relationship with one another’. Pye’s
(1965: 7) argument is similar: ‘The notion of political culture assumes that the attitudes,
sentiments and cognitions that inform and govern political behaviour in any society are not
just random congeries but represent coherent patterns which fit together and are mutually
reinforcing’. Political culture is broader than public opinion; it functions as a frame that
constrains political discourse and action. In this vein, political culture is a non-individualistic
phenomenon and, at the same time, one that transcends the aggregated responses of citizens
to politics. ‘Thick’ approaches to cultural analysis (Geertz 1973) are thus often judged as more
suitable to grasp the nuances that cannot be captured by opinion polling. If one is to
understand norms and symbols that exist at the collective level, but that are not traceable by
the aggregation of individual attitudes, then historical, anthropological or sociological frameworks of analysis are more appropriate.
Yet, these two definitions are not as disparate as they may initially seem. As Kavanagh
(1971: 11) suggests, ‘predispositions to political action are, first of all, determined by such
factors as traditions, historical memories, motives, norms, emotions and symbols’. Consider
that rituals, whether in society (such as weddings) or in the political sphere (such as, political
pageantry) can change or adapt when the agent involved in them moves to a different
conception of how politics or society work. From this angle, aggregate attitudes as measured
by mass surveys can invoke or even explain aspects of political culture in the ritualistic sense.
Similarly, norms underpin attitudes insofar as they affect how a person/society forms
opinions. Therefore, the study of attitudes can also point to the norms underpinning them. If
the responses of the populace to politics are formed by “enculturation”, then the patterns of
responses can provide insights to the process and driver of enculturation. Methodologically,
‘the challenge is to overcome the “individualist fallacy” – the fallacy of deriving conclusions
about a higher level of aggregation from data on individuals without a theoretical rationale
that links the two levels’ (Reisinger 1995: 339). Given the conceptual complexities of political
political culture and behaviour: definitional Issues
21
culture, Eatwell’s (1997: chapter 1) advice that any relevant study combines approaches and
methods seems reasonable. Both survey data and thick observation combined with
literature-based indications as to the norms and habitual aspects of social life, often traceable
on the basis of their historical accumulation, can be useful in the study of political culture.
At any rate, a dominant argument and one relating to temporality, as expressed by
Inglehart (1988: 1228), is that political cultures evolve quite slowly; in other words, cultural
attributes can not only sometimes have major political and economic consequences, but
they are also durable. But how durable are they? And what are the implications of this
durability for democratic governance? In spite of the various nuances that often shift the
debate on political culture towards this or that direction, a crucial theoretical question
remains: how are political attitudes formed and how can they change? According to Mishler
and Rose (2001), several elements of political culture evolve as a result of political or economic
events and developments, especially when these include new forms of social and political
conflict. For example, external shocks, such as economic crises, have been linked by scholars
and commentators to various phenomena. Yet, the debate on the impact of crises on political
culture – on either its thin or thick elements, or both – remains unsettled. Is there a dynamic
element of culture recreation that continues during the crisis?
Political behaviour
To understand the essence and the main components of political behaviour as a concept, one
must first consider the actors involved. These actors are, generally speaking, political elites (or
the ‘political stratum’ in Robert Dahl’s (1961) words), defined ‘as those who in any society rank
toward the top of the (presumably closely inter-correlated) dimensions of interest,
involvement, and influence in politics’ (Putnam 1971: 651). A first component of political
behaviour is the interaction between different types of political elites – essentially parties, but
also the government – in both institutional and non-institutional settings. Political
competition unfolds in two arenas: inside political institutions and in daily debates that
involve party representatives who may or may not be elected. Different democracies are
often characterized by different political behavioural tendencies that concern the patterns of
interaction within the confines of the party system. The study of electoral periods especially
can help one outline whether the nature of these confines is characterized by change or
continuity. Certainly, practices vary from party to party; these are, after all, highly diverse
organizations. However, it is also important to consider the general axes of competition, the
patterns of political conflict and the most common practices. How politicians work in politics
can provide information on what they think politics is about, how they think it works and how
they think it ought to work (Putnam 1971: 651).
But political behaviour is more broadly conceived here, to include not only elite-elite
interaction, but also elite-society interaction. This is necessary if one is to assess democratic
linkages between citizens on the one hand and the state on other hand (Lawson 1980). Since
22
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
parties in democracies function as bodies connecting the population at large to the political
process, their ties to organized social groups reflect the degree to which and the manner in
which citizens can have an (indirect) say on policy decisions. Thus the concept of linkage –
how parties link citizens and social groups to the state – is a pertinent tool for a comprehensive
understanding of Cypriot political behaviour. The mechanics of interest articulation and
aggregation, both important functions of political parties and by extension democratic
politics, cannot be assessed without reference to linkage processes. Since democracies differ,
among other things, on how (and how effectively) interests are articulated and aggregated,
and linkage processes condition both interest articulation and aggregation, then linkage
processes are observable facts that are pertinent for understanding exactly “how”.
The extent of linkage must be measured in a way that accounts for both the diversification of the party’s links with society and the extent of interconnectedness between the
two (Allern 2010). Put differently, we must look at both the types of social groups and the
types of links between the party and social groups. Regarding the latter, it has been argued
that the intensity of the party-group relationship is correlated to the resources that each side
can derive from the other and reflects the extent to which formative relations were the case
to start with (Allern et al. 2008). An organic (or semi-organic) relationship between the party
and other organizations, such as trade unions, may act as a catalyst for information sharing
and harmonious relations in exchange processes, whose absence ‘would otherwise bedevil
its [the party’s] attempts to coax help from that group’s leadership’ (Aylott 2002).
It is notable that the dominant perspective on linkage is a top-down one, asking how
parties respond to society and not the other way round. Yet, the grassroots reaction to parties’
institutional behaviour, as well as organized groups’ diachronic attitudes and approach
towards political elites more broadly, are not insignificant – if not in the political process as a
whole, then surely in circumscribing the stakes of political competition. Perhaps as a consequence of linkage studies being pursued mostly by political scientists (and more specifically
scholars working in the area of party politics), the focus has always been on parties; it is their
calculations, internal dynamics, cohesiveness, ideological clarity and strategic choices that
are primarily discussed in linkage studies. Party linkage studies, therefore, have focused on a
top-down view of linkage (Clark 2003), a trend which I try to avoid here. For linkages between
parties and social groups to form or break, both actors are necessary, although the latter may
be subordinate to the former or vice versa.
On another level, still concerning parties’ social roots, their internal functioning is
important. This level refers to party membership and more specifically the recruitment of
members and the intra-party competitive procedures that either give substantive decisionmaking power to the party base or concentrate more power in the leadership’s hands.
Changes can arise due to the leadership’s specific calculations rather than their (the leadership’s)
genuine desire to increase the decision-making input of members. According to the vast
majority of the literature on party organizational change, party leadership matters. Further,
political culture and behaviour: definitional Issues
23
according to Panebianco’s (1988: 191) classic study, party elites have the tendency and power
to satisfy their own interests by altering the status of members. Hopkins (2001: 4) argues that
the ways in which party leaders can influence candidate selection may render this process
less democratic and more strategic, that is, beneficial for the leadership itself, which may view
candidate selection reforms as a ‘weapon in internal battles’.
At the same time, party members will approach their leadership in a particular manner –
for example, asking directly and explicitly for favours, pushing for internal reform or trying to
undermine specific leaders. They will also either be active in party life or rather apathetic
despite their official status as members. If the latter is the case, then parties end up being
empty vessels controlled by a few individuals rather than vital organisms with internal dialectical processes reflecting social dynamics. In such situations, when elite pacts arise, they
become sustainable without substantive control from below that involves participation and
deliberation by all those directly or indirectly affected. Elite pacts represent an agreement
among elites to modify the rules of the game, typically in order to stabilize a situation whose
instability is damaging for all sides (Weingast 1997). Pact-making allows elites to become
‘consensually unified in regard to the basic procedures and norms by which politics will
henceforth be played’ (Burton, Gunther and Higley 1992: xi). These pacts entail compromise
by all those involved, and are likely to occur in institutional settings, which are designed by
the elites themselves. Laws on party funding are a characteristic example – parties often
design and redesign party funding laws in accordance with the common denominators of
their financial interests and social capital. At the level of possibilities, these processes can be
theoretically affected in various ways. They can open up deliberation, force parties to reach
out to society more intensively or simply push parties to reproduce their ways of doing things
in new areas of activity, such as philanthropy.
The relation between political culture and political behaviour
From a culturalist perspective, different patterns of behaviour among social collectivities and
political actors can essentially be attributed to historically embedded and path-dependent
practices that obtain the status of unwritten rules. Political behaviour is inextricably linked to
political culture because, as explained by Cohen (1985: 101), political culture is ‘created and
continually recreated through social interaction’. In specific countries, political competition
and communication between politics and society can be characterized by ways of doing
things that may be conditioned by the structural or institutional environment at one level,
but end up being habitual at another (see Eatwell 1997: chapter 1). Put differently, political
behaviour is a relational concept in the sense that it entails the attitudinal traits of individual
and collective actors that are involved in a series of relations concerning the political process.
As such, political behaviour involves both a psychological and a structural component, with
the former concerning all the ways in which the individual can regard politics and the latter
referring to structures and behaviours as products reflecting the political culture.
24
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Moreover, cultural changes may cause changes in political behaviour and vice versa.
Shifting attitudes towards the left or the right may alter the polarizing mechanics of the party
system. As Dalton and Weldon (2005: 931), put it, with reference to trust towards parties, ‘how
distrust of parties decreases voting turnout, contributes to the fragmentation of contemporary party systems and the electoral base of new protest parties, and stimulates broader
cynicism towards government… fewer citizens today trust political parties, and this is reshaping the nature of democratic politics’. If then, during the unfolding of a crisis, political actors
alter their traditional patterns of behaviour, then distrust towards parties, as well as other
attitudinal characteristics, may also change. Pateman (1971) advocated that cultures can be
“shaped” in one direction or another, because political elites possess the resources to change
public action. Similarly, if citizens become more apathetic towards political affairs or participate less in politics, parties may adjust their organizational mobilization strategies in order
to counterbalance the loss in membership and activism. Thus culture can also shape particular
patterns of behaviour. What is key, is whether behavioural changes are accompanied by
cultural ones. If change occurs at the level of party rhetoric, for example, without attitudinal
changes occurring as well, then one can argue that the political and social sphere are disconnected in at least one respect.
The mass media navigates the interactions between public attitudes towards politics,
broadly conceived, and political dynamics across the various layers of the political process.
Although parties lost most of their previously substantial control over political communication
due to private media, social media and the use of the internet, there remain connections
between the business interests of media owners and those of politicians. By and large, all
Western democracies have experienced a proliferation of private TV and radio channels and
online newspapers during the past few decades. Cyprus is no exception; but here as elsewhere,
the media, although private, can be easily identified with particular political spaces or parties
(Christophorou et al. 2012). In addition, there has been suspicion regarding the banks’ influence
over mass media and regarding the media and local financial interests (Panayiotou 2013). An
important point relating to the concept of political behaviour and culture is whether the
media transfers the messages of each side in such a way that it almost forces parties, citizens
or both to adapt their approach towards each other. It can be assumed, for example, that only
if the media challenges established practices and attitudes can these change.
Consequently, dominant or prevalent ideologies and discourses at given time periods are
pertinent to understanding any possible interrelations between political behaviour and
political culture. Ideology as a way of thinking about social life, with opinions about the past
and present, the ideal future and the way of getting from the former to the latter (Heywood
2007), is typically intertwined with cultural frames in a double sense. On one level, citizens
form opinions about politics and political leaders through the lens of the dominant social and
political discourse, which is by definition ideological. Political distrust or dissatisfaction, for
example, may be the product of convictions that politicians lack ideological drive and are
motivated solely by their desire to maximize electoral and financial utility.
political culture and behaviour: definitional Issues
25
To summarize the parameters to which the above point in examining the political culture
of crisis, the rest of the report will attempt to carefully navigate the thin-thick distinction in
terms of cultural analysis, investigate party processes and briefly examine the role of the
media in conveying the phenomena presenting themselves during the crisis years in Cyprus.
Before doing so, however, it is necessary to outline the main characteristics of political culture
and behaviour on the island up to the crisis years.
27
chApter 4:
POLITICAL CULTURE AND BEHAVIOUR
IN THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS:
SOME HISTORICAL CLARIFICATIONS
Is there a Cypriot political culture?
Can the existence of a distinctive and stable pattern of political attitudes in Cyprus be
confirmed? Similarly, can the existence of a particular or even sui generis “system” of political
behaviour be substantiated? To establish if and how political culture and behaviour in the
Republic of Cyprus has changed during the crisis, we must first describe their pre-crisis status.
In what concerns cultural characteristics, a bottom-up approach is recommended; therefore,
prior to defining a collectivity as a political culture (and examining afterwards whether their
members have anything in common), commonalities and patterns must first be established
(Chilton 1988: 428). What one can call Cypriot political culture and behaviour are the
outcomes of a particular historical path of political and social development, which is briefly
summarized here.
Cyprus has traditionally exhibited a Mediterranean or southern European political culture,
i.e., deeply rooted in particular and stable ways of life and characterized by traditionalism and
fatalism, elitism and charismatic leaderships and low participation (Mamadouth 1999). Like
the rest of southern Europe, in Cyprus there has been a traditional mode of production and
labour regime, a low degree of institutionalized societal pluralism, the persistence of extended
family networks, personal loyalties and clientelism, and a strong executive vis à vis the
legislature (Puhle 2001; Malefakis 1995). The impetus for modernization in the post-1974 era
came from above (i.e., political elite) and as explained in the previous chapter it regarded
primarily the economy. It was designed by elites, and especially the government, was often
supported by foreign money, and involved an extensive role for the state in planning
(Panagiotopoulos 1995). Civil society, in the realms that it existed, had little to do with the
process of modernization and was for the most part watching from the sidelines.
28
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
nationalism and the cyprus problem
Partly because of this, what modernization did not achieve was the significant dilution of
Greek irredentist nationalism that flowed to Cyprus in the course of the nineteenth century.
Its politicized forms are deeply entrenched in the sphere of public dialogue, the result of
various historical factors: resentment of British colonialism, signals of support from key political players in the Greek mainland, the British rejection of a negotiated transfer of authority to
Greece or an alternative compromise (Loizides 2007: 174). An ethnocentric and Greek orthodox
education system prevailed and the ethnarcic role of Makarios still has cultural after-effects
that translate into substantial trust in the Church, as well as its (the Church) constant involvement in politics. Beyond the central role of Makarios, however, the diachronic place of the
church in Cypriot public life, can also be ascribed to the fact that it was the only organized
institution for ages. The notion of citizen is overshadowed by reference to the common
interests of the community against outside and internal threats. This is partially the result of
nationalism’s development into a mass movement during the era of British Rule. More
specifically, as Kitromilides (1978: 25) argues, the ‘eventual political legacy’ of the British
regime, ‘amounted to the institutionalization of a dialectic of intolerance as the major characteristic of local political culture’. Inter-communal fragmentation was also circumscribed by the
1960 Constitution. With its emphasis on communal interests, the Constitution primarily
recognized membership ‘in the national’ (i.e., ethnic) team and not citizenship in the Republic
– of first and foremost importance is the political identity of the nationals of the state (Kitromilides 1981: 452–456).
After 1960, the enosis (Union with Greece) movement was no longer the anti-colonialist
movement it had been during British Rule. It was now something more unrealistic, since the
geopolitics around Cyprus and the interests of domestic economic elites rendered such a
resolution to the problem of ethnic divisions and conflict politically unprofitable. It was also
more ideologically extreme. But while the chief policy of Greek Cypriot elite nationalism
changed with the establishment of the Republic and disappeared by 1967, its deeper ideas
about what it signifies to be Greek and Turkish remained intact and was a regular topic of
political dialogue (Attalides 2003: 104–105). Soon the Greek Cypriot-run government was
officially pursuing the best feasible scenario under the circumstances, rather than their “ideal
scenario”, which was still enosis. Makarios’s foreign policy and domestic alliances contributed,
either willingly or without sense of the consequences, to the consolidation of nationalism on
the right and to the politicization of patriotism on the left (e.g., Attalides 2003: 107–110).
Nationalism was reinforced even further after the1974 war and the de facto partition of
the island. The dominance of Greek Cypriot nationalism over Cypriotism in both the social
and political sphere meant that what came to demarcate the Greek Cypriot community
further was the ethnicity of the inhabitants of Cyprus and not their Cypriot citizenship (Loizides
2007). But nationalism itself has been a debatable concept. Athens-centred nationalism that
was discredited with the coup gave rise to a Greek nationalism centred on the Republic of
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
29
Cyprus, as a (second) Greek state. Thus we passed from the view of the Republic of Cyprus as
enemy of the nation and a target to destroy to its emergence as a new element of Greek
nationalism. It was this form of nationalism that since the 1980s has represented the political
mainstream of the Greek Cypriot community (Mavratsas 1997).
Cyprus historiography is highly ideologized, as nationalists pursue ideological hegemony
through an ‘appropriation of the past’ (Mavratsas 1997: 731). A process of otherization is,
therefore, historically entrenched, unfolding in the spheres of rituals, symbols, education and
culture, and lying at the juncture of the diverse expressions of nationalism formulated by the
state, political parties, and individual social actors (Papadakis 1998). Not unsurprisingly,
pluralism and tolerance, as understood in an individual-centric way, were severely damaged
from the very beginning of democracy in Cyprus. A self-perpetuating emphasis on communal
rather than individual interests, goals and obligations inhibits the liberal ethic and creates
obstacles to civic understandings of civil and political rights (Mavratsas 1999).
This is not to suggest that Greek Cypriot nationalists are a homogeneous grouping. As
Faustmann (2008: 20) explains, ‘Greek Cypriot nationalism is not monolithic … [it] has different
and diverse carriers: extreme and moderate right (New Horizons/EVROKO, DISY and DIKO),
the socialist party EDEK, the Green party, an often very vocal and sophisticated group of
technocrats and intellectuals, and the traditional church hierarchy’. The overall intensity and
public rhetoric of intellectuals and politicians associated with nationalism, and even with the
extreme right, often act to legitimize an “assertive” foreign policy vis à vis Turkey in a pseudoscientific way, ranging from outright lies to historical narratives revolving around ethnic imaginaries. As in Greece, nationalists in Cyprus are a peculiar jumble of people who may disagree
on non-central and historical issues but as a group support a hard-line policy towards Turkey,
express distaste for a bi-zonal bi-communal federation (and often informal support for a
unitary state where the Turkish Cypriot are relegated to a minority without special political
rights), and show no willingness for bi-communal rapprochement.
Beyond the dominance of nationalist narratives and mentalities, one cannot ignore that
a certain unifying element of the Greek Cypriot community is the very process of contesting
issues revolving around national identity. Political culture is not only characterized by the
battle between nationalists and others but is also deeply influenced by the dynamics and
occurrence of the battle itself. As Papadakis explains:
what emerges as crucial, at both the social and political level for an understanding of nationalism in Cyprus is not simply the pervasiveness of general
values or ontologies, but the Cypriots’ very participation in a debate about what
constitutes the nation. This is the core of the debate on the Cyprus Problem,
which takes place through the construction of narratives that simultaneously
challenge and define relations of inclusion and exclusion, territoriality, and the
plots of pertinent historical adventures (Papadakis 1998: 162).
30
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
At the same time, the Cyprus problem has been primarily an elite affair; initially, in the
19th century, it was promoted by Church leaders. It is politicians who are considered able to
resolve the issue; it is party leaders who participate in the National Council; it is on the official
negotiations that society primarily focuses, vests its interests, and decides whether to be
optimistic or pessimistic about the prospects for a solution.
The Church exerts considerable influence in terms of both public opinion and internal
party dynamics but has no formal power. Overall, this is a clear reflection of the fact that most
aspects of social organization have been pervaded by politics: nationalism was an important
driver of over-politicization on the island (Mavratsas 2003: 121). At the level of social movements and popular inter-communal dialogue, Greek Cypriots have been hesitant to participate
and engage with peace activities. According to the CIVICUS survey of 2010, only a very small
percentage of the population has been engaged in bi-communal activity and inter-ethnic
engagement; in 2010 only 16% of the CIVICUS survey respondents said that they had
participated in bi-communal activity before 2004 (the year of the Annan Plan referendum)
and only 14% after that year (CIVICUS 2010). In a similar fashion, a survey taken in 2004, one
year after the opening of the checkpoints on the Green Line dividing the island and a few
weeks after the 2004 Annan Plan referendum, revealed that more than 40% of Greek Cypriots
had not crossed to the northern part of the island and 20% had visited only once. More
importantly, only a small percentage – less than 15% – continued to visit the other side
(Christophorou and Webster 2004). This is not surprising given the limited political initiatives
for systematic engagement with “the other side”.
With regard to the political establishment of the island, no party except AKEL (and to a
lesser extent the Green Party), and no type of actor apart from trade unions actively encourage
peace activism in relation to the Cyprus problem. Even AKEL hesitated when in government,
possibly for fear that societal initiatives might interfere with the official negotiations between
Turkish Cypriots and the Christofias government (2008–2013). Political parties, independent
of ideology, have been generally hostile or apathetic to the peace initiatives taken at the
grassroots level (Charalambous forthcoming). Since 2004, and on both sides of the island,
peace activism outside the political establishment has significantly increased. It has also transcended party lines, due in part to foreign funding. Yet the momentum has not been sustained
into the long-term. Subcultures arguing for peaceful coexistence and an immediate end to
the de facto partition may have been successful at getting their voice heard much more than
before, but nationalism remains deeply entrenched among the populace at large. A 1995
survey revealed that the majority of the Greek Cypriot respondents (71.6%) believed that ‘it
was important for education to be based on Christian Greek ideals’ (Intercollege 1995). Based
on the results of a more recent, large-scale survey, Lordos et al. (2009: 21) reported that ‘Greek
Cypriots in particular also appear to be maturing the potential for ethnic intolerance and
xenophobia (probably not only towards Turkish Cypriots but also towards immigrants of
other European countries), with only 8% of Greek Cypriots (as opposed to 37% Turkish
Cypriots) believing that ethnic diversity enriches life’.
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
31
Since the early 2000s, some media besides those affiliated with the left have taken a
more conciliatory stance on issues related to the inter-communal conflict, both in historical
and contemporary terms. Now all major newspapers have at least one regular columnist who
actively takes liberal and fully pro-federal (or bi-federal) positions on the Cyprus problem.
Nevertheless, today the media overall promotes – or at least favours – nationalism, and they
accomplish this in both direct and indirect ways. A prime example of communicating a
climate hostile to reunification was the media’s campaign against the Annan Plan in 2004
during the two months prior to the referendum (Taki 2009). Nationalist propaganda by the
media takes forms congenial to the securitization of conflict (Adamides 2012). Although the
mainstream TV channels and newspapers avoid aggressive expressions of nationalism, they
normalize it as an ideology by consistently reiterating an opinion on ‘how things must stay
forever’ (Avraamidou 2013).
Confirming the local media’s elite-driven coverage of the Cyprus problem, Christophorou
et al. (2012: 182) concluded their report on the media’s agenda-setting and framing of ethnic
issues by saying, ‘the “pictures” of mediated reality that reached the minds of the public were
largely constructed on the basis of the authorities’ or elites’ agendas’. Given that, as argued
earlier, nationalist discourse is dominant among political elites, the media largely reproduced
nationalistic frames and agendas with regard to a solution to the Cyprus problem. In Cyprus
internet usage is relatively below the EU average: most people read the mainstream newspapers and/or prefer television over the internet as a news source, and there is relatively
limited blogging (Cyprus University of Technology 2013, Demertzis et al. 2010). Thus,
alternative narratives on topics such as the nation, the other, reconciliation are generally
sidelined in Cypriot public discourse. In spite of what might be called milestones towards full
and uninhibited co-existence – the opening of the checkpoints in 2003 and the emergence
of foreign funding and groups promoting peace and inter-communal dialogue – processes
of otherization are manifold and extant in all areas.
the Annan plan and its ramifications
Retrospectively, perhaps the referendum of 2004 was the culmination of the process of the
intensification of efforts for a solution starting with the checkpoints openings and also the
main cause of significant shifts in public opinion. In 2004, after two years of official negotiations,
the fifth revision of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s proposed plan for a solution (the
Annan Plan V) was put to a referendum on both sides of the island. What can be termed as a
critical juncture in domestic Cyprus problem dynamics occurred (Collier and Collier 1991:
30–31). On the one hand, the Plan was supported by 65% of Turkish Cypriots and rejected by
76% of Greek Cypriots, leaving the island still divided. On the other hand, although the
problem itself was not solved, the foundations of the political rhetoric on the Cyprus problem
that had been sustained for decades were severely shaken. The EU decision in April 2003 to
remove the unification of Cyprus as a precondition to accession freed Greek Cypriot social
and political elites from the need to seek an agreement (Ioannou 2008).
32
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
All political parties except DISY rejected the Plan, as did the President of the Republic,
Tassos Papadopoulos, who shed tears on live television as he pleaded with the public to
respond with a “resounding no”. And so they did: the overwhelming majority of Greek Cypriots,
76%, voted no. This was a major step backwards for the reunification process, since the constitutional basis of the Annan Plan that was rejected – a bi-communal, bi-zonal solution – had
also been official state policy (at least in official party rhetoric across the political spectrum)
since the 1970s. All the hopes for a fair solution that had been fed to the public for the three
decades since the 1974 war dissolved into thin air. Although the final decision on the nature
of the solution was formally turned over to the Cypriots themselves, the political elites
(including AKEL) and the media constantly asserted that the future of Cyprus would continue
to be shaped by foreign interests (Taki 2009; Ioannou 2008; Trimikliniotis 2006).
It may be that people were promised a better and fairer solution after the rejection of the
Annan Plan, but both party and government behaviour were heavily criticized by European
circles to the extent that the country’s isolation from EU elites became the new hot issue
domestically (see Charalambous 2009; Verney 2009). The political parties and the elites continued to assert that solving the Cyprus problem was the main reason why Cyprus should
enter and stay in the EU (Charalambous 2013; Katsourides 2003). They cultivated hope for a
solution to the country’s most important and historic problem in relation to Cyprus’s membership in the European family that was determined to help the island vis à vis Turkey’s
expansionist and aggressive foreign policy. Since 2004, however, no one has been able to
present a real argument as to why they believed that to be so. Cypriot parties continued to be
Euro-enthusiastic although it was clear that the EU stance on the Cyprus problem diverged
from that of domestic political elites. As Mahoney (2001: 101) posited, at critical junctures,
‘once a particular option was [is] selected’, the subsequent developments made it ‘progressively
more difficult to return to the initial point when multiple alternatives were still available.’
While patterns of political cleavage have been identified for most of twentieth-century
western Europe (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Kriesi et al. 2006), Cyprus has clearly had an additional
and exceptional cleavage – that pertaining to the national issue. In fact, this has been the
main cleavage. Political strategies and discourse, voter behaviour and even political party –
civil society relations have all been largely determined by the attitudinal divisions inherent in
issues of national identity, ethnic cohabitation, policies to regulate aspects of bi-communalism
and – after the events of 1963, the coup and the war of 1974 – political reunification. Especially
after 1974, the left became identified as the most democratic and progressive force, a group
oriented towards a bi-communal patriotism, rapprochement and a constructive attitude
towards negotiations for a solution, whereas the right became most strongly associated with
nationalist elements, and more prone to racist attitudes and a rejectionist stance towards a
potential solution (Peristianis 2006; Christophorou 2006b; Chadjikyriakos and Christophorou
1996; Giallourides 1993).
The events of 2004 (the failed referendum) – similar to the events at the close of the 1950s
(decolonization, the glorification of the national liberation struggle, the persecutions of
leftists and the beginning of inter-communal violence – resulted in setting parameters for
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
33
permissible public discussion (Loizos 1974). Both left and right diverged from their traditional
behavioural patterns of pro-reconciliation attitudes and nationalism that their cleavageentrenched voters expected. AKEL, the traditional political endorser of reunification and the
main mobilizing force of bi-communal rapprochement, recommended a “soft no”, while DISY
called for a “yes” that eventually divided the party body and led to a splinter group leaving
the party and forming EVROKO (European Party) (see Trimikliniotis 2006). This ideologically
and historically unusual behaviour was probably a primary reason why the party stances
towards the Plan did not affect voter choices. In other words, political party affiliation played
no apparent role in voters’ acceptance/rejection of the Annan-structured solution (Webster
2005). The referendum of 2004 was a major landmark in Cyprus political history, one that
revealed a weakening of the political parties’ stronghold over the electorate.
In 2004, a new social division emerged: this was between the “yes“ and the “no” camps and
it transcended party lines; as such it has deeply affected social and political life on the island
(Faustmann 2008). Because of AKEL’s and DISY’s stances on the Annan Plan, this new division
cross-cut the main cleavage rather than reinforcing it, leading to a situation of realignment
and dealignment. People who considered themselves democrats and pro-solution advocates
found themselves on the “no” side of the new division, while those with family, social and
ideological roots in the nationalist camp found themselves on the “yes” side. This represents
an important shift, and perhaps highlights an even more important situation: if we consider
that citizens conceive a solution to the Cyprus problem in distinct ways, what it may indicate
is that optimism for any type of solution is declining, not simply optimism for the bi-communal
bi-zonal version of the solution.
beyond the cyprus problem
A note of caution is warranted, nevertheless. Against the background of EU accession,
increased immigration, and expansion of the service and higher education sectors, Cyprus
has been, for approximately a decade now, a society in transition. Since the 1990s and early
2000s, it has begun to exhibit features of multi-culturalism, non-conformist lifestyles, changing
consumption patterns, more tolerance of diversity and habits that break with tradition. There
are now naming ceremonies in lieu of baptisms, more divorces, higher (soft) drug consumption,
new music tastes, Cypriot-made YouTube videos satirizing the backward elements of the
island’s population, graffiti inspired by transnational social movements. People are no longer
as afraid to speak out in public about their sexuality. There are NGOs (Non-Governmental
Organizations) targeting the rights of homosexuals, immigrants, minorities and women;
others are focused on corruption, good governance, inequality and cultural mixing. The Office
of the Ombudsman, tasked with protecting citizens from violations, abuses or malpractice by
the state/state bureaucracy has gained authority and respect by the government, the House
of Representatives, as well as the media. These developments inaugurated a period of cultural
change, both in terms of the dilution of conservative norms and understandings of Cypriotness,
and in terms of the political response to these new habits and shifting social relations.
34
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Several traditional behaviours still persist of course. Clientelism, predominantly in the form
of party patronage, is the second most mentioned trait in political analyses of the island’s
contemporary history. Put comparatively, Sotiropoulos (2001: 200–202) makes a number of
points for the rest of southern Europe regarding public administration and the historical
development of bureaucratic structures that apply equally to Cyprus: political clientelism at
the top echelons of the bureaucracy; political clientelism from below; an uneven distribution
of personnel and other resources across the public sector; considerable perceived administrative inefficiency. Traditionally, the Republic of Cyprus has been seen as a rather corrupt
country compared to some of the other European Union member states, in terms of the
favouritism, clientelism and patronage practices that permeate the institutional setting, law
enforcement, state-controlled entities, public administration and political accountability (see
Krambia-Kapardis 2013; Assiotis and Krambia-Kapardis 2013; Faustmann 2010).
This diachronic feature of Cypriot public affairs is reflected to an extent in Cypriot public
opinion, that is, in the way and the extent to which citizens perceive the corruption around
them. Insofar as perceptions can be used as a proxy measure of the phenomenon itself, corruption has been traditionally perceived as relatively high in Cyprus. This is true in relation to
both the EU and the southern European average, and Greek Cypriots point to corruption as
one of the major problems on the island. Among the main causes of corruption, as identified
by the population at large, two stand out: ‘public administration appointments are not based
on merit’; ‘politicians are incapable or unwilling to do enough’ (Officer and Taki 2013). There
are indications that these trends have a longer history than that captured by the available
Eurobarometer data for Cyprus. Since the mid-1990s numerous local surveys have reported
Greek Cypriots’ negative perception of the society’s meritocracy. In a survey undertaken by
Intercollege in 1995, having connections was mentioned as the most important requirement
for progressing in Cypriot society, and meritocracy was seen as the most important problem
after the national issue (Intercollege 1995).
Throughout the 1980s and beyond, political and financial scandals have been a constant
in Cypriot public affairs. While there have been dozens of major scandals and hundreds of
minor ones, rarely has anyone been prosecuted or widely identified. In retrospect, it is the
state and its various branches, especially the public bureaucracy, that has promoted and
allowed clientelism under the guise of formal democracy. The small size of the island may
partially explain this phenomenon, as Greek Cypriots rarely react to or disclose information
publically about those implicated in scandals (Faustmann 2008), possibly due to the close
connections among such a large proportion of the population.
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
35
6
5.5
5
PerceivedCorruption
6.5
Figure 4 Perceived corruption in Cyprus 2003–2013 (A higher score implies less corruption)
2000
2005
2010
2015
Time
source: Kanol and Charalambous (2014).
note: The corruption index ranges from 0 to 10. The higher the score of a country, the lower the perception of corruption
level in that country.
Yet, as Figure 4 shows, perceived corruption in Cyprus appears to have been decreasing both
before and during the crisis, in contrast to the Eurobarometer data. The Corruption Perceptions
Index (created by Transparency International) is an aggregate of expert opinion. If we accept
that expert opinion must constitute a more informed and thus more accurate measure of
corruption, we must then conclude that if indeed corruption has been decreasing, its effects
and everyday echoes have not. Officer and Taki (2013: 48) are, of course, right to suggest that,
‘the data sources, from which the aggregated score is derived, come overwhelmingly from
organizations servicing international business interests, which may have placed greater weight
on aspects of this indicator which were more relevant to its clientele rather than the local
citizenry’. Still, these data signify that changes are occurring, – even if only within the confines
of the market – in parallel with the mentality shifts noted above.
At the same time, trust in political institutions has only recently begun to drop, paradoxically enough along with a belief that corruption has declined. Eurobarometer data revealed
trust in political institutions (the government, political parties and the national parliament) in
Cyprus to be comfortably higher than other candidate countries in 2003 (at 56%) and higher
than the EU average, which was as low as 27% (Eurobarometer Spring 2004). The World Values
Survey also showed a Cyprus level of political trust of approximately 2.6 (on a scale of four) in
2006 and satisfaction with democracy at 7.35 (on a scale of 10). What data exists regarding
political institutions in Cyprus, therefore, attests to generally high confidence in the workings
of Cypriot democracy, both substantively and comparatively.
36
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Party identification has also traditionally been very high in both substantive and comparative terms. The psychological ties between citizens and parties have characteristically
been strong, shown most clearly by the parties’ ability to mobilize their supporters during
election periods. One consequence of this is that Cyprus voter turnout has always been
especially high (see below). Second, the main surveys measuring party identification show
that until approximately 2004 Cyprus ranked among the most partisan societies in Europe.
Data from the European Social Survey report levels of approximately 80% (in 2004), while
data from the World Values Survey (in 2005) suggest that 80% of Greek Cypriots identified
closely with a party. Up to the mid-2000s, the Cyprus Barometer (conducted by RAI on behalf
of Laiki Bank) revealed that Greek Cypriots felt no particular concern over the political parties
in Cyprus. Between 1997 and 2006, when asked which institutions in Cyprus were in crisis,
citizens frequently pointed to the Church and the family (Cyprus Barometer 2005: 75). In
response to a similar question asking the most serious problems Cyprus faced after the
national issue, respondents rarely mentioned the political sphere. The most common answers
included drugs, inflation, unemployment, crime/violence, road accidents and foreign workers
(Cyprus Barometer 2005: 71). Thus it seems there was no real anti-party sentiment in the
1990s and early 2000s, and that there was high satisfaction with the democracy in Cyprus
(76% according to the Eurobarometers 2003, much higher than most other candidate countries
and the EU average of 58%). It is also indicative that local surveys and election polls rarely
dealt with these issues, revealing that the media itself (which commissions such surveys) had
not picked up on strong signals of political dissatisfaction.
civil society and participation
In Cyprus associational life is both actively promoted and widely appreciated within a particular
view of the role of both state and associations. In their importance in shaping party-group
relations, two features of Cypriot political culture stand out: the many civil society organizations (CSOs) on the one hand, and their limited autonomous politicization on the other
hand. Greek Cypriots are enthusiastic supporters of associational life, but the organizations
that truly intervene in the relationship between citizen and state are few and strongly affiliated
to parties. There is, broadly speaking, a widespread lack of interest in trying to achieve political
transformation through direct action. Although hundreds of CSOs are registered with the
Associations Commissioner (including village youth centres, local community groups, choirs,
cultural clubs, environmentalist groups, refugee/displaced persons associations [post-1974],
groups of people with disabilities or specific medical conditions, arts and cultural associations),
few are active in terms of disseminating political messages across society. The extent to which
citizens secure institutional leverage depends on CSOs’ nature and membership, which in
turn determines their relation to the state (Taki and Officer 2008). In this vein, the term “atrophic
civil society”, which may be taken to imply the absence of strong intermediary bodies between
the state and the market, is often misused. A dominant argument in the relevant literature is
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
37
that civil society is characterized by a limited absorption of the liberal public ethic and is thus
underdeveloped (Mavratsas 2003). As in Greece, in Cyprus this is often attributed to its suffocation under ‘the tutelage of a domineering state and corporatist politics’ (Mouzelis and
Pagoulatos 2002: 6). However, it is not the actual existence of CSOs that lags behind but their
involvement in the policy-making process, ‘which is constricted, piecemeal and sporadic...
CSOs are not afforded significant enough legitimacy to become effective social partners in
the practice of governance’ (Taki and Officer 2008: 218). In accord with this analysis, the OECD
Sustainable Governance project gives Cyprus a score of 5 (on a scale of 10) in terms of associational consultation, reporting that ‘consultation takes place only when the government feels
the need to do so, not in any systematic way’.
Although there has been a second wave of non-partisan activity within civil society since
the 1990s (Katsourides 2013: 12), the most popular types of social organizations in Cyprus
continue to be professional associations, trade unions and sports associations – mainly
football clubs (CIVICUS 2011: 34). Where there have emerged new forms of civil activity that
represent new, alternative or subversive positions, they articulate definite issues but do not
propose programmes of social development. Importantly, and largely because of AKEL’s
continued dominance (in terms of number of supporters), in Cyprus neither society as a whole
nor the left in particular rejected private or public bureaucracies’ power to regulate individual
and collective conduct. This is in contrast to most of western Europe, where the new leftlibertarian parties emerging from social movements became concerned with anti-traditionalist and decentralized forms of social organization, bringing libertarianism to the surface
(see Kitschelt 1988). The lack of political initiative within civil society often signals a lack of
momentum for social or political activity across sectorial interests. Mobilization takes place
largely at a sectorial level with very limited horizontal cooperation or collective action. This
may go some way towards explaining ‘how a large part of associational activity on the island
is first and foremost about defending the interest of its members, which tends to subordinate
the promotion of what can be called the general good’ (Officer and Taki 2013: 66). Rarely do
civil society associations hold joint events, make common appeals or begin common (political
or other) initiatives.
Overall, in Cyprus the culture of a noteworthy associational life does not involve substantial
political participation. From a comparative southern European perspective, Greek Cypriots
showed very limited political participation from 2006–2010 apart from contact with a
politician or government officials (see Figure 5), and this is what most distinguishes Cyprus
from the other southern European countries. Since Cypriot society has been over-politicized
and public opinion relatively positive about the way politics works, it is not surprising that
political participation in Cyprus has been relatively high in this regard.
A generalized lack of political engagement via avenues other than contact with politicians
has not negatively influenced parties’ ability to mobilize voters and instil in them a strong
identity; indeed, it may have achieved the exact opposite. Voter turnout in Cyprus has been
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
38
traditionally very high. Although voting in Cyprus is compulsory, the enforcement of this law
is not strictly upheld. Therefore, the high levels of voter turnout can be best understood as a
function of party identification, which as we have already seen, has also been very strong in
Cyprus, compared to the rest of Europe (Kanol 2013). It was not until the 2011 parliamentary
election and the 2013 presidential election that relatively low levels of voter turnout were
recorded. Before then, low rates of electoral abstention did not provide a reason for debates
on democratic legitimacy, especially given that in many other (old or new) European Union
member-states very low figures were recorded from time to time. As Table 5 reveals, turnout
has been high throughout the 30 years of the Republic following the stabilization of the party
system in the late 1970s. There has also been a very low percentage of invalid votes, ranging
between 3-6% (with the exception of the 1996 legislative elections), which is often interpreted
as a sign of electoral protest behaviour, a mark of dissatisfaction with established parties.
$
Figure 5 Political participation in southern EU member countries
Spain (2002-2010)
B
Boycotted
oycotted certain
certain products
productts in last 12
mon
months
ths
Taken
T
aken par
partt in public la
lawful
wful demonstration
demonstration
twelve mon
ths
last twelve
months
Portugal
P
ortugal (2002-2010)
Signed petition last 12 mon
ths
Signed
months
Worn or displa
yed campaig
n badge sticker
Worn
displayed
campaign
months
last 12 months
Worked
organization
ganization or
Worked in another or
association
months
ths
association last 12 mon
Greece
Gr
eece (2002-2010)
Worked in political par
Worked
party
ty or ac
action
tion
t
group
group
months
last 12 months
C
ontacted politician or government
government o
fficial
Contacted
official
last 12 mon
ths
months
Cyprus
C
yprus (2006- 2010)
0
5
10
15
20
source: European Social Survey (ESS). Data for Italy is unavailable.
25
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
39
Table 5 Abstention rate and invalid votes in Cyprus (1970–2014)
1970/1970
1976/1975 1983/1981 1988/1985 1993/1991 1998/1996 2003/2001/ 2008/2006/ 2013/2011/
2004/
2009/
2014/
Presidential elections
Abstention rate (%) Not available Not available
4.98
5.76
7.58
8.28
9.45
10.38
16.86
Invalid votes (%)
1.13
2.37
2.33
2.18
2.75
1.69
1.73
Not available Not available
Legislative elections
Abstention rate (%)
Invalid votes (%)
24.15
14.71
4.25
5.38
5.69
9.87
8.25
11.0
21.30
2.20
1.50
1.60
2.60
3.50
11
4.20
5.60
2.08
European elections
Abstention rate (%)
-
-
-
-
-
-
27.50
40.60
56.03
Invalid votes (%)
-
-
-
-
-
-
4.60
1.97
1.91
source: Cyprus Ministry of Interior.
Another indicator of over-politicization lies in party membership. This has not only been quite
high in comparative south European terms, but has also been increasing throughout the three
decades following the stabilization of the party system. As reported in Table 6, the Cypriot
trend, largely because of DISY’s massive growth and AKEL’s firm stability, exhibited an
impressive membership growth of 28.4% in the decade between the mid-1990s and the
beginning of the new millennium. The trend is similar in Spain but in all other countries it
ranges from growth at half the Cypriot level (Greece) to massive decline (Portugal). A closer
look reveals that by 2005 the two main Cypriot parties retained as high a ratio as 9.9 members
to the electorate (M/E, or rate of organization), despite the fact that in real numbers voters
increased. Once more, the trend is very different from most other southern European countries,
except Greece where the M/E ratio was 6.1% in 2005. Membership density levels as well (M/V
or the ratio of a party’s membership to its own voters) signal that the two main Cypriot parties
continue to be more able than their south European counterparts to convert voters into
members. This difference between Cyprus on the one hand, and Greece, Italy, Portugal and
Spain on the other, existed in the past as well (Bosco and Morlino 2006: 332) but it has grown
since the 1990s. Political parties control access to appointments and other goods to the extent
that they create social pressure and/or incentives for citizens to join them. The institutionalization of elections at the local level, since the late 1980s, meant that those aspiring for one
of the more than 2500 elective offices have more chances if they are members of a party. This
means that since then 10–16,000 candidates for local elections should essentially come under
a party umbrella.
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
40
Table 6 Party membership in southern Europe (two main parties)
Membership
(1976)
Membership
Membership
(2005) % change (1996-2005)
Membership
M/E (2005)
M/V
(2005)
Cyprus
24,958
38,515
+28.4
9.9
19.1
Greece
47,000
539,070
+11.3
6.1
9.4
2,889,516
732,466
-8.8
1.6
4.5
116,573
190,949
-27.3
2.2
4.5
75,860
1,127,073
+23.6
3.2
5.4
Italy
Portugal
Spain
source: Bosco and Morlino (2006).
Relatively superficial participation, however, is evident in party life as well. Beyond the core
nucleus of activists and the few dozen party or ancillary organization employees, party
members are generally not very active, especially in the right and centre parties (Protopapas
forthcoming). Even AKEL reports problems of fatigue, individualistic behaviour and inactive
membership (Christophorou 2006). Parties may not be empty vessels, but the fact that they
have been reporting problems with member participation may mean that they have more
incentive to rely on the state and to professionalize their campaigns; in fact, both have been
evident for some time in Cyprus. Cypriot political participation tends to be party centred, but
at the same time it involves mostly superficial involvement.
Limited and generally conventional participation makes it easier for consensus to be
achieved. Consensual politics (discussed later, see next part of this chapter) are reflected in
both social relations and political participation patterns. Cyprus has been a quiet country in
terms of contentious acts and politics: as shown in Table 7, it is far behind the average of the
other southern European countries in terms of riots and anti-government demonstrations.
Inculcated with an understanding of protest as largely unnecessary and much less effective
than the institutional avenues of the political process, Greek Cypriots have for the most part
avoided confronting the police in the street, launching attacks on politicians and institutions,
questioning the legitimacy of the island’s political structures and being spontaneous. We may
find a partial response in Officer and Taki’s argument that:
A distinctive characteristic of Cypriot society is the time and energy devoted to
cultivating contacts and activating networks through which resources can be
accessed or a desired outcome achieved. Family and friendship networks serve
as important mechanisms through which this is done, and it is through the
extended family in particular that information can be shared, access to a service
or a resource secured or an introduction is made to another linked network.
Family and friendship networks are often used to gain access to an individual
working in a government department or another public service provider who
might be able to provide information otherwise not easily available (Officer and
Taki 2013: 65).
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
41
Table 7 Riots and anti-government demonstrations in Cyprus and the rest of southern Europe
Year
Riots
(Cyprus)
Anti-Government
Demonstrations
(Cyprus)
1983
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
3
4
0
1984
0
0
1
0
2
1
0
1
1
0
1985
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
1986
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
5
0
1987
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
0
0
1988
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
1989
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1990
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
3
1
0
1991
0
0
2
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1992
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
1
0
1993
0
0
0
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
1994
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
1995
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
1
0
1996
1
1
0
0
0
0
1
0
2
0
1997
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1998
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1999
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
2000
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2001
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
1
2
0
2002
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
0
2003
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
0
2004
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
2
0
2005
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2006
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
2007
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
2008
0
0
3
0
0
0
3
1
0
0
2009
0
0
1
1
0
0
1
0
0
0
2010
0
0
1
1
0
0
4
1
0
0
2011
0
1
6
1
1
0
21
4
7
1
2012
0
0
9
2
8
0
8
3
19
4
4
Riots
(Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal)
Anti-Government
Demonstrations
(Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal)
2013
0
4
5
7
0
19
9
12
Total
1
6
29 11
22
1
62
28
63 12
Total
(2009-2013)
0
4
22
16
0
53
17
38 11
source: Data Banks International.
9
6
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
42
Within this context, the prevalence of the family as one of the central institutions of social,
economic and cultural reproduction is especially important. If Cypriot citizens are widely
networked and connected to others and can be easily identified by their family name, then
people’s incentives for street protest can be significantly reduced.
The limited extent of social contention also echoes the ideological beliefs of most Greek
Cypriots. As Figures 6 and 7 show, Cyprus is a society of ideologically centrist individuals; most
people consistently place themselves close to the centre of the traditional left-right spectrum.
Since in Cyprus this spectrum reflects both socio-economic beliefs and the national question,
it can be assumed that on both these fronts the average Cypriot is moderate.
Figure 6 Left-right self-placement in Cyprus (mean values)
5,22
5,2
5,18
5,16
5,14
5,12
5,1
5,08
5,06
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
ement (scale 0-10)
LLeft-right
efft-right plac
placement
source: European Social Survey.
$
Figure 7 Left-right self-placement in Cyprus 2006–2010 (percentages per point on the scale)
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
Left-right
Left-right self-placement
self-placement (0-10)
0
1
2
3
4
source: European Social Survey (cumulative data set).
5
6
7
8
9
10
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
Trends on other ideological questions, such as immigration, homosexuality, extremism
and income redistribution are, as shown in Figure 8, also indicative of the prevalence of
moderate views in Cypriot society and politics (with the partial exception of the question on
income distribution, where a score of 2 or lower indicates a mainly egalitarian stance among
the wider public). We will revisit the fluctuations in these trends in the following chapter of
the report, but one cannot help but notice that attitudes toward immigration became slightly
more conservative much earlier than the onset of the economic crisis. Overall, however, these
general observations paint the picture of a society that is moderate in ideological terms and
this is something that may feed into, or accept consensual behaviour.
Figure 8 Attitudes on income redistribution and post-materialist values
5
G
overnment should reduce
reduce differences
differences
Government
in inc
ome levels
levels (scale 1-5)
income
4,5
4
Immigrants make ccountry
ountry worse
worse or
Immigrants
better place
place to
to live
live (scale 0-10)
better
3,5
Mean values
values
$
43
3
County's cultur
al life
life undermined
undermined or
County's
cultural
enriched by
by immigrants
immigrants (scale 0-10)
enriched
2,5
Gays
Gays and lesbians free
free tto
o live
live as they
wish (scale 1-5)
2
1,5
Important
Important to
to ffollow
ollow customs
customs and
tr
aditions (scale 1-6)
traditions
1
0,5
0
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Important to
to car
Important
care
e about the
en
vironment (scale 1-6)
environment
Year
Y
ear
source: European Social Survey.
Political behaviour in Cyprus: Political elites and institutions
Cypriot democracy was established when the island gained independence from Great Britain
in 1960. Yet the political system, the political process and party dynamics did not become
stabilized to reflect a Cypriot pattern of political behaviour until after the tragic events of 1974
and the de facto partition of the island. Before then, the party system was fluid, partisanship
was overshadowed by extra-institutional networks and the executive was in effective control
of the legislature (Christophorou 2008, 2006). Since that time the country has followed a style
of democratic governance similar to that found elsewhere in western Europe. The nuances
and the exact political flavour of democracy in Cyprus have been contingent upon its socioeconomic conditions, as well as its entrenched state structures and policy practices (see
Schmitter and Karl 1991: 247). Importantly, the lack of a culture of individualism helped
44
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
cultivate the development of strong ideological cleavages, which in turn undermined the
Cypriot community spirit, turning it into various sub-groups characterized by specific ideological beliefs and party allegiances.
the cleavage politics on the island
The two main cleavages that crisscross politics on the island – the Cyprus problem and socioeconomic issues – have their origins in the social dynamics of the 1940s and the 1950s when
first the left and then the right crystallized politically. The first axis is radical versus conservative
as regards the socio-economic order. Class has been important as a social cleavage in Cyprus,
especially since the 19th century (Peristianis 2006; Katsiaounis 1996; Panayiotou 1999); the
establishment in 1926 of the KKK (Cypriot Communist Party) and in 1940 its successor AKEL,
gave a voice to the lower societal strata against the colonial authorities, the Church and the
mainly nationalist forces of the disorganized right, which in response to the left’s emerging
organizational forcefulness orchestrated its first political initiatives soon thereafter (Protopapas
2013, 2006). The second axis regards the Cyprus problem and encompasses a long history of
attitudes on ethnic matters, revolving around the issues of enosis (unification with Greece),
relations with the Turkish Cypriots and – after the troubles of 1963 – rapprochement with the
Turkish Cypriots.
The post-Makarios (or post-1974) era transformed the configuration of the party system
by consolidating four parties in both society and the political sphere. In the 1970s, the untilthen fragmented right gathered around the personality of Glafkos Clerides, who founded
DISY, a party hosting both Cypriotists and Hellenicists, liberals and former Junta supporters.
At around the same time, DIKO was formed in order to carry forward Makarios’s legacy.
Nationalist and influenced by the Church, DIKO can be seen as the main party of the in-between
space. AKEL has adopted the communist label and formally espouses Marxism-Leninism, but
is rather reformist and consensus seeking, especially since 1990 when the party underwent
an ideological and political reorientation. The fourth main party, EDEK, was established in
1969 initially as a radical leftist party drawing inspiration from third world socialism; the party
gradually moderated its stance but retained a nationalist orientation, thus occupying a centrist
position in the party system only in terms of one of the two cleavages; the socio-economic
cleavage. Across the cleavage structure, EDEK has been an amalgam of right/nationalist,
leftist and third world socialist outlooks.
The two main poles – the left-wing AKEL and the right-wing DISY – differ sharply in terms
of their programmatic positions on socio-economic matters (Bosco and Morlino 2006), but
paradoxically share a number of characteristics in what concerns the Cyprus problem; indeed,
these characteristics are enough to render them concessionist [ενδοτικούς], in contrast to the
explicitly rejectionist3 parties of the centre. DIKO’s place in the system, however, blurs the
3
The term rejectionist is used in a historical sense; it here denotes those parties that have traditionally voiced only
problems and a negative attitude towards the negotiated prospects of reunification.
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
45
distinction between the two poles. As it is a pivotal actor in the sense that it garners enough
of its own votes to turn a majority into a minority both inside parliament and, in the second
round of the presidential election, inside the executive, it attracts policy compromises from
both the left and the right, depending on the specific circumstances.
Like all pivot parties, DIKO is devoid of any real ideology, in their case, lacking a truly centrist
content. Alongside clientelistic practice, the division of the party into a left and a right wing,
and party membership changing according to circumstances, DIKO’s ideological nucleus is
nationalism. In an otherwise deeply fragmented party body, a rejectionist stance on the Cyprus
problem has been the only policy on which the entire party agrees. Depending on internal
dynamics that favour one of the two camps, and most importantly driven by the aim of sharing in the
government (despite its lack of a solid ideological orientation), DIKO tilts either towards AKEL
or DISY. Every time it enters government or forms a government with the support of another
party, its main demand (beyond what the party conceives as its fair share in government ministries) is a “strict” policy on the Cyprus problem. The fact that this demand is readily accepted
by its potential partners only for DIKO to leave the government or kick its partners out shortly
after because it felt this demand was not respected, is ample proof of the corporatist mentality
that prevails in Cypriot electoral politics, whereby the spoils of power constitute the main
negotiating axis between coalition partners during the phase of government formation.
Post-materialist issues have traditionally played a negligible role in the domestic agenda.
The promotion of environmental issues by Friends of Akamas and about twenty professional
environmental and other associations between 1985–1990 led parties to develop positions
on the environment, but overall, the parties rarely form a coherent policy or take a firm stance
on issues apart from the Cyprus problem. Other important issues that are regularly ignored
include participatory democracy, homosexual rights, women’s rights, and even immigration,
which due to the large inflow of immigrants throughout the past twenty years has become a
relatively salient topic in public opinion and government-opposition dynamics.
The pattern of national elections is incredibly stable in Cyprus (see Table 8), as electoral
divides anchor party preferences in similar ways across the years. Volatility remains much
lower than in most other EU countries (see Morlino and Piana 2013: 18); in fact, only Malta
reveals a similar stability (Dassonneville and Hooghe 2011; Caramani 2004). A relatively high
cohesion (consolidation vote),4 especially in what concerns the two main parties, produces a
rather stable party system that did not essentially change even with the emergence of a new
party, the Greens, in 1996. The indicators of ENPP (Effective Number of Electoral Parties) and
ENEP (Effective Number of Parliamentary Parties), which measure party fragmentation as
indicated by the number of parties in the system weighted by their relative size, have not
changed significantly. The effective number of parliamentary parties has exhibited exceptional
4
The terms cohesion and consolidation vote are used here interchangeably to denote the number of party voters who
return to their party in the next election.
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
46
continuity since 1981, although since 2001, five years after the change in the electoral system,
it has risen by 0.6 to a more proportional formula. It nevertheless returned to 3.9 by 2011.
Similarly the effective number of electoral parties rose by 0.4 after 2001 only to recede to 3.6
in 2011. The vote share of the two largest parties (AKEL and DISY) has also remained stable
throughout the years, between 60% and 69%, signifying a high degree of bi-partism, which
itself has fed into bi-polar political competition. The consistent bipolarity of the electoral
body has been confirmed by numerous exit polls; very few voters move from the left (AKEL)
to the right (DISY) or vice versa.
In order to indicate the programmatic divergence between the main parties (party
polarization) relative to numerical significance, we measure the relative position of each party
along the left–right scale and each party’s position weighted by party size (because a large
party at the extreme would signify greater polarization than a splinter party in the same
position). Polarization has not really evolved since 1981, meaning that most parties have not
changed their stance on left-right issues; they have more or less stayed true to their initial
ideological points on the Cypriot political spectrum (see Table 8). Although there are no
restrictive barriers to forming a party (such as strict requirements for membership or financial
deposits), it remains exceptionally difficult to sustain a party organization in the medium
term, especially one that might challenge the hegemony of the two main actors of the party
system. Polarization, inter alia, may account convincingly for this, as it generates a socio-cultural
bi-polarity that is difficult to break within a short span of time and without external shocks to
the system of interest aggregation.
Table 8 Characteristics of the Cypriot party system
1976
1981
1986
1991
1996
2001
2005
2011
ENPP*
1.7
3.9
3.6
3.7
3.8
3.8
4.4
3.9
ENEP**
2.3
3.4
3.6
3.5
3.5
3.6
3.9
3.6
Polarisation^
0.37
0.64
0.61
0.64
0.67
0.70
0.62
0.64
Bi-partism^^
-
64.7%
61%
66.4%
67.5%
68.7%
61.4%
67%
source: http://parlgov.org/stable/data/cyp/election-parliament.html
* Effective number of parliamentary parties.
** Effective number of electoral parties.
^ The polarization index used is that calculated by Dalton (2008) – it includes the elements of: (a) the relative
position of each party along the Left–Right scale and (b) the party’s position weighted by party size (‘because a
large party at the extreme would signify greater polarization than a splinter party in the same position’) (Dalton
2008: 906).
^^ AKEL and DISY (vote %).
Effective number of electoral (ENEP) and parliamentary (ENPP) parties are calculated using the formula proposed
by Laakso and Taagepera (1979: 3–27).
- Elections prior to 1981 were held under a majoritarian electoral system that encouraged coalition building, thereby
making comparison invalid.
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
47
Reflecting the absence of contentious acts in society, consensus politics prevail in the
processes of deciding on policy (see Charalambous 2008: conclusion) and forming government (see Christophorou 2008: 97; Faustmann 2008: 27–28). Even the lack of programmatic
and political convergence is unlikely to affect the stability of the executive, determine its
survival or deprive the president of his own personal mark (Christophorou 2008: 95; Ker-Lindsay
2006). Party membership is very high in comparative terms (see Table 6), and voting patterns
predominantly reflect partisan identity, as parties have traditionally maintained an ability to
penetrate their own electorate organizationally. These various observations of Cypriot politics,
have been succinctly summarized by Mavratsas (2003) as a culture of ‘clientelistic corporatism’.
parties, society and the state
The major parties have links to their constituents that are both programmatic and clientelistic.5
When Faustmann (2010) discusses rousfeti (a Cypriot term loosely translated as clientelism),
he is talking about party patronage practices that arose from party cartelization, that is, party
colonization of the state. Today, however, and since 1974, party patronage has been enjoyed
by all main political parties, rather than being the luxury of those in executive power (Mavratsas
2003). All four main parties, therefore, share the spoils of an expansive state, in turn distributing
them to their supporters or potential supporters. Thereby, party supporters can also be seen
as clients, who invest much more than simply ideological affiliation in their relation with the
political sphere.
The ways in which different Cypriot parties relate to their rank-and-file organizations
exhibit considerable similarities that seem to cross-cut ideological lines: i) party processes of
intra-party debate and decision-making are reasonably controllable; ii) parties have developed quite efficient mechanisms to control the electoral behaviour of their members and
supporters. Local party organizations can often ascertain who is voting for whom by examining
member participation in various activities, and through their regular contacts via labour unions,
party and labour union membership lists, and so on.
The establishment of the Cypriot state in 1960 opened a new political space for interest
group activity. Yet civil society action is more or less circumscribed by the political parties.
There emerges a tradition of preference for centralized control of policymaking, which has
meant control by party leaders in most, if not all, aspects of social and party life. An intergenerational transmission of elitist behaviour began in the 1960s and 1970s, when politicians
began to negotiate policy outside normal parliamentary structures and opted to bypass institutions – effectively curtailing democratic governance. Indeed, Cyprus fits the central eastern
European pattern where ‘elites have adopted a “hegemonistic party system” in which a small
number of “cartel” parties prefer to share resources and power at the expense of smaller
parties, interest groups, and other social formations’ (Agh 1998: 12, 109).
5
A party-constituent linkage refers to the sort of “goods” that the party offers in exchange for political support and
participation in party activities.
48
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Table 9 Organizational links between parties and CSOs (ancillary organizations excluded)
Type of link
Existence
If yes, what kind
If yes, when did it start?
Permanent joint committee
No
-
-
Temporary joint policy
committees
No
-
-
Joint conferences
No
-
-
Written or tacit agreements
about regular meetings
No
-
-
Invitation to the
party congress
Yes
Mostly the large syndicalist and
entrepreneurial organizations
Since beginning of these
organizations
Invitations to party meetings,
seminars and conferences
Yes
Invitations to party-organized
seminars (AKEL)
Appr. 1990
Specific dialogue seminars
and hearings for the purpose
of manifesto drafting
Uncertain
Uncertain for DISY
Not available
Meetings outside party bodies
Yes
Mainly between CSOs and
party offices’ representatives
Since beginning of party
source: Table format from Allern (2010); data derived from the interviews (see appendix).
The hegemonic role played by the main parties is confirmed in terms of the bonds parties form
with civil society. Based on interviews with officials of the four main parties, Table 9 illustrates
the forms of contact between Cypriot political parties and CSOs. These appear to be noninstitutionalized to the degree that an established and organizationally embedded pattern of
contact does not exist. Rather, contact materializes ad hoc. Effectively it takes two forms:
meetings between members of the leadership (who are responsible for the party office under
which the organization’s issues fall) and the leading members of the organization’s partycentred group; invitations to party seminars. Corporatism is evident in two ways. First, social
groups have few ways to influence parties. Second, those invited to party congresses are few
and select, essentially the “big guns” of social politics. The nature of party-CSO relationships
remains primarily top-down, whereby very limited influence can be channelled into the party
by forces that lie outside its institutional confines. This may be less so in the case of DISY,
which is more traditionally open to influence from civil society and does not have as firm a
grip on its ideologically connected trade union SEK (Confederation of Working People, Cyprus)
as AKEL has on PEO (Pancyprian Workers’ Federation) (Katsourides 2013; Charalambous and
Christophorou 2013).
political culture and behaviour in the republic of cyprus: some historical clarifications
49
But both main parties are very well connected to organized interests. They have mass or
mass-like ancillary organizations – women’s, youth, farmers, new scientists and (in the case
of AKEL) trade unions – and links to companies, both small and medium enterprises and
larger firms. Due to the extensive social capital of parties, the left-right cleavage extends to
the spheres of production, consumption, as well as music and the arts (Peristianis 2006;
Charalambous and Christophorou). Although the process of globalization, among other
things, has meant that the younger generations have been incrementally less affected by the
widespread societal penetration of political labels and identities, the habits of middle aged
and older citizens are still circumscribed by the left-right cleavage.
More broadly, what can be called “partitocracy” is premised on solid foundations. All major
parties are active in most regions of the country; all major parties that aim for national-level
office have permanent local party branches; and all parties have established permanent
headquarters/organizations, connoting a substantial number of personnel who are responsible
for carrying out party activities outside of the election season. These arrangements give the
parties a strong organizational capacity, which is further increased by their relation to the state.
The funding regime in Cyprus has always been favourable to established parliamentary
parties because of generous state subventions and a lack of transparency. Parties receive
state subsidies in three ways: directly from the state, directly from semi-governmental organizations (such as the telecommunications or the electricity authority, whose board members
represent all parties), and indirectly by forcing some or all of their MPs to contribute part of
their parliamentary salary to the party. As in many other western democracies, the soaring
costs of political campaigning, largely a result of the growing professionalization of electioneering, have raised party dependence on so-called political money (Table 10). Until 2012,
however, parties were not required to declare the budgets and funding of their ancillary
organizations; moreover, it has not been necessary to declare non-monetary funding – nor is
it now. For decades, there was no independent electoral commission responsible for oversight
of parties’ accounts, while campaign expenses have not been disclosed to the wider public at
regular intervals. Today, party accounts must be deposited to the administration and checked
by the Accountant General but thorough control is not envisaged by the law. In retrospect,
the encroachment of the state by all four main parties may be thought to have a consolidating effect on consensus politics. If all major parties have deep and complex connections
to the state, then they share common strategic considerations and interests in what concerns
how the state regulates party organization.
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
50
Table 10 Funding of Cypriot political parties (total)
Year
Amount (Cyprus pounds*)
1998
650,000
1999
650,000
2000
650,000
2001
2,044,522
2002
1,525,433
2003
1,889,106
2004
1,510,387
2005
1,508,560
2006
2,511,212
2007
2,614,584
2008
7,032,040 (euro**)
2009
4,468,035
2010
4,470,000
2011
7,032,040
source: Katsourides (2013: 26).
* 1 CYP equals approximately €1.60.
** Cyprus entered the Eurozone in 2008.
51
chApter 5:
POLITICAL CULTURE, POLITICAL BEHAVIOUR
AND ECONOMIC CRISIS IN THE REPUBLIC
OF CYPRUS
Political culture and crisis in the Republic of Cyprus
perceptions about politics
In the domain of perceptions about politics, a number of changes have been witnessed during
the past ten or so years, all of them extending well into the crisis, but beginning before its
onset. The level of political satisfaction, measured by the European Social Survey as “satisfaction
with democracy”, especially stands out in Cyprus: the drop in this index is sharper than in the
rest of southern Europe, depicting a more drastic decline in the Cypriot crisis environment,
while the slope is steeper between 2008 and 2010 rather than between 2010 and 2012 (see
Figure 9). Still, the latest survey data on the issue of citizen perceptions of democracy in Cyprus
indicates that the situation has probably worsened in the past two years of the crisis. According
to the University of Nicosia survey of early September 2014, Cyprus is rated at 6.44 (out of ten)
in respect to ‘the degree to which the various political freedoms are consolidated’; at 6.42 in
respect to free elections ‘with equal opportunities of projection for all competitors, pluralism,
the existence of various organized political groups and transparency in the finances of parties’;
at 5.31 in respect to ‘the degree of political participation’; at 5.11 in respect to ‘the democratic
functioning of the government’; and at 5.04 in respect to how democratic political culture is
(Politis 2014).
The decline recorded for 2008–2010 may be connected to new economic life within the
Eurozone, or to the freeze in the Cyprus problem negotiations after a period of high hopes
commencing with the election of the Christofias government (see also the last part of this
chapter). Or to the prospective deterioration of the economy, which had began declining
sharply well before the crisis (according to Eurobarometer data). Such a decline can be best
explained by the fact that at no point since the end of the Papadopoulos government
(2004–2008) was the economy an issue that united political parties. Indeed, it was a heavily contested issue, especially between DISY and AKEL, with the consequence that uncertainty became
easily widespread. The second crucial contextual and domestic event happened with the
explosion in the village of Mari that cost the lives of thirteen people and destroyed the island’s
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
52
biggest power station in the beginning of the summer of 2011. This second event brought to
the surface the widespread conviction that the government, the army, the civil service and
the polity as a whole are systemically flawed and thus diachronically underperforming.
The main correlates of political satisfaction are satisfaction with the national government
(Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.626) and satisfaction with the (present) state of the economy (Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.387). It is thus possible that political satisfaction is
either caused or causes satisfaction with the incumbent government. At the same time, as it
is not logical for political satisfaction to cause economic satisfaction, since the latter is deeply
connected to developments in the economic sphere and more specifically the financial
sector, one can preliminarily conclude that during the crisis political satisfaction is partly
conditioned by one’s assessment of the domestic economy. As the latter has declined in 2012,
$
so has the former.
Figure 9 Political satisfaction in southern Europe
7
Sa
Satisfaction
tisfaction with democracy
democracy Cyprus
Cyprus
(S
cale 0-10)
(Scale
6
5
Satisfaction with democracy
democracy Greece
Greece
Satisfaction
(Scale 0-10)
(Scale
4
3
Satisfaction with democracy
Satisfaction
democracy
Portugal (Scale
(Scale 0-10)
Portugal
2
1
0
2005
Satisfaction with democracy
Satisfaction
democracy Spain
(Scale 0-10)
(Scale
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
source: European Social Survey.
The more specific component of political trust presents a similar picture. In comparative terms,
as shown in Table 11, all southern European countries have undergone important decreases
between 2008 and 2013 in terms of the trust commanded by political institutions. Trust in
parliament, government and parties has dropped even more dramatically in Cyprus than in
the other four countries, signifying a theoretical increase in the belief that political institutions
are not very adept at addressing needs and grievances. Notably, the least trustworthy institutions are political parties, where in 2013 trust levels were at 7%. A closer, longitudinal look
at political trust in Cyprus, as documented by Figure 10, reveals two additional and important
points. First, trust in government and trust in parliament are almost perfectly correlated,
moving in the same direction and with the same magnitude. Second, like satisfaction with
democracy, the decrease began earlier than the crisis (in 2009) and during the initial crisis
years did not worsen. It did worsen shortly thereafter, as trust in institutions was recently (in
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
53
2014) recorded at very low levels: 1.78 (out of 10) for parties, 2.06 for parliament, 1.79 for
politicians and 2.13 for government (Politis 2014).
It may not be true that the crisis has accelerated the downward trends in what concerns
various aspects of the political culture, however, there is a case to be made that political trust
is positively associated with individual assessments of the economy. Based on data from the
European Social Survey of 2012, all three types of political trust measured by that survey series
(trust in the parliament, trust in politicians and trust in parties) are correlated with satisfaction
with the (present) state to the economy. The results are similar to those concerning political
satisfaction: Pearson correlation coefficient = 0.213, 0.305 and 0.290, respectively. Certainly,
the association, although positive, is not that strong, but one can still argue that political trust
may depend in part on economic satisfaction.
Table 11 Political trust in Southern Europe (%)
Country
Parliament
Government
Parties
2008
2013
Change
2008
2013
Change
2008
2013
Change
Cyprus
63
18
-45
65
26
-39
29
7
-22
Greece
32
12
-20
23
10
-13
14
4
-10
Portugal
38
15
-23
31
15
-16
17
12
-5
Spain
40
8
-40
44
9
-35
30
6
-24
Italy
27
10
-17
26
10
-16
16
7
-9
source: Eurobarometer 70 and 80 (autumn waves).
Figure 10 Political Trust in Cyprus (2001–2013) (%)
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Trust in Government
source: Eurobarometer.
Trust in Parties
Trust in Parliament
54
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Figure 11 illustrates the overall decrease in the psychological ties between citizens and
political parties and it is totally expected once we consider that parties’ trustworthiness
suffered the most out of the main political institutions. What is called party identification
(whether one identifies with a particular party or not) has dropped sharply since 2006. Once
more, attitudinal changes precede the economic crisis, overall suggesting that the identification of the majority of citizens with political parties began to erode much earlier than the
appearance of economic problems.
A number of structural currents causing party identification to erode may be at play, but
party identification may have also been diluted in the context of the “noisy” information environment, which began essentially during the end of 2010 within the context of anti-government propaganda by all parties except AKEL, and may have had an impact on party identification. Following Huber et al. (2005: 370), when there is “noise”, which in the case of Cyprus
was produced by a blame-shirking game, probably similar to that of Greece (Exadaktylos et
al. 2014), signals about party correspondence cannot easily get through, ‘because individuals
become less certain of party differences, making it more difficult for them to form party
attachments’. Data for the 2012 European Social Survey indicate that party identification is
negatively correlated with age (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = -0.258), suggesting that a
younger age is associated with less partisanship. This is not something that occurred during the
crisis, however, as age is negatively correlated with party affiliation in the 2006–2010 cumulative data set (Pearson’s correlation coefficient = -0.155), although to a lesser degree. However,
the relatively low values of the Pearson’s correlation coefficients are telling of the relevance of
age to partisanship, again in contrast to popular wisdom. Clearly, then, it is not only young
people’s partisanship that has been affected but that of all age groups in the population.
The media most probably contributed to the momentum of this climate against politicians,
if not politics altogether. And it is possibly inevitable that youth, as more cynical readers
without a deeply entrenched political identity yet, would be more affected by a hostile media
attitude towards the political establishment as a whole. From the social media to opinion
pieces in the free press6 and the mainstream press7 and even to outbursts of established
journalists in both private and public television, the general information environment in
Cyprus has been one of utter distaste towards, even ridicule of, established political leaders.
The interviewees of this study, especially those representing political parties also pointed to
a general environment in public opinion conducive to political dissatisfaction (Interview with
anonymous AKEL leading official, 14 January 2014, Nicosia; interview with anonymous EDEK
leading official, 5 December 2013, Nicosia).
6
7
An article exemplifying a light type of satire was titled ‘In these European elections, I will vote for crazy people’.
Plenty of examples can be found in the column of Kostas Konstantinou in the newspaper “Politis”. For instance, a characteristic title was ‘One is the party-sewage’.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
55
Figure 11 Declining party identification in the Republic of Cyprus (%)
120
100
80
60
40
20
0
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Year
Y
ear
Party
Party iden
identification
tification (nominal)
source: European Social Survey and International Social Survey Programme.
Question wording: ‘Is there a particular political party you feel closer to than all the other parties?’
As evident in Figure 12, all four main parties have suffered in terms of party identification,
especially during 2008-2010. Partisanship has, therefore, declined across the political
spectrum and party system. During the left’s (AKEL) 2008–2013 presidency, however, the
right attracted an increasing number of identifiers for a good two years. This is best explained
by the fact that it was the first time the left occupied the presidential office (2008–2013), hence
the right had more incentive to gather around its main political representative in order to
push DISY back into government. Additionally, during the Papadopoulos era (2003–2008) the
environment was much more negative for DISY, which may have generated a certain cumulative effect by 2013 in favour of DISY as an alternative solution. The specifics of party identification, therefore, have been conditioned, once more, by government-opposition dynamics
rather than by the crisis itself. It was Christofias’s tenure that increased cohesion around
Anastasiades and allowed DISY to boost (even if temporarily) its number of party identifiers,
even within the context of overall decreasing party identification.
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
56
0
5
10
15
20
Figure 12 Declining party identification in the Republic of Cyprus (parties specified) (%)
2006
2008
Time
AKELid
DIKOid
EVROKOid
2010
2012
DISYid
EDEKid
GREENSid
source: European Social Survey.
The next question that arises is: are institutions more broadly untrustworthy during the crisis,
or is it that only political institutions command increasingly less trust? Based on a representative survey of the adult Greek Cypriot population in March 2013, carried out by the University
of Nicosia on behalf of CyBC (Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation, or RIK) we see first that confidence in the political institutions is much lower than in the other institutions represented. On
the other hand, some traditional institutions (Church) appear to be those in which the Cypriot
have most trust (Table 12).8 Yet, overall, along with distrust in political institutions,9 citizens
tend to also distrust almost all other kinds of institutions, and judge especially harshly the
Central Bank and the media. Distrust towards the Central Bank is easily explainable and can
be attributed to the daily attacks by the opposition towards the previous two Central Bank
Governors, whose role in relation to banking regulations became the subject of intense scrutiny
since 2011. At the same time, the Central Bank’s role evolved into an institution identified
with the Eurozone where the regional basis of the crisis in Cyprus can be traced and was a
prime suspect since the local manifestation of the crisis concerned the banking system, which
is under its direct supervision. These two factors may have generated suspicion and then
distrust, independent of which and how many parties attacked the two Central Bank Governors.
8
9
It is not clear if ‘church’ is understood in a metaphysical way, rather than as the material structure of religion in Cyprus,
but this is a possibility.
It should be noted that the data on trust in the government and trust in the parliament largely corroborate the
Eurobarometer data presented in Figure 13.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
57
Distrust in the media is more puzzling. In spite of the fact that most citizens depend on
the mainstream media for their daily news, such low levels of trust may imply more critical
thinking during the crisis, whereby information is not digested without concerns for bias but
is rather subjected to an assessment of the media’s underlying intentions.
Despite the blame that Greek Cypriots ascribe to their political leaders and domestic
institutional structures, there is also a trend towards dissatisfaction with the supranational
governance, and more specifically the EU. The traditional Euroenthusiasm of Greek Cypriots
has been seriously tested by recent developments involving EU institutions and connecting
them to the financial viability of the island’s economy. Public Euroscepticism has been rising and
falling on the island quite frequently (Sepos 2003), but amidst an otherwise Euroenthusiastic
climate as the Cypriot one, especially at the level of the political elites (Charalambous 2013;
Katsourides 2003), the prolonged, almost monotonic and significant decline between 2008
and 2013 in indicators such as ‘the image the EU conjurs’ and ‘trust in the EU’ betrays an
increase in public Euroscepticism (Figure 13). The drop in public trust in the EU begins in 2009
that is before the economic crisis and possibly after the initial euphoria of entering the
Eurozone, but it sharpens especially after 2011, most probably in connection with decisions
at the EU level concerning the future of the Cypriot economy. This indicator moves in a very
similar fashion to the image that the EU conjures among the public.
Table 12 Trust in Cypriot institutions (March 2014)
Political institutions
Government Parliament
Non-political institutions
Council of
Ministers
Church
Central Bank
Police
Courts
Co-ops
Media
Probably
trust
27.5
28.8
35.8
55.3
22.4
48.4
44.0
43.4
39.3
Probably
do not trust
60.9
70.3
62.1
41.5
73.7
51.5
53.7
54.5
60.0
source: University of Nicosia on behalf of CyBC.
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
58
Figure 13 Indicators of public Euroscepticism in Cyprus (2004–2013) (%)
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Positive Image of the EU (Total)
Tend to Trust
source: Eurobarometer.
The more specific indicators of trust in the three main EU institutions – European Commission,
European Parliament and the Council of the European Union – illustrate a similar trend. Trust
in the European Commission and the European Parliament drop sharply after 2008 (when
they stood at above 60%), but follow an especially downward trend since the onset of the
crisis (in 2011–2012). Trust in the European Council also follows a steep drop since 2011. It is
notable that the three indicators are very closely correlated, implying that the Cypriot public
does not differentiate particularly between the three different institutions (and forms of
political authority) at the EU level. Although the European Parliament commands somewhat
higher trust than the other two institutions throughout the period under consideration, its
lack of trustworthiness follows a very similar course to those of the European Commission and
the Council of the European Union.10 Juxtaposing Figure 14 with Figure 10 one can also see
that during the crisis Greek Cypriots trust their domestic political institutions approximately
to the same (limited) extent as they trust supranational institutions. The only exception is
parties, which are trusted approximately 10 percentage points less than European institutions.
10
The position of the EU (and its institutions) on the Greek Cypriot ‘No’ on the Annan Plan (in 2004) may have been a first
blow and decisions thereof may have made citizens approach the EU with increasing suspicion.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
59
Figure 14 Further indicators of public Euroscepticism in Cyprus (2004–2014) (%)
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Trust in the European Commission
Trust in the European Parliament
Trust in the Council of the European Union
source: Eurobarometer.
Despite attitudinal changes, the left-right cleavage in Cyprus has not undergone important
realignment in terms of either social or political divisions. Regarding political rhetoric the two
poles did not converge during the crisis and the centre is still attempting to project an 'inbetween the two poles’ image on socio-economic issues (see also next part); thus, party cues
may have been absorbed accordingly, thus leading to the reproduction of left-right sociopolitical dynamics, rather than their modification. Left-right self-placement is highly and
positively correlated with the party that respondents feel closer to (Pearson’s correlation
coefficient = .628). Since the left-right cleavage is still vibrant, it is not surprising that AKEL
voters place themselves mostly on the left and DISY supporters mostly on the right, with the
supporters of DIKO and EDEK placing themselves mostly in the centre (Table 13).
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
60
Table 13 Cross-tabulation between left-right self-placement and party affiliation (2012)
AKEL
DISY
DIKO
EDEK
Left
57
0
1
0
1
27
1
0
0
2
25
1
0
1
Placement
3
22
1
0
2
on
4
15
0
1
2
left-right
5
8
11
48
10
6
0
11
7
1
7
1
25
3
0
8
0
34
2
0
9
0
24
1
0
Right
0
68
3
0
155
176
66
16
scale
Total (n)
In terms of the ideological tendencies within society, change during the crisis is more apparent.
Left-right self-placement and placement on other ideological questions have both changed
during 2012. Comparing Figure 15 (which documents left-right self-placement in 2010) with
Figure 16, we can see that the number of centrist individuals (mainly points 4, 5, 6 on the
scale) has decreased, while the number of “radicals” (essentially points 1 and 9) has increased
from approximately 8.0% to above 10%.
Figure 15 Left-right self-placement (2010) (%)
0
30
1
2
25
3
4
20
5
15
6
7
10
8
9
5
10
0
LLeft-right
eft-right self-plac
self-placement
ement (0-10)
source: European Social Survey.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
61
Figure 16 Left-right self-placement (2012) (%)
0
1
35
2
30
3
25
4
20
5
15
6
10
7
8
5
9
0
Left-right
Left-right self-placement
self-placement (0-10)
10
source: European Social Survey.
extent and forms of political participation
Especially against the background of the crisis, a characteristic quite unique to Cyprus stands
out: the absence of protest and radicalism. As evident from Table 7 in the previous chapter
(Chapter 3), in terms of contentious acts Cyprus can be differentiated from the rest of southern
Europe in that Greek Cypriots have never held even one general strike, neither at the beginning of the crisis nor before.11 Considering that the anti-government demonstration of 2011
was not related to austerity or the societal impact of the crisis – but rather to the responsibility of the state in the face of the power plant explosion in the village of Mari – then both
in terms of timing (2013, more than a year after the onset of the crisis) and in terms of volume
(zero general strikes and four anti-government demonstrations), Cyprus has been the quiet
case in southern Europe.
There were only three relatively large protests, all of which took place after the change in
government in 2013, with around 5000–7000 people participating in each. The main one
took place outside the parliament between the two Eurogroup summits in March 2013 and
naturally caused the most commotion. The second one outside the Presidential Palace was
staged by AKEL, while the third one was based on an agreement between AKEL and EDEK,
which also attracted a number of organizations affiliated with the two parties or in which the
two parties together command a majority. A fourth protest in late August 2014 was again
11
According to data from Data Banks International, Greece witnessed 27 general strikes, Italy 4, Spain 9 and Portugal 4.
62
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
organized by AKEL-affiliated organizations together with the party, attracting approximately
2,000–2,500 people. In the last two protests, social organizations that are not affiliated with
the left endorsed the mobilization but did not call on their members to act, and in fact not
even their main leadership participated in the protest. It appears that marginal majorities
within organizations such as OELMEK (Organization of Greek Functionaires of Secondary
Education) and POED (Pancyprian Federation of Greek Primary School Teachers) managed to
secure support for the protest, but never intended their entire association to protest austerity.
When the Pancyprian Trade Union of Civil Servants (PASYDY) organized a mass strike in 2011,
turnout was again poor, with most members not going to work but not attending the strike
either. The PASYDY leadership, at the same time, has not really intervened in any debates on
austerity, let alone mobilized in favour of workers’ rights, when the salaries and benefits of its
own members were not directly at stake. Indeed, between the end of 2012 and the middle of
2014, it remained silent on austerity issues for the most part.
Youth, the most radical sector of the populace – as exemplified by protests that have
unfolded in the rest of southern Europe – is also largely absent from strikes and demonstrations
in Cyprus. The youth organizations usually (although not always) follow the party line with
regard to protesting in the street, and generally tend to avoid non-institutional forms of
intervention and confrontational behaviour. The statement of the interviewee from NEDIK
(Youth of the Democratic Party) is characteristic: when asked why NEDIK does not participate
in or initiate protests, he affirmed that social dialogue is the main form of resolving problems,
yet he also made an official complaint on behalf of his organization that social dialogue
during the crisis has not been satisfactory (interview with anonymous leading official of
NEDIK, 5 November 2013, Nicosia). The interviewee from EDEK Youth, stressed during his
interview that the organization is focused primarily on contact with non-governmental
organizations, and more generally aims to become a better ‘team player’ by cooperating with
more organized social interests (interview with anonymous leading official of EDEK Youth, 20
November 2013, Nicosia).
A similar orientation applies to organized groups that have been hardest hit by the crisis.
The representative of the Association of Single Parents, while arguing that the state does not
properly address the problems and concerns of single parents, was very negative about
protesting: ‘getting out to yell achieves nothing, it never changes back a taken decision …
generally it is not in our association’s culture to … shout and swear ... there has not been a
protest so far where there was no disorder’ (Interview with anonymous representative of the
Association of Single Parents, 10 January 2014, Nicosia). The interviewee from PASYDY also
emphasized ‘prudence’ and ‘responsibility’ rather than protest, stating that PASYDY has on
occasion opted to take its case to the Supreme Court rather than initiate street protest
(Interview with anonymous high-ranking official from PASYDY, 18 December 2013, Nicosia).
Although the trade unions and their apparatuses are fairly centralised in terms of their
administration, there is fragmentation at the level of membership as well as promotion of
narrow sectional interests. These patterns remained consistent during the crisis as well (Ioannou
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
63
2014). According to a representative of the Trade Union of Semi-governmental, Municipal
and Community Workers – Pancyprian Federation of Working People, at the Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (SIDIKEK-PEO), even within the context of social dialogue, most trade
unions pursue bi-lateral meetings with state officials without seeking to involve or cooperate
with their counterparts in the same or in other sectors (Interview with anonymous representative of SIDIKEK-PEO CYTA, 13 December 2013, Nicosia).
For example, the sporadic strikes that took place in 2012 were conducted by specific sectors
and firms, who made no effort to broaden the protest to include other firms or sectors. This
fragmentation was also vividly illustrated in the various pleas issued in 2012 and 2013 by
specific groups such as medical staff, the police, army personnel and the personnel of public
corporations who argued for their exemption from the austerity measures because of the
special character of their work (Charalambous and Ioannou 2014). Associational activity on
the island remains fragmented and sectorally mobilized, making it difficult for party militants
in the labour movement to embrace highly confrontational tactics.
The first and foremost goal remains that of defending the interest of members. Even in the
event of the haircut on deposits in Laiki Bank, the protesters outside parliament were mostly
bank employees whose interests were at stake. Likewise, when the issue of the privatizations
of semi-governmental organizations was at stake, it was mostly trade unionists from these
organizations (and especially the electricity authority and the telecommunications company)
who protested, without much support from other civil servants, public employees or society
more broadly.
It is worth noting that the majority of Greek Cypriots believe (and this is often supported
by the media) that civil servants have diachronically been much better off than private
employees, and that they are lazy, inefficient and deserve to be hit by austerity. This line of
thinking within labour not only makes it easier for the government to legislate austerity but
also creates obstacles to collective action against austerity.
Indicatively, during the crisis, many more Greek Cypriots have been contributing to charity
initiatives than participating in protests and strikes. This is not only the natural result of more
Greek Cypriots living in poverty,12 but is also due to the enhancement of voluntarism by the
Anastasiades government, which set up the office of the Voluntarism Commissioner, a position
currently occupied by Giannis Giannaki, and created a director of voluntarism in every ministry
of the government (Interview with representative of the office of the Commissioner for
Voluntarism, 30 October 2013, Nicosia). When interviewed, the representative from the
Commissioner’s office was adamant that ‘the state cannot exist without voluntarism’ especially
in the face of the crisis. The interviewee enumerated a vast array of social organizations that
12
In February 2014, according to the Commissioner for Volunteering Yiannis Yiannaki, 13,000 families were supported by
charity organizations (Cyprus News Agency 2014).
64
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
contribute in various ways to help those in need; for example, individuals and services offering
physical exercise, legal advice, psychological counselling and, most importantly, nutritional
advice and support.
Given that voluntarism prevails primarily during and because of the crisis, there is the
strong possibility that voluntarism and philanthropy function as substitutes for social protest,
especially when they are institutionalized and supported by the state and its channels of
communication.13 There is also the possibility that austerity and cut backs to the welfare state
are legitimized due to the non-state resources that are provided (in place of welfare provision)
to those in need.
There is also the fact that Cypriot culture is traditionally non-aggressive, and this has not
really changed in the crisis years (Figure 17). Especially in comparison with the other crisisridden countries in Europe, in Cyprus a spirit of subordination prevails. There are some signs
of change; for example there is less contact with politicians (down by approximately 5%),
greater numbers who are signing petitions and boycotting products (up by approximately
4%), and more who are participating in lawful public demonstrations (up by approximately
1%). Working for a political party or an action group declined by approximately 5% between
2006 and 2010 but then increased slightly during the crisis. Overall, therefore, in the recent
crisis there has been no real increase in non-conventional forms of participation in Cyprus.
Aggrieved individuals in Cyprus seek solutions to their problems through established political
parties, representative legislatures, bureaucracies and courts. One traditional way for Cypriots
to solve their problems is to ask for favours and rousfeti, and, at least according to the
interviewee from DISY, the number of these requests has increased since the crisis (Interview
with anonymous DISY leading official, 6 March 2014, Nicosia). According to the EDEK interviewee, the party has been asked for assistance in finding jobs; in fact, he said, they receive
many such requests every day (Interview with anonymous EDEK leading official, 5 December
2013, Nicosia). This was the message of the AKEL, DIKO and DISY interviewees as well (Interview
with anonymous municipal Nicosia official of AKEL, 15 November 2013, Nicosia; interview
with anonymous DIKO leading official, 10 March 2014, Nicosia; interview with anonymous
DISY leading official, 6 March 2014, Nicosia).
Political dissatisfaction and decline in trust have not translated into alternative channels
of mobilization, either by established groups and parties or new ones. There have been no
manifesto-like petitions to parliament as there were in Portugal, no supra-partisan social
movements as in Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal, no sustainable community movements or
alternative forms of consumption as a means to re-embed the economic system within social
relations as in Italy, and no autonomous and self-regulating collectives as in Spain. The crisis
13
It should be reminded that a number of pan-Cyprian charity events, such as the Telemarathon or the Christodoula
March, have long been established with active presence of the state – the chair of the Telemarathon has always been
the first lady.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
65
in Cyprus and the diminishment in democratic legitimacy have not been accompanied by
any sort of reform in terms of democratic representation and participation. Not only are the
possibilities of constitutional reform and things like deliberative mini assemblies (as in
Iceland) far from reality, but even the most common of social phenomena in the politics of
crisis in southern Europe – the formation of supra-partisan social movements that challenge
the system of governance and austerity – has not surfaced on the island. The two main
movement-like initiatives that exist, the “Initiative against privatisations” and the “Initiative
against house and small shop auctions”, which appeared in 2013 and 2014, respectively, are
rarely in evidence – they are usually seen or heard only during protests. These are both
essentially branches of AKEL. The party provides their infrastructure and the main initiators or
organizers are closely affiliated with the party leadership and apparatus. It may also be
important that the initiators of protests do not enjoy the trust of citizens beyond the party.
Citizens may find it paradoxical that no mobilization took place when the crisis was
developing and that those connected to today’s opposition, yesterday’s government, react to
policy measures that are the legacy of the left.
Figure 17 Political participation in the Republic of Cyprus 2006–2012 (%)
25,00%
Political
Political participation
participation - Contacted
Contacted
government official
official in past 12
politician or government
months (nominal)
months
20,00%
% of positiv
positive
e answ
answers
ers
Political participation
participation - W
orked for
for political
Political
Worked
party or action
action in past 12 months
months
party
(nominal)
15,00%
Political participation
participation - W
orked in another
Political
Worked
organisation or association
association dur
ing past 12
organisation
during
months (nominal)
months
Political
Worn
Political participation
participation - W
orn or displayed
displayed
campaign
campaign badge during
during past 12 months
months
(nominal)
10,00%
Political
-Signed
ned petition
P
olitical participation
participation -Sig
ing past 12 months
months (nominal)
dur
during
articipated in
P
olitical participation
participation - P
Political
Participated
wful public demonstr
ation during
during 12
lawful
demonstration
la
months
mon
ths (nominal)
5,00%
Political
Boycotted
oycotted certain
certain
P
olitical participation
participation - B
products
months (nominal)
pr
oducts in past 12 months
0,00%
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
Year
Y
ear
source: European Social Survey.
2010
2011
2012
2013
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
66
Even what has been pointedly called “counter-information” started emerging much earlier
than the crisis, with blogging, alternative news websites, Facebook-based innovations and a
third wave of civil society that is concerned with human rights violations, the quality of
democracy, gay rights, the environment and other post-materialist issues that arose in the
early and mid-2000s. But even in this domain, the extent of online social networking with
anti-austerity as an axis is limited; there are no active protest groups or websites focusing on
austerity. Facebook and blogging activity may have increased, but many features of online
protest or other protest-related initiatives found elsewhere since the beginning of the crisis
are absent in Cyprus.
Electoral participation as the main form of conventional political participation has declined
significantly and this despite the fact that parties command and use substantial resources to
mobilize voters, as they did, for example, in the presidential elections of 2013 (Christophorou
2013). But the crisis itself does not explain electoral abstention, as it increased much earlier
than the crisis (see Figures 18–20, which document turnout rates for the island’s three main
elections). In the 2004 elections, abstention was at 27.5% and was considered reasonable for
European elections, while in the 2006 parliamentary elections it was recorded at 11%. In the
2009 European elections, out of an electorate of 526,060 registered voters, 312,479 turned
out to vote (59.40%) while 213,581 (40.60%) abstained. In the European elections of 2014, in
the midst of the crisis, abstention reached a record high of 56.03%. In the 2011 parliamentary
election, a total of 113,216 voters abstained, a percentage of 21.3%. In the last presidential
elections of 2013, abstention was 18.4%. There is no question that electoral participation
continued to decrease during the crisis, but it had begun to drop earlier.
Figure 18 Voter turnout in parliamentary elections in the Republic of Cyprus (%)
Voter Turnout
95
93
92,9
91,8
90
89
85
80
78,7
75
70
1991
source: Cyprus Ministry of Interior
1996
2011
2006
2011
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
67
Figure 19 Voter turnout in presidential elections in the Republic of Cyprus (1st round) (%)
Voter Turnout
94
92,4
91,7
92
90,55
90
89,6
88
86
84
83,1
82
80
78
1993
1998
2003
2008
2013
source: Cyprus Ministry of Interior
note: 2003 was a one-round election.
Figure 20 Voter turnout in the European parliament elections in the Republic of Cyprus (%)
Voter Turnout
80
72,5
70
59,4
60
50
43,97
40
30
20
10
0
2004
2009
2014
source: Kanol (2013) updated.
Kanol’s (2013) analysis shows that party identification is an important determinant of voter
turnout, that the recent decline in party identification might be the main cause of falling
voter turnout and that young people’s abstention rates are increasing over time. But there is
also a reason to doubt this conclusion. How can one explain that turnout in parliamentary or
even municipal elections where party identification may be thought to count more than
anything else is lower than in presidential elections where dissidents are increasing?
68
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Although abstention in the 2014 European election was largely conditioned within the
context of the crisis, neither that election, not the earlier ones can be attributed to the crisis
directly. Charalambous et al. (forthcoming) conclude their analysis of electoral behaviour
during the last European election by arguing that: ‘the elections reflect primarily an antisystemic sentiment emerging from increasing institutional distrust, rather than the ascription
of blame for the crisis … Indeed, in such a way that the prevailing mood and discourse
reflected a wide and deep rejection of everything political.’ As we saw earlier, this rejection
predates the crisis.
At the same time, two additional signs of continuity must be considered. First, in the last
European elections, Cyprus proved to be an exceptional case within Europe, as the incumbent
party got away with minimal losses in real terms and a result to brag about in terms of percentages.14 Apparently, conjunctural factors specific to the patterns of government alternation
on the island have set in. The historic incumbency of the Cypriot left, combined with the onset
of the crisis and very intense propaganda against former President Christofias, can provide a
convincing explanation as to why protest was directed against the previous government,
rather than the current one. Second, it must not be forgotten that in the presidential election
of 2013, the first election of first-order importance to be held during the crisis, more than 80%
of the electorate voted, which is much higher that the respective figures in the parliamentary
(prime ministerial) elections of the other southern European countries undergoing an economic crisis.
Finally, the change registered in electoral behaviour during the past ten years or so (including the crisis years) indicates that dissatisfaction is evidenced primarily through abstention,
illustrating that apathy and not militancy is the Cypriot reaction to both the crisis and the
period preceding it. Stability in the party system, which will be discussed in the next part of
this chapter, is the result of citizens not opting for alternative political choices, but rather
choosing in greater numbers to ignore electoral contests, as well as politics altogether.
Political behaviour and crisis in the Republic of Cyprus
patterns of party competition during the crisis
The general argument that will be elaborated on here is that patterns of party competition
have remained stable during the crisis. Neither of the two defining features of national party
systems – the format of the party system (the number of parties and the size of parties in the
party system) or its mechanics (inter-party relations in terms of the ideological distance
14
DISY was the main winner of the election. In spite of the fact that in real numbers it witnessed losses, in terms of the
party’s actual percentage, it polled 37.8%.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
69
between the main parties, the number of poles and whether dynamics are centrifugal or
centripetal) – changed during the crisis. Two elections, each of a different type (the 2013
presidential election and the 2014 European election) led neither to the significant weakening
of the main four parties in relational terms, nor to the sustained growth or presence of alternative political actors.
In the 2013 presidential election, political behaviour was for the most part reminiscent of
all prior presidential electoral contests. Independents were never considered as important
challenges and the results confirmed this. The race was a three-way one, with AKEL fielding
Stavros Malas and thus returning to its previous decades-long policy of supporting a centreleft political candidate that is not a member of the party; DISY fielding the candidacy of Nicos
Anastasiades and achieving a very high cohesion in the light of the left occupying executive
office for five years; and Giorgos Lillikas being the third main candidate, attracting EDEK, DIKO
as well as AKEL voters and polling enough to justify the formation of a new party (Citizens
Alliance). EDEK supported Lillikas and DIKO supported Anastasiades and turned to the
candidate with the best chances of winning. Indeed, the main difference of this election from
those preceding it is that Lillikas appeared capable of polling as high as 20% even without the
official endorsement by EDEK. A coalition government (composed of DISY and DIKO) was
formed after the election of Anastasiades and within the first one and a half years DIKO left
the government (see also next part of this chapter). As in Portugal and unlike in Greece, the
crisis has not had an impact on the format of the government, with the two-round presidential
system and the culture of consensus making this possible. A government was easily formed
but only within the context of a coalition.
In the 2014 European elections, both the quantity and the quality of those contesting the
election were different, but the results did not allow for extensive party switching and thus
realignment. In fact, there was only a slight change in the patterns of political competition
with regard to the European elections. Party system fragmentation, as indicated by the
number of parties in the system weighted by their relative size (Effective Number of Electoral
Parties, or ENEP) has not changed significantly since the parliamentary elections of 2011. The
ENEP has risen slightly from 3.86 to 4.17, still much lower not only from the rest of the crisisstruck countries but from most of the EU as well. Certainly, there were signs of electoral and
political change. As explained earlier, abstention rose significantly, but in terms of actual
percentages, the four main parties retained their relative weight within reasonable levels
(DISY polled 37.8%, AKEL polled 27%, DIKO gathered 10.8% and the EDEK-Greens coalition
7.7%). The votes lost by the two mainstream parties were not directed to their fringe
competitors, but instead ended up in the abstention pool. An important development was
the polling of Giorgos Lillikas’s Citizens Alliance, which although it did not win a seat in the
European Parliament, polled 6.8% and established itself as a fifth main party in the party
system. Still, in retrospect, the changes evident in the results of the 2014 European elections
have to be weighed against the expectations of the second-order election model (Reif and
70
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
Schmitt 1980), according to which European elections differ from national electoral contests
in several ways, including losses for the mainstream parties, higher abstention levels and the
appearance of new formations.
With regard to continuity, as in the past the parties opened their ballots to liberals asking
for reform in one or more sectors of politics, but overall they ran with strong partisan ballots
including cadres high up in the party hierarchy with ongoing or former participation in
government offices. This was the main means employed by parties to fight back on political
dissatisfaction and attract as many of their former voters as possible. We see that recently new
formations claiming to offer better governance have emerged. For example, ‘Freedom’, founded
by former University of Cyprus Dean Stavros Zenios, and ‘We Stay in Europe’, eventually ran
on the DISY ballot. This reflects, at least in part, the parties’ traditional reaction to the appearance of new opinion leaders. Thus, in an attempt to diversify their electoral personnel, parties
incorporate onto their ballots these newly emerging leaders. In turn, these new opinion
leaders see the benefits to being in the sphere of influence of established parties and cooperate
with them.
The negative rhetoric of partitocracy, used by both the media and political/party leaders,
was not accompanied by substantive change in terms of the parties’ social influence. Neither
has the importance of distributing public posts among partisans receded. The continuance
of such behaviour was exemplified by the new President (Nicos Anastasiades), who amidst
widespread hope and comment that non-partisans would be included in the top echelons of
government, chose to distribute the main ministries among his fellow partisans in DISY and
DIKO (an ally of the government).
Radicalism and extremism have remained absent from the Cypriot party system, notwithstanding the gradual (but still comparatively unimportant) strengthening of the far-right
party National Popular Front (ELAM), which polled 2.7% in the European elections of 2014 (up
from 1.1% in the parliamentary elections of 2011), and some violent episodes against
immigrants for which it has been accused. The newly emerging Cypriot political formations
exhibit a mixed bag of various types of radicalism, ranging from populism and participatory
democracy that has features of the indignados in Greece and Spain as well as the politics of
Beppe Grillo in Italy (for example, the focus of the Citizens Movement on internal online referendums and their emphasis on their “movement-like” structure), to left radicalism resembling
SYRIZA in Greece (DRASy-Eylem, the bi-communal platform of the radical left, which polled
0.9%), to the far-right (ELAM), to formations resembling Potami in Greece and its emphasis on
better governance (Message of Hope). What stands out, however, is not the actual rhetoric or
actions of these formations, but rather the very low intensity, magnitude and success of these
phenomena, which has been much lower than in the rest of southern Europe.
Regarding the two new formations that caught the attention of the media during the past
year or so – Citizens Alliance (with one seat in parliament, inherited from a break –away faction
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
71
of right-wing EVROKO) and Message of Hope (which ran in the European elections, polling
3.8%), these are not really agents of system contestation despite their occasional boasting
and sloganeering. Importantly, they are composed of political agents formerly affiliated with
one of the main parties: Giorgos Lillikas, affiliated with AKEL and then DIKO and finally EDEK
in the 2013 presidential elections, and Stelios Platis, a DISY candidate in the 2011 parliamentary
elections. Combining a mixture of nationalist populism and technocracy, they employ pseudoprotest rhetoric in frequent appearances in mainstream media studios where they argue for
a change of guard in the state elite rather than embracing a consistent anti-systemic stance
(see Charalambous and Ioannou 2014).
The general mode of consensus and political corporatism that has characterized Greek
Cypriot history since the establishment of the Republic and especially since the mid-1970s
continues uninhibited. The strictly political climate (that is, inter-party relations) is not conflict
driven, albeit rhetoric and political style are sharper and more aggressive in the face of
widespread social agony. Elite interaction is mostly consensual within, but also even outside,
parliament. The National Council meets regularly concerning Cyprus problem issues and,
most importantly, parties meet with each other and declare their willingness to cooperate in
hopes of solving important problems. Meetings between the leaders of the main parties are
frequent: the most recent examples are the EDEK-DIKO meeting in early July 2014 for a
“common front” on the economy and the Cyprus problem, the AKEL-DIKO meeting in late July,
which produced a statement for a “common front” on the Memorandum of Understanding
with the Troika, and even the meetings of the Citizens Movement, a party that projects itself
as an alternative choice, with various other established political formations. Rhetoric shifting
the blame to (all) the others and especially the government goes hand in hand with political
behaviour aspiring to achieve consensus, cooperation, future electoral alliances and dialogue
at the level of leadership.
Consensus has prevailed above all in respect to austerity itself, certain exceptions notwithstanding. In December 2012, a total of 20 bills (most of which are outlined in Chapter 2, Table
3) were passed unanimously (with few exceptions) by parliament. Throughout December
2012, AKEL, the natural ally of anti-austerity, was especially careful in terms of both its actions
and rhetoric since it was still the main party of government and chose to fully align itself with
Christofias’s policies and actions throughout the whole 2008–2013 period. Indicatively,
following the passage of the 20 bills, General Secretary of AKEL, Andros Kyprianou, stated: ‘we
have many opinions and many disagreements with the parameter of the Memorandumrelated bills. If each political party was to put forward its disagreements, I assure you that we
would have the most disagreements out of all political parties’ (ANT1 2012). Instead of igniting
divergence in terms of policy action, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Cypriot
government and the Troika acted as a catalyst to consensus or partial consensus around
austerity. For the most part, conflict has remained a rhetorical device devoid of concrete
72
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
policy confrontation. Returning to a point made in Chapter 3, there seems to be no change
regarding what Cypriot politicians think politics is about, how they think it works and how they
think it ought to work. A premium is placed on political pacts and negotiated compromises.
Table 14 outlines the positions of each party on a sample of Memorandum-related legislation that has been considered by parliament since the election of the current (Anastasiades)
government. Both important legislation (such as the co-ops legislation or legislation concerning cut-backs in medical provisions by the state) and what can be considered as minor
changes in organization of the state have passed either unanimously or on the basis of
cooperation between DIKO and DISY. To cut a long story short, the polemical rhetoric of
parties such as AKEL, EDEK and Citizens Alliance against the Memorandum of Understanding
is not reflected in their voting patterns concerning most of the Memorandum-related legislation. At the same time, AKEL is the only party that has raised objections in what concerns
legislation of a staunchly neoliberal orientation, such as de-nationalizations and the cutbacks on medical provisions, although on occasion this was done through abstention rather
than rejection of the bill (as in the case of the freeze on public sector vacancies). DIKO’s role
in getting the Memorandum-related legislation through parliament has been catalytic to the
implementation of austerity on the island and the sustaining of the Troika’s programme.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
73
Table 14 Memorandum-related legislation and voting patterns in the House of Representatives
Date
Theme of legislation
Approved
Rejected
Abstention
Unanimous
DISY
AKEL, DIKO,
EDEK, Citizens
Alliance, EVROKO
19.03.2013 Haircut on all deposits
in Laiki
Passed/not
passed
Not passed
All parties
+
Passed
22.03.2013 Constraints on financial All parties
transactions
+
Passed
22.03.2013 Establishment of
‘solidarity fund’
22.03.2013 Haircut on deposits
above 100,000 euro
DISY, DIKO,
EVROKO
22.03.2013 Empowerment of the
Central Bank
All parties
Citizens Alliance AKEL, EDEK,
Ecologists
Passed
+
22.03.2013 Special tax for financial All parties
stability
Passed
Passed
22.03.2013 Crisis management
legislative framework
All parties
+
Passed
22.03.2013 Protection of
depositors legislation
All parties
+
Passed
22.03.2013 Regulation of deposit
protection fund
All parties
+
Passed
11.04.2013 Cyprus participation in DISY, AKEL, DIKO, Ecologists
the European Stability EDEK, Citizens
Alliance, EVROKO
Mechanism
18.04.2013 Increase in company
tax
Passed
DISY, AKEL, DIKO, Citizens’ Alliance EDEK, Ecologists
EVROKO
Passed
18.04.2013 Increase in defence tax DISY, AKEL, DIKO, Citizens Alliance Ecologists
EDEK, EVROKO
Passed
18.04.2013 Increase in taxation
of credit institutions
DISY, AKEL, DIKO, Citizens Alliance Ecologists
EDEK, EVROKO
Passed
18.04.2013 Reform of
consumption taxes
All parties
+
Passed
30.04.2013 Temporary decrease in All parties
civil servants benefits
+
Passed
All parties
30.04.2013 Reform of medical
provisions by the state
(eligible patients)
+
Passed
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
74
Table 14 Memorandum-related legislation and voting patterns in the House of Representatives
(continued)
Date
Theme of legislation
Approved
Rejected
Abstention
Unanimous
30.04.2013 Reform of medical
DISY, DIKO, EDEK, AKEL
provisions by the state EVROKO, Citizens
(patient contributions) Alliance, Ecologists
18.04.2013 Freeze in public sector DISY, DIKO, EDEK,
EVROKO, Citizens
vacancies
Alliance, Ecologists
Passed
AKEL
30.4.2013 Modification on Cost of All parties
Living Adjustment
Index (COLA)
29.08.2013 Reform of cooperative
banks in accordance to
the Memorandum's
main provisions
(e.g. government as
shareholder in co-ops
and Central Bank to
supervise co-ops)*
For most bills
DISY, DIKO,
EVROKO (for
some bills also
AKEL and EDEK
in the second
round of voting)
27.06.2012 Special contribution of All parties
employees, pensioners
and the self-employed
in the private sector
Passed/not
passed
+
Passed
+
Passed
Ecologists,
Citizens Alliance
Passed
+
Passed
13.02.2014 Umbrella law for the
DISY, DIKO, EDEK, AKEL
management of public EVROKO,
Ecologists
finances
Passed
4.03.2014 Legislative framework DISY, DIKO, EDEK, AKEL
EVROKO,
for the denationalization of semi- Ecologists
governmental
organizations**
Passed
The author would like to thank Maria Pelekanou for preparing this table and making it available to him.
*
Various bills. Some of them were initially rejected during the first round of voting in the Assembly. Then, the
heads of parties reached an agreement and the disputed bills passed as private members’ bills with only the small
parties (Ecologists and Citizens Alliance) voting against.
** Initially, EDEK and DIKO had a negative stance. The bill passed in the second round of voting in the assembly,
when DIKO and EDEK changed their position.
Since the fundamental premises of consensus still prevail in Cyprus, executive-legislative relations have been little affected by the political waves of the economic crisis. What did upset
executive – legislative relations was, once again, the left party’s time in government. For the
most part, executive-legislative relations in Cyprus are – and so also have been during the
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
75
crisis – conditioned by immediate causes that are specific to the island’s party system. Thus,
the Troika-initiated bills in and of themselves made little impact. Both the media and the
business lobby’s turning against the government created a climate of enormous hostility
towards Christofias and his policies, which grew stronger as the crisis accelerated and impacted
more on the Cypriot economy. This leads us to question whether the House of Representative
has the power to invoke procedures depending on the subject under discussion. It is noteworthy, for example, that between 2008 and 2013, while the House criticized the government
for faulty legislative initiatives or even the bypassing of procedures, it also enacted into law a
large number of unconstitutional proposals. Table 15 shows clearly the increase between
2008 and 2013 in the number of Presidential referrals of legislation back to the parliament. It
should still be born in mind, however, that after 2012, Troika-generated austerity legislation
was much more pressurizing for parties to question in the light of such rejections leading to
the possibility of ‘system collapse’.
Table 15 Number of Presidential referrals of legislation back to parliament (2007–2014)
Years/Period
Number of referrals (back to parliament) by the President
2007/2008^
-
2008/2009^^
1
2009/2010^^
6
2010/2011^^
4 (2 were subsequently accepted by the House, 2 were sent to the
Supreme Court)
2011/2012^^
16 (9 were accepted by the parliament, 3 were sent to the
Supreme court)
2012/2013^^^
4
2013/2014*^^^
5
source: Reports of House of Representatives for 2007–2012. The author would like to thank Maria Pelekanou for
preparing this table and making it available to him.
* Until October 2014.
^ Papadopoulos government,
^^ Christofias government,
^^^ Anastasiades government.
The thorny relationship between the parliament and the Christofias government existed even
before the consequences of the economic crisis were evident. Indicatively, it is worth mentioning three incidents, which, at least in historical terms, are unprecedented in legislativeexecutive relations in the Republic of Cyprus. 1) Beginning in the parliamentary period of
2008–2009, the House implemented for the first time the constitutional provision for
earmarking budget provisions and releasing them only after receiving the approval of the
House Finance Committee. 2) In April 2009, the House adopted a resolution calling on the
government to apply as soon as possible to the Partnership for Peace (PfP), or to hold a
76
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
referendum on this issue. This was the first time that the House adopted a resolution that was
unrelated or only indirectly related to the Cyprus problem and the negotiations but concerned
the government’s foreign policy (the Cyprus issue is not mentioned in the resolution). 3) Also
in 2009, the House voted against bills that would tax large property and increase the corporate tax by 1 per cent for two years. And again, this was the first time that measures that
are especially important for the state coffers were rejected by the House at a time when the
government formally had a parliamentary majority.
Although not everyone in Cypriot society is equally ideological, the crisis may have brought
out more ideological rhetoric among the opposition parties and less among the government
parties. AKEL can be described as more reserved (the statement of Andros Kyprianou cited
above attests to this) during its government years. Its rhetoric became more inflammatory
once they were no longer in government, going so far as to prepare a report assessing the
prospects for Cyprus to exit the Eurozone (which it subsequently shelved). This distinction in
political style is rooted in a party’s different needs and interests, which in turn are shaped by
that party’s relation to the government and state offices. Similarly, DISY is currently more
careful with its rhetoric because it is navigating the thin line between being in government
and retaining its autonomy from the President.
The further away a new formation is from the party system, the more it utilizes populism.
At the same time, however, populism is also a tactic used by the mainstream forces. Two
examples can serve to illustrate this point. First, there is the issue of hydrocarbons (natural
gas), which has been exploited by some political forces in an effort to generate hope for
alternative avenues back to prosperity. Giorgos Lillikas (leader of Citizens’ Alliance) has been
the main protagonist of this sort of populism. In the run-up to the 2013 presidential election
campaign Lillikas campaigned that he could beat the economic crisis by pre-selling the gas
reserves, thus saving the country from the Troika and their austerity measures. And this
despite the fact that Lillikas most likely knew that this option was not feasible – after all, his
party had a seat in parliament, and would be involved in creating the legislative framework
relevant to and necessary for hydrocarbons development and management of its revenues
as well in regulating and monitoring the operation of the industry. But the social environment
was also receptive to such ideas. Within the context of euphoria over the prospects of exploiting
natural gas, private universities on the island have designed and have been offering a variety
of courses centring on the issues of gas engineering, gas-related businesses, etc.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
77
Figure 21 Attitudes on income redistribution and post-materialist values
5
Government
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overnment should rreduce
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di
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ome lev
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els (scale
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ounty's cultur
al life
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immigrants (scale 0-10)
byy immigrants
3
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Gays
G
ays and lesbians free
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to live
live as they
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2
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oms and
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traditions (scale 1-6)
1
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Important to
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care about the
Important
environment
environment (scale 1-6)
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
Year
Y
ear
e
source: European Social Survey.
The second example concerns immigration, and merits particular attention in light of evidence
that the inflow of immigrants has been steadily decreasing since the onset of the crisis (see
24 News 2014). Figure 22, which is reproduced from Chapter 4, illustrates how few attitudinal
changes there were between 2010–2012 on survey items related to income redistribution
and post-materialist values. For the most part, the picture is one of continuity, with the
exception of those questions related to immigration and its impact on the life on the island
in general and the island’s cultural life. In both cases, there has been a decrease on the 0–10
scale, signifying a negative shift towards immigrants. The drop began in 2008 and continued
at more or less the same rate from 2010–2012. According to Eurobarometer data, immigration
has not been a very salient issue among the public for the past three years (in 2013 only 3%
of the population listed immigration as their main concern) (Standard Eurobarometer 80). Yet
powerful social groups, including the Federation of Employers and Industrialists (OEV), as
well as farmers and livestock breeders, and the local private colleges insist that there is a
continuous inflow of immigrants in order to accommodate the need for a cheap labour force
and for students of their members (Interview with anonymous civil servant in the Ministry of
Interior, 21 October 2013, Nicosia). It can therefore be suggested that anti-immigrant attitudes
have been hyped by political rhetoric on the issue, itself an innate part of populism.
Political actors often invest in an already xenophobic climate, strengthening it directly or
indirectly, not only to maximize votes, but for the sake of widening their social capital in the
interim electoral competitions. In 2011, Greek Cypriots began to protest the social benefits
provided to immigrants. It is not only the far-right party (ELAM) that has been disseminating
rhetoric on this issue but politicians from mainstream political spaces as well. The following
words of former DIKO MP Zacharias Koulias, pronounced as long ago as 2010 at a far-right
78
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
event (staged by the National Resistance Movement, KEA), are indicative of the impact that
far-right figures can have on the social and political debate on the issue of immigrants: ‘You
realize that when it comes to illegal immigration, it is an organized plan ... because the place
they come from ... is the occupied areas ...’.15
These words are very similar to the rhetoric of ELAM: ‘It is a fact that the largest number of
illegal immigrants entering the free areas do so from the occupied areas with the blessings of
the Turkish army and the pseudo-state’ (ELAM 2009). Then there are also the following statements made by EDEK and DISY members, respectively, as reprinted in a far-right website
within the context of an article entitled “No to racism against the Greek Cypriots”. The EDEK
MP stated: ‘... political refugees, particularly through the benefits they receive from the state
are better positioned than Cypriot citizens’; while the DISY MP asked: ‘... Is it reasonable for the
government to tax refugees [Cypriot refugees on the mother’s side] who have not received a
penny for 36 years to support political refugees? Eventually our [own Cypriot] refugees rightly
wonder if we have a government of political refugees and not a government of Cypriot
refugees’. The statement of the Minister of Interior in the summer of 2013 was even clearer:
‘Any foreigner who is in Cyprus illegally deprives a Cypriot citizen of a piece of bread’ (S. I 2010).
Statements such as these are clearly representative of a far-reaching far-right discourse, which
has permeated the political space of the right, and has also spilled over to the rest of the party
system. This type of rhetoric may deprive ELAM of its membership, while also breeding a
xenophobic, racist and anti-immigrant climate. Most importantly, this climate incites changes
to the current immigration policy as many of the parties and the government have a large
conservative membership. One of the first bills that the Anastasiades government submitted
to parliament after its election (in 2013) was the conversion of the form of social provisions
for asylum seekers from cheques to vouchers. This measure passed unanimously in the House,
with only few initial disagreements over technical details.
party-society relations during the crisis
On the partial basis of the many interviews conducted for the purposes of this report, a
number of conclusions can be drawn about the interaction between the political sphere and
society at large.
Social dialogue (between the state, parties and organized interests) is perceived by social
actors as suffering due to the way that the political process has been shaped during the
implementation of the Troika-driven austerity. The interviewees, who represent almost the
entire range of social actors ( representatives from youth organizations, farmer groups,
consumer associations, small and medium enterprises, non-governmental organizations and
trade unions), expressed either slight or utter dissatisfaction with the expedience with which
15
See the relevant YouTube video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d6YaSL7iuo
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
79
they are dealt with, and with the unilateral decisions taken that often bypass or ignore any of
their proposals or suggestions (various interviewees – see Appendix). These reactions reveal
how little influence the public/ society has over the government, and how the “shell” of the
state may have hardened. The considerable “emergency legislation” (κατ’’επείγοντα νομοσχέδια) passed through parliament within a single day, especially since 2013, can be read as
additional evidence of limited civil society consultation (at least, at the level of parliamentary
committees).
It is noteworthy that only the interviewees from three of the most powerful organizations
(OEV, KEVE and the Pancyprian Association of Entrepreneurs of Land Development and
Construction) expressed satisfaction with the social dialogue that has taken place during the
crisis years (Interview with anonymous leading official of OEV, 21 October 2013, Nicosia; interview with anonymous leading official of KEVE, 22 November 2013, Nicosia; interview with
anonymous representative of Pancyprian Association of Entrepreneurs of Land Development
and Construction, 13 November 2013, Nicosia). These same interviewees also expressed satisfaction with the way the current President is consulting with organized interests; this is
partially due to the way they were treated by the previous (Christofias) government, which
was in their opinion more hostile to business interests. On the other hand, interviewees from
organizations such as the small and medium enterprises association (Pancyprian Confederation
of Organizations of Craftsmen and Shop Owners (POVEK)), the Union of Cypriot Pensioners
(EKYSY) and PEO criticized the Anastasiades government and praised the Christofias government, arguing that social dialogue in Cyprus has suffered from the recent change in the
executive (Interview with anonymous leading official of PEO, 21 October 2013, Nicosia;
interview with anonymous representative of EKYSY, 8 November 2013, Nicosia). A distinction
can thus be drawn between “insiders” and “outsiders” with regard to state consultation with
organized interests, with the former comprising groups informally affiliated to the party or
political space in government. Therefore, once again, we see that during the crisis, the leftright cleavage – and political allegiances, more specifically – remain very relevant in partysociety linkages and go hand in hand with the general orientation of approaching all parties
for the purposes of lobbying.
Favours are also distributed ad hoc to specific groups, since each ministry as well as the
central government itself (i.e., the Presidency) has funds available for “special economic
assistance” (κατά χάρην οικονομική βοήθεια), which until 2013 were never reduced and whose
recipients are still not made publically available (Interview with anonymous civil servant at
the Ministry of Finance, 27 September 2013, Nicosia). Given that each government and ministry
has the full power to distribute this special economic assistance as it pleases, the phenomenon
of funding organizations that are affiliated to the party or parties in government just before
each election is still ripe (Interview with anonymous civil servant at the Ministry of Finance,
27 September 2013, Nicosia).
At the same time, there are signs that the socially entrenched bi-polarity is waning. This is
more obvious the further one goes far from the corridors of power, and examines groups that
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Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
are either marginalized or politically less important and powerful. Farmers’ organizations and
unions, for example, are among the very few groups that have openly protested the policies
of the government – and a government that they or the majority of their organizations are
affiliated with. Unlike the interviewees from POVEK, PEO, OEV and KEVE, who openly praised
either the Christofias or the Anastasiades government, the interviewees from farmers’ organizations were critical of both the previous and the current government and appeared more
ready to engage in protest if necessary (Interview with anonymous representative of EKA, 6
November 2013, Nicosia; interview with anonymous representative of Commission for Potato
Cultivators, 23 November 2013, Dasaki tis Achnas; interview with anonymous representative
of the Cypriot Association of Livestock Breeders, 5 December 2013, Nicosia).
Also critical of both governments was the representative of the non-governmental organization Movement for Equality, Support and Anti-Racism (KISA). The interviewee insisted that
at a certain point during the Christofias presidency, AKEL (and the government) stopped
involving KISA in local and municipal matters related to immigration and asylum. He also
stated that AKEL’s youth organization has never responded to KISA’s calls for demonstrations,
marches and other events (Interview with anonymous representative of KISA, 17 January
2014, Nicosia).
In spite of this general dissatisfaction with the type and efficiency of social dialogue, almost
all interviewees from social groups and professional associations stated explicitly that during
the crisis, they still sought to influence all main parties, either within the context of consultation
in parliamentary committees or direct meetings with party leaders or representatives. In
most instances it is the parties that are approached by civil society, rather than the other way
round – except within the context of electoral campaigns. Interviewees further declared their
organization’s willingness and practice to meet with parties, as well as the fact that they
themselves are members of parties. This point confirms our earlier finding (see above in this
chapter) that civil society tends not to pursue non-institutional avenues for mobilization, but
prefers to use established channels of communication. Thus, again we see that to quite a
considerable extent partitocracy has not declined in the face of reduced party identification
and diminished satisfaction with politics. The political weight of parties has remained relatively intact although their social capital has suffered greatly. In other words, at the level of
the political system, nothing has been subverted and the dynamics between political parties,
as well as the scope of their power have not really changed, in spite of the fact that their
influence in society and their capacity to represent interests and embody social identities
have been severely weakened. This weakening is mostly reflected in public opinion rather
than in daily political practice or in parties’ communication strategies.
All parties have tried to compensate for the weakened labour movement (and thus their
affiliated trade unions) by focusing on philanthropic and solidarity activities during the crisis.
These efforts may also serve to counterbalance the parties’ reduced capacity (because of
austerity) to control their supporters through direct material inducements. The parties do not
work together to provide food supplies and clothing to the populace in need; rather, each
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
81
uses its own organizational machinery to provide help to those who are somehow connected
with them, although officially their charity activities are open to all citizens in need (Interview
with anonymous EDEK leading official, 5 December 2013, Nicosia; interview with anonymous
AKEL leading official, 15 January 2014, Nicosia; interview with anonymous DISY leading official,
6 March, 2014, Nicosia; interview with anonymous DIKO leading official, 10 March 2014, Nicosia).
Partisan particularities naturally apply when it comes to how parties mobilize in terms of
philanthropic activities. Whereas DISY as the government party cooperates with the Commissioner for Voluntarism, and provides help through NGOs, municipalities and the Church, AKEL
exhibits a more multi-faceted network of activities, resembling its organizational penetration
of society and its strict discipline. The initiative of AKEL and its ancillary organizations to
establish a “Social Network of Solidarity” with eight programmes that cover an array of social
activities and include education and health can be interpreted as a continuation, into the
crisis years, of the island’s socially entrenched bi-polarity. Because in one sense, this initiative can
be seen as the left’s response to the fact the social markets (κοινωνικά παντοπωλεία), which
have been functioning across the country and now number approximately sixteen, are for
the most part the initiative of rightists or conservative forces.
At the level of parties’ internal organization, too, there have been few changes. Internal
party cohesion at the level of party leaderships has not suffered significantly, or at least not
in such a way as to generate fundamental shifts in organizational or statutory practices. On
one level, parties are still recruiting members and in the past few years have opened their
ranks to new members. The interviewee from DISY, declared during his interview that the
party now has approximately 50,000 members, and that member rights were enhanced
during the party’s last statutory congress, so that friends of the party are now allowed to
participate in party elections and vote for the party leadership. In the last elections for the
party’s president and vice-presidents, 4,000 friends of the party registered to vote, according
to the same interviewee (interview with anonymous DISY leading official, 6 March 2014,
Nicosia). Similarly, in December 2013 the fierce antagonism between former DIKO leader,
Marios Karoyian and current DIKO leader, Nicolas Papadopoulos, meant that the registered
members doubled – reaching 38,605 (Protopapas forthcoming). DIKO also held a statutory
congress, in October 2013, but their main issues concerned the internal distribution of power
and the division of labour between different party organs and different party posts in view of
DIKO’s (then) upcoming electoral assembly, as well as the change to one single electoral
procedure for the president of the party that is separate from that for other posts at the
central and district level (interview with anonymous DIKO leading official, 10 March 2014,
Nicosia). EDEK has not held an organizational congress since the onset of the crisis – one is
being planned for 2015 – and neither has AKEL, where the most recent congress was a programmatic one primarily aimed at assessing the Christofias presidency. The main examples
of organizational adaptation in the case of AKEL are two and concern informal procedures: 1)
the pilot programme currently in force at the level of the Nicosia district committee, which
has created a forum to facilitate the exchange of opinions between AKEL officials and social
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Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
and economic agents with social capital; 2) more emphasis on AKEL’s ‘New Forces’ platform
through (forthcoming) open dialogue sessions, which was established officially in 1991 but is
now considered even more important than in earlier years (Interview with anonymous AKEL
leading official, 14 January 2014, Nicosia,).
Problems are reported, not in what concerns the recruitment of members, but in relation
to active membership, that is, party work and member participation, especially where financial
assistance to the party is required (Interview with anonymous DISY leading official, 6 March
2014, Nicosia; interview with anonymous DIKO leading official, 10 March 2014, Nicosia;
interview with anonymous EDEK leading official, 5 December 2013, Nicosia; interview with
anonymous municipal Nicosia official of AKEL, 15 November 2013, Nicosia).
As many of the new participants in the parties’ (DISY’s and DIKO’s) electoral assemblies are
one-use members, the inflow of new faces in parties’ institutionalized procedures does not
signify a real shift in terms of political participation. Rather, all the available evidence attests
not to a greater degree of participatory democracy in parties but rather the attraction of
members for the purposes of internal electoral contests.
Another area of party-society relations, which concerns the direct interaction between
political parties and the state, and is thus relevant to the larger and currently salient issue of
transparency, is that of party financing. Limited initiatives are also observed in this area as
well. To repeat a point made in Chapter 3, elite pacts between the main parties have so far
functioned in such a way that there have been very limited legislative initiatives to amend
current financing laws. The GRECO report by the Council of Europe outlined the actions taken
by Cyprus, in particular, the new Political Parties Law (PPL) that was adopted in December 2012.
The new legislation introduced an explicit obligation for political parties to keep accounting books, in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards, and to integrate
information on income, expenditure, assets and debts, including from local branches and
affiliated organizations, as well as income and expenses pertaining to election campaigns.
Political parties’ financial statements are now subject to independent audit and external
supervision by the Auditor-General of the Republic; these are to be performed annually, with
the results to be made available to the public.
However, the GRECO report also identified a number of remaining problems: the lack of a
consistent format for political party accounts, the absence of external supervision of incomes
and expenditures in connection with election campaigns, as well as the exemption from
publication any party accounts and individual donations above a certain threshold. Indeed,
according to a press article in haravgi (3 May 2014), the Auditor General has reported that
financial reports submitted by parties are not complete or do not follow international audit
standards. Political disaffection may have prompted extra caution on behalf of parties when
declaring their incomes; yet perhaps neither the total sum of their activities, nor the sources
of their income would have helped their already tarnished image in society. As things stand,
therefore, it appears that the parties do not abide by the legislation of 2012, which they
themselves enacted.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
83
Recent developments, including many that are directly related to the issues emerging
with the crisis, have prompted discussion at the level of the polity with regard to corruption
and transparency. Things appear to be moving forward but only painstakingly. Beyond
harmonizing the legislation on party finances with GRECO guidelines (the issue is currently
with the House of Representatives Committee on Institutions), Anastasiades has proposed a
number of anti-corruption measures. However, most of these are yet to be implemented or
even finalized. 1) Restriction to two terms of office for the President and mayors, and for MPs
and municipal councillors to three, which was also discussed in parliament in 2005 (it has not
been discussed in parliament yet). 2) The institutionalised institutionalized obligation of state
officials of the public and semi-public sector to publicize their financial assets (the issue is
now with an ad hoc sub-committee in view of disagreements on the issue of publicization).16
3) The institutionalization of the responsibility of the President, ministers and state officials for
civil and criminal matters they may be potentially charged with (two relevant bills were sent
to parliament in November 2013 but the issue has not been voted upon). 4) The specification
of crimes for which the President can be charged (nothing of this sort has yet to be presented
by the government). 5) The modernization of laws for criminal interrogators and committees
of inquiry (this is the only relevant law that was voted upon, in April 2013). 6) The opening of
bank accounts and the lift on classified banking information for the purpose of investigating
phenomena of corruption (still pending in parliament/not yet submitted to the Committee
of Legal Affairs).
Economic Crisis and the Cyprus Problem
political moves related to the cyprus problem during the crisis
Although the Cyprus problem is not discussed as often as in the past – the prime example of
this being the last European elections, when the parties barely mentioned the issue
(Charalambous et al., forthcoming) – there appears to be a general conviction that if a solution
is agreed now it means the government has yielded under pressure. The government has
responded to this by arguing that no (external) pressure towards solving the Cyprus problem
will be accommodated due to the economic crisis (kathimerini 2013). At the same time, the
National Council has emphasized that the economic crisis must not lead the government to
reject positions of principle in terms of the content of the solution (phileleftheros 2013). In this
vein, for Cypriot political elites, the main concern may not be the actual solution of the problem,
but rather the way that Cyprus is perceived to be handling pressure due to its weakened
position (vis à vis its creditors and EU circles on which it depends for repaying its debt) caused
by the crisis.
16
These financial assets anyway have to be submitted to the President of the House, yet it is not clear if this is implemented, by how many MPs and following what procedure.
84
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
There are some indications that this argument is quite plausible. First, the economic crisis
is the leading subject of the rhetoric and action of political leaders. Second, important
developments such as the recent visit by Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu to the
north did not attract any special attention from political parties. Third, the mainstream press
has also been primarily reporting on issues pertaining to the crisis, while the Cyprus problem
has taken a backseat. Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu and Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet
Davutoğlu have already accused the Greek Cypriot side of ‘delays’ and ‘trying to gain time’ in
the negotiations (Kyprianou 2013; naftemporiki 2013). Such arguments are also endorsed by
some international media – the economist, for example, has suggested that the Greek Cypriot
side has been ‘foot-dragging’ for years (the economist 2014).
At the same time, Greek Cypriots have a deeply entrenched scepticism of any major
moves by the government in relation to the Cyprus problem. During the discussions in late
2013 and early 2014 leading up to agreement on a common basis for the negotiations, a choir
of voices that included EDEK, DIKO, EVROKO, the Ecologists and Citizens Alliance was
particularly critical of the initiative. The criticisms were ascribed to both the ‘hastiness’ with
which the agreement was signed and its content, its ‘generalizations’ and ‘vagueness’ (to Vima
2014). The main argument was that the agreement favoured Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot
interests. For example, it was stressed that while the Republic of Cyprus President accepted
dual citizenship, the Turkish Cypriot leader refused to discuss the settlers. Indeed, the joint
agreement proved enough to dissolve the governing coalition between DISY and DIKO. As a
new leadership – under Nicolas Papadopoulos – emerged in DIKO, a turn was made towards
a more rejectionist stance on the Cyprus problem, which took the form of fully fledged criticism
of the President’s handling of the joint agreement. In fact, DIKO’s response was essentially
contradicting the position of the party’s former leader and Republic of Cyprus President
(2003–2008) Tassos Papadopoulos. Just like Anastasiades did through the joint agreementt,
Papadopoulos had agreed on 8 July 2006 with former Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat
to reunite Cyprus, on the basis of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation and political equality, as
these terms are determined by the relevant UN resolutions. The bulk of the agreement is thus
no different from that of the agreements made under different presidents. In this sense, the
DIKO leadership’s majority stance can also be interpreted as a “trick” in order to return the
party to the opposition, possibly in order to gather the forces necessary for a return to
government under its own president in 2018, while also showing the full force of its veto
power in the parliament.
The joint agreement has so far been the only issue on which AKEL has supported President
Anastasiades. This may indicate that there exist certain possibilities for a future convergence
between the two parties – AKEL and DISY – to defend a prospective solution based on bizonality and bi-communality. And, in fact, this recalls the first year of the Christofias government
(2008–2013) when DISY was essentially positive about the president’s handling of the Cyprus
problem and the recommencement of the negotiations. But now, and within the left as well,
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
85
negative arguments are being disseminated, most concerning the timing of a prospective
solution. Many on the left, both in Cyprus and in Greece (and more specifically the Greek
Communist Party KKE), as well as some factions of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA),
argue that Cyprus is currently in a weakened position in the negotiations due to the economic
crisis and the austerity policies that are being followed by the Anastasiades government.
Although AKEL has not gone as far as some SYRIZA officials have (issuing a statement on how
vulnerable Cyprus can prove to be at the negotiating table due to its financial problems),
suspicion over foreign initiatives on the Cyprus problem is omnipresent in social networking
discussions. On the one hand, the leftist arguments are radically different from those of the
centre, in the sense that they focus exclusively on the imperialistic tendencies characterizing
the main foreign players in the Cyprus problem/conundrum, and oppose timetables for a
solution. On the other hand, since there is a thin line between the end results of AKEL-driven
and DIKO-driven scepticism, there still appears to exist ground for cooperation between the
left and the centre regarding the Cyprus problem, at least in terms of official statements.
Inevitably, on the ground and especially among the less educated of AKEL’s constituencies,
anti-imperialistic arguments that boil down to the issue of national sovereignty can be easily
misunderstood or interpreted as emphasizing national pride or the “important” differences
that are said to exist between the island’s two main communities. Consequently, this type of
misunderstanding can easily inhibit reconciliation activities by the left and its supporters.
The government is, in fact, trying to connect the crisis to the Cyprus problem. As a presidential official said: on the one hand, the government has been receiving messages that the
Greek Cypriot perspective on the Cyprus problem has been changing because of the crisis,
for example, in relation to the argument that as the situation stands now the Greek Cypriots
will not be financially supporting (‘feeding’) the Turkish Cypriots; on the other hand, the
government itself is ‘indirectly trying’ to get across the message that a solution to the Cyprus
problem will benefit Cyprus financially (interview with anonymous presidential official, 17 April
2014, Nicosia). Indeed, the government has linked a prospective solution to economic progress:
President Anastasiades stated explicitly that the economic crisis could be overcome with a
solution to the Cyprus problem (Sigma Live 2013) and so has the government spokesman
(Athanasiou 2014). Powerful social actors connected to the right are promoting a climate of
consensus between the two communities in a way that is unprecedented – certainly nothing
like this occurred during the presidencies of Christofias and Papadopoulos. Some examples
include: the joint announcement of Famagusta mayor Alexis Galanos and Turkish Cypriot
mayor Oktay Kayalp, which called for – as a first step towards a solution – the immediate
return to the Greek Cypriots of the closed area of the city. There are the Archbishop’s contacts
with the Turkish Cypriot Mufti in 2013 and 2014 after years of no such steps; the Good Friday
service in Famagusta, the first since 1957, PEO’s bicommunal events in April and May 2014
and the video clip about the economic benefits of a solution of the Cyprus problem prepared
by the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KEVE).
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Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
However, regional and international developments, in combination with the crisis, have
made the situation even more complex. Since the discovery of natural gas reserves in the
island’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and in view of the prospect of further hydrocarbon
discoveries, the two sides have engaged in a dispute over rights to the natural gas, with the
Greek Cypriot side using the issue within the context of the financial consequences of the
crisis. The way this has unfolded is closely related to the question of sovereignty in the context
of the Cyprus negotiations. The Greek Cypriots say that pending a settlement to the Cyprus
problem, the Republic of Cyprus’s sovereign right to explore and extract hydrocarbons lying
in its EEZ is ‘inalienable and non-negotiable’ and is not conditional on a Cyprus solution. It is
insisted that the exercise of this right is not a bi-communal issue to be included in the
negotiations. More specifically, the Greek Cypriot position is that revenues from the natural
gas resources can be shared between the two communities only after a solution and the
creation of a united Republic of Cyprus –accomplished through the passage of a new constitution, and an internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus within which Turkish Cypriots will
also participate. The Turkish Cypriots and Turkey object to all Greek Cypriot actions relating to
the EEZ and hydrocarbons, arguing that since the 1963 breakdown of the bi-communal
power-sharing institutions of the Republic of Cyprus there has not been a constitutionally
legitimate single authority representing Cyprus (see Gürel et al. 2013).
To restore the political balance, the Turkish Cypriots and Turkey have taken their own
“reciprocal steps”: they signed an agreement demarcating the continental shelf between the
island’s northern coast and Turkey, and the Turkish Cypriot authorities also granted hydrocarbons exploration licenses for sea areas in the north, east, and south of Cyprus to the Turkish
national oil company TPAO. At the same time, Turkey claims as its own the continental shelf
in an area of the Eastern Mediterranean that covers almost all of the EEZ claimed by the
Republic of Cyprus in the island’s west, and partially overlaps the Republic of Cyprus’s exploration blocks 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 in the southwest (see Gürel et al. 2013). Overall, as Gürel (2013)
put it, ‘the hydrocarbons controversy has so far simply exacerbated the more fundamental
disagreements between the two sides regarding (a) where sovereignty lies in Cyprus and (b)
the related question of how “a new state of affairs would come into being” under a political
settlement’. On one side, in the face of the crisis, the Greek Cypriot political elites are counting
on convincing their constituencies that the sovereignty of the Republic of Cyprus will not be
challenged and that even without a settlement the Greek Cypriot population on the island
will be able to enjoy the profits of the hydrocarbons. On the other side, the Turkish Cypriots
perceive the Greek Cypriots’ unilateral efforts to explore and extract hydrocarbons as further
proof of the Greek Cypriot position that the current Republic of Cyprus is a legitimate and
sovereign independent state that will continue to exist after a settlement.
A second issue that has arisen during the crisis concerns the Immovable Property
Commission, which was officially established in March 2006 (under the Immovable Property
Law No. 67/2005) in accordance with the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights in
the case of xenides-Arestis vs. turkey. The purpose of this measure was to establish a domestic
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
87
remedy for claims on abandoned properties in the north. The European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR), with a decision on 1 March 2010 as to the admissibility of demopoulos and others vs.
turkey, found that Law No. 67/2005 provides an effective remedy and rejected applicant pleas
for non-exhaustion of domestic remedies.
Many Greek Cypriots with income problems, especially in the wake of the crisis, are now
resorting to the Commission – indeed, a record number of applications has been reported by
the local press. Moreover, the type of applicants to the Commission has gradually changed,
as many, citizens who never intended to apply are now doing so, as the crisis has negatively
affected their family finances. Although, as has been repeatedly suggested (for example, by
lawyer Achilleas Demetriades), the Cypriot government has the right and the capacity to offer
alternative means to citizens, for example by creating an analogous institution that compensates Greek Cypriot refugees for the loss of their properties, such arguments have not gained
any ground among political parties. Nevertheless, an inter-party committee was set up in the
Republic of Cyprus, which proposed a number of measures that would discourage Greek
Cypriots from resorting to the Commission. The measures decided so far (but still not
implemented, possibly due to the lack of funds) include:
1) An amendment to the Land and Property Register legislation that would rescind transfer
charges and taxes on any commercial exchanges among Greek Cypriots relating to pro
perties in the north.
2) A restructuring of the state refugee assistance programme so that provisions and loans
are better designed and targeted.
3) Giving the annual credits of the national budget for housing loans as loans to banks.
4) A loosening of building permits so that refugees receive assistance to build second or
third residences on the same piece of land for the purposes of housing their children.
5) Making use of Turkish Cypriot land allotments in the areas under the control of the Republic
of Cyprus.
6) Requiring applicants to the Turkish Cypriot properties management bureau to testify
under oath that they did not benefit from the Immovable Properties Commission.
The above measures resulted from a team effort of all the main political parties, each of which
apparently has a special committee working on the challenges created by the increasing
number of applicants to the Commission. Although the Commission is a legal instrument
that is officially and, according to international law, fully legitimate, the Greek Cypriot political
elites are pursuing a utilitarian approach in the sense that their support ECHR decisions is
highly selective. While other ECHR rulings were welcomed by Cypriot political leaders in the
past, the court decision to establish the Commission has been branded as a pro-Turkish move
and a violation of the legitimate rights of the Greek Cypriots to their property.
Local efforts at reunification are now essentially paralyzed. Rapprochement-oriented
activity is minimal both at the social movement and party level. This is primarily due to the
crisis-induced financial concerns, which have tended to overshadow the issue of recon-
88
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
ciliation. There is even less absorption of civil society activity by political leaders. On one level
the backdrop for civil society activity is no longer comfortable, while on another, political
elites are refusing to capitalize on civil local, inter-communal synergies. Indicatively, the
anniversaries of the 1974 coup and Turkish invasion this year (2014) were commemorated, at
both the state and local levels, with the usual rhetoric, style and form of previous years. In
other words: the rhetoric reiterated that it was only the Greek Cypriots who suffered the consequences of the invasion; there were no bi-communal activities; commemoration activities
were garlanded with nationalist, ethnocentric poems and songs that emphasized the Greek
Cypriots’ victimhood.
The possibility that a solution to the Cyprus problem will emerge “from below” seems
even more unlikely in the light of the crisis. This may mean that UN and foreign circles will
need to take the diplomatic initiative if a solution is to be found any time soon; as a result,
top-down pressures seem more necessary than ever. But at the same time, the situation is
such that pressure may backfire if Cypriots consider it asphyxiating. Indeed, even with no
substantive pressure, the suspicion of foreign involvement might lead to reactions. The
recent visit by United States Vice-President Joe Biden, for example, can be considered as an
overall negative development in Cyprus problem dynamics in the south of the island since it
generated a highly sceptical rhetoric (in the north, it was seen as a negative development too,
but for different reasons). On the one hand, the government referred to the Biden visit as a
very important development that signalled upgraded American interest in the Cyprus problem. The visit was considered to result from the Anastasiades government’s foreign policy,
which aimed at a new and better relationship with the West and especially, the United States.
On the other hand, in the aftermath of Biden’s trip to Cyprus the political parties spoke of his
visit in the context of pressures from abroad. DIKO, EDEK, EVROKO, the Citizens Movement
and the Ecologists commented that the visit of the American Vice-President to the north
‘upgrades the pseudo-state and harms the interests of our side’ (e.g., phileleftheros 2014).
Even AKEL has been especially careful in evaluating the visit, stressing that it primarily served
American interests and must not overshadow the role of the United Nations (Sigma Live
2014; Loukaides 2014).17
public opinion on the cyprus problem
Public opinion appears to be moving in a similar direction. In a poll carried out by Prime
Consulting on behalf of Sigma TV in October 2013, the majority of respondents (54.5%)
declared that Cyprus would have to confront the dilemma of whether to accept a solution to
17
One way to counter or inhibit conspiratorial rhetoric could perhaps be the generation of explicit support for a solution
by NGOs, civil society, research institutes, governments and all types of state and non-state actors from the main
foreign players in the Cyprus problem. Only then might it be difficult and might it seem irrational to Greek Cypriots to
accuse the foreign factor of being permanently ‘hawkish’. I thank Harry Tzimitras for pointing out this argument.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
89
the Cyprus problem in exchange for the salvation of the economy (Sigma Live 2013b). In May
of the same year, a poll taken by Prime Market Research revealed that 66.5% of respondents
believed that ‘the economic situation in which Cyprus finds itself would negatively affect the
resolution of the Cyprus problem’ (Prime Market Research 2013). It would thus appear that,
despite the efforts of public opinion leaders (such as KEVE and pro-solution liberal columnists) who argue that a solution will bring the economic benefits that are so critical now, the
public is not convinced.
More generally, Cypriots have become increasingly apathetic or disinterested in the Cyprus
problem. As Table 16 illustrates, the percentage of those who report the Cyprus problem as
the main issue that worries them decreased consistently by approximately 37% between
November 2007 and May 2014. Most citizens seem uninterested in the nuances of the Cyprus
problem. This is best explained by the increasingly worrying financial situation of so much of
the population. Just a glance through the recent press reveals less and less focus on the
Cyprus problem in the editorials, columns, opinions and reports throughout the crisis years.
Discussions in the family environment, the workplace and among friends are much more
about Cyprus’s financial trouble than about the Cyprus problem. Moreover, the mere fact that
there are no real developments in the negotiations pushes this matter to the background.
Therefore, what may be missing is not a lack of interest strictly speaking but rather a coincidence
of circumstances that makes it less rational for citizens to spend time on the Cyprus problem.
Table 13 Cross-tabulation between left-right self-placement and party affiliation (2012)
Nov. 2007
March 2012
Jan 2013
May 2014
Economy/Wages/Prices
27.5%
37.4%
50.4%
52.4%
Cyprus Problem
47.4%
31.8%
22.8%
10.2%
Unemployment
2.0%
16.3%
17.9%
23.7%
The 2008 election of the left-wing candidate, Dimitris Christofias, as President of the Republic
of Cyprus, in combination with the electoral victory of the Turkish Cypriot left leader, Mehmet
Ali Talat, re-ignited hopes for a solution after the failed referendum of 2004. As Charalambous
and Ioannou (forthcoming) explain, ‘When Christofias and AKEL took over in early 2008 ...
with the Turkish Cypriot Left (CTP) still in power in the north part of the island, the circumstances were thought to provide a historic opportunity for the Left to solve the Cyprus
problem’. But progress in the official negotiations was limited, as the president was constantly
bombarded with allegations of compromise, which limited his will for going ahead with a
solution. His proposals on a rotating presidency and cross-voting between the two communities in elections finally led the centrist parties to abandon the government. When in 2011
Talat lost the election in the north to right-wing candidate Derviş Eroğlu, the negotiations
reached a stalemate that has yet to be overcome.
90
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
We can see the above event/developments reflected in Greek Cypriot attitudes towards
the Cyprus problem through the period 2003–2010. According to Cyprobarometer surveys,
pessimism over the prospects for a solution to the Cyprus problem grew dramatically – from
23% in 2004 to 88% in 2006. This pessimism remained more or less stable from 2006–2008,
decreasing to 70% in 2009 and 72% in 2010, rising slightly thereafter. At the same time,
optimism for a solution declined abruptly and dramatically after 2004, increasing during the
Christofias-Talat period, but still remaining low compared to 2003 (Figure 23). The sharp
change in attitude after 2004 would seem to confirm the argument that the Annan Plan was
a critical juncture in domestic dynamics, and that it changed Greek Cypriot perceptions of the
reconciliation process (see Chapter 4). Since 2004 (with the partial exception of 2008–2010)
Greek Cypriots have had less hope that their political system is capable of achieving a solution
based on a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation – the official state policy since the 1970s. Given
that a great many Greek Cypriots were engaged in politics and in the parties because of the
Cyprus problem,18 it seems logical that the public’s political satisfaction dropped after the
repeated failure of negotiations.19
Figure 22 Optimism for a solution to the Cyprus problem
source: Cyprobarometer, RAI Communications http://www.rai.com.cy/main/5,0,0,0-news.aspx
Question wording: ‘Believe that a solution to the Cyprus problem will be achieved soon’.
Pessimism is not graphed because the data for 2007 and 2008 are unavailable.
18
19
In literally all relevant surveys the Cyprus problem has ranked as one of the most important political issues among the
Greek Cypriots both during electoral periods and outside them.
It should be noted that, since the Church, traditionally perceived as an important source of rhetoric for the Cyprus
problem, has retained trustworthiness among the citizens, then it cannot be that it is chiefly blamed for Cyprus
problem developments.
political culture, political behaviour and economic crisis in the republic of cyprus
91
A closer look reveals increasing dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the Cyprus
problem. This is an important feature of most of the period under consideration; public opinion
seems to follow a cycle that conforms to domestic developments unrelated to the crisis. Concerning the period 2008–2013, the number of Greek Cypriots who were satisfied with Christofias’s
Cyprus problem policy began to decrease in late 2009, and continued to decline throughout the
last two years of Christofias’s tenure in office (Table 17). A meeting (named the Green Tree
meeting) between the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders, under the auspices of UN
Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, confirmed the stalemate between the two sides and provided
an opportunity for the opposition to further criticize Christofias. Dissatisfaction with President
Christofias over the Cyprus negotiations, therefore, continued until the end of his incumbency.
Table 17 Public opinion and the Christofias government – Cyprus Problem
Poll (date)
Question
Result
Evresis (Feb. 2012)
Are you greatly, sufficiently, a little or not at all
satisfied with the way President Christofias is
managing the Cyprus problem.
Greatly/sufficiently: 23.3%,
Not at all/A little: 70.6%
GPO (Jan 2012)
After the Green Tree meeting, how do you evaluate
the policy of the Christofias government in what
concerns the Cyprus problem?
Positively: 62.0%,
Negatively: 33.3%
GPO (Nov. 2011)
How do you evaluate the policy of the Christofias
government in what concerns the Cyprus problem?
Positively: 39.1%,
Negatively: 58.2%
Evresis (Oct. 2011)
Are you greatly, sufficiently, a little or not at all
satisfied with the way President Christofias is
managing the Cyprus problem.
Greatly/sufficiently: 26.4%,
Not at all/A little: 70.3%
GPO (Sept. 2011)
How do you evaluate the policy and management
of the Cyprus problem by President Christofias?
Positively: 36.3%,
Negatively: 63.2%
GPO (Sept. 2010)
How do you evaluate the policy of the Christofias
government in what concerns the Cyprus problem?
Positively: 49.5%,
Negatively: 49.6%
GPO (Jan. 2010)
How do you evaluate the policy and management
of the Cyprus problem by President Christofias?
Positively: 52.4%,
Negatively: 46.4%
Evresis (Jan. 2010)
Do you consider President Christofias’s negotiation
tactics correct or faulty?
Correct: 36.4%, Faulty:
50.6%
Insights Market
Do you agree with President Christofias’s method in Yes: 54%, No: 46%
Research (Nov. 2009) trying for a solution to the Cyprus problem?
Metron Analysis
(May 2008)
How do you evaluate the policy of the Christofias
government in what concerns the Cyprus problem?
Positively: 65.6%,
Negatively: 21.9%
Evresis (Nov. 2008)
Are you greatly, sufficiently, a little or not at all
satisfied with the way President Christofias is
managing the Cyprus problem?
Greatly/sufficiently: 57.3%,
Not at all/A little: 41.7%
GPO (Oct. 2008)
How do you evaluate the policy of the Christofias
government in what concerns the Cyprus problem?
Positively: 75.9%,
Negatively: 22.0%
92
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
To sum up the trends in public opinion about the Cyprus problem, there seems to be no correlation between the crisis and satisfaction/optimism regarding the Cyprus problem. Although
there is no systematic public opinion data for the Anastasiades government’s Cyprus problem
policy, the drop in optimism began much earlier than the crisis. Further, the decrease in
satisfaction with the way the incumbent is dealing with the Cyprus problem has followed
government-opposition dynamics and those developments that are directly connected with
progress in the negotiations or lack thereof. What can be attributed to the crisis is the lack of
concern about the Cyprus problem (especially compared to concern about the economy),
which makes reconciliation processes much slower and more difficult and the diffusion of
conspiratorial rhetoric among the public easier, especially in what concerns the “dilemma
argument” (between a “forced” solution and economic recovery).
Nationalist feelings can be easily fuelled by arguments suggesting that the crisis has been
instrumentalized by the EU as a means to impose a solution on Greek Cypriots. The underlying
rationale for such an argument is usually two-fold: 1) the Greek Cypriots have not been
forgiven for their stance on the Annan Plan Referendum; 2) the Republic of Cyprus is being
used as a guinea pig (hence, the haircut on deposits in March 2013) due to its geopolitical
irrelevance. More broadly, this effort to shift blame and defend one’s point of view, denying
any systemic dynamics that might sabotage reunification efforts, may serve to awaken
primitive instincts about what constitutes the limits to national sovereignty. And amidst this
scenario of national symbols, patriotic slogans and a rhetoric of victimhood, populism can
easily flourish. And indeed, this is exactly what we see exemplified in various constituencies
and in various party positions, ranging from DIKO’s continuing and constant calls for an
‘assertive policy’ (διεκδικητική πολιτική), to the far right (ELAM) argument for the need to
enhance the National Guard in the face of a growing possibility of military tension between
Turkey and Cyprus.
93
chApter 6:
CONCLUSIONS
This report has investigated whether – and if so, how – political culture and political behaviour
in the Republic of Cyprus have changed during the recent economic crisis. Before highlighting
the main findings, however, a methodological note is due. This report has been a preliminary
attempt to delve into the socio-political nuances of the economic crisis in Cyprus, and more
research and data are required for a fuller, more complete picture. As developments related
to the crisis are still unfolding and the crisis itself is still a feature of Cypriot life, new issues,
trends and phenomena may arise in the upcoming years. But it is also important to recognize
that there is a serious lack of data on Cyprus. European and international surveys that include
Cyprus, such as the Eurobarometers, have omitted important questions targeting social and
political attitudes that would have allowed for a more thorough examination of potential
attitudinal and cultural changes during the crisis years. Those surveys that do include such
questions, such as the European Social Survey and the International Social Survey
Programme, are conducted and published every two years and thus cannot offer insights into
the more recent happenings. Most public opinion data that is locally generated is designed for
commercial purposes and often lacks the detail necessary for political sociological conclusions.
There is also the issue of the generation of event data and analysis. It is critical that surveys
are designed in such a way as to capture the effects of controversial political decisions and
legislation enacted during crisis periods. Crises, in other words, often entail syncopated subdevelopments rather than continuous processes of social and economic transformation.
Therefore, research into their effects needs to develop the capacity to canvass opinion in a
topic-specific way, so that it addresses the differentiated events and happenings that
together form the ‘period of crisis’. This is key to exploring both the contextual and time-specific
attitudinal changes that may be characterized by fluctuating rather than linear trends. Scholars
and those interested in survey and analysis of large-scale socio-political events should: a)
focus on designing questions that specifically reflect event-related decision making; b) adapt
questionnaires to focus research on particular target groups; c) consider the use of online
survey tools appropriate to the context of large-scale events.
Despite these methodological drawbacks, essentially regarding the study of political
culture, a number of key points emerge. A case can be made that the Republic of Cyprus finds
itself in a state of political as well as economic crisis. A number of indicators that gauge citizens’
perceptions of political life on the island point to political dissatisfaction, distrust, decreasing
party identification, a negative perception of social dialogue and Euroscepticism. From this
94
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
angle, political leaders both on the island and in the supranational institutions that take
decisions affecting the Cypriot economy have been delegitimized. Cypriot and EU democracy
no longer enjoy the active consent of the Cypriot people. Democracy has been severely
damaged in terms of legitimacy and has not been enhanced in terms of alternative forms of
participation, more open arenas of deliberation or new or changing agents of representation.
In the face of new psychological challenges, radicalization is also largely absent (despite a
slightly changing picture in what concerns left-right self-placement) and apathy thrives.
This trend in Greek Cypriots’ growing dissatisfaction with politics and the delegitimization
of the political system began before the onset of the economic crisis, although it continued
and in some respects accelerated during the crisis years. Certainly, in an environment where
the quality of life is being constantly lowered, perceptions about politics are bound to be
affected. But overall, this report has shown that we can trace the beginning of the political
crisis prior to the onset of the economic crisis, as it has revealed evidence of relevant attitudinal patterns existing before 2011–2012. This inevitably brings to the fore two issues that
are central to the study of political culture and behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the
crisis. First, although Greek Cypriots have been able to see the flaws in their democratic
system more clearly during the crisis, they began to sense the polity’s underperformance and
became more cynical of Cypriot politics some time before any type of economic shock hit
their economy directly. Second, a number of events that reflect particularities of the Cyprus
case appear to be more important than the crisis itself. The Mari explosion, the stalemate in
the Cyprus problem negotiations and the left’s first time in executive office have had a deep
impact on the intensity of political competition and political cultural dynamics.
But although the social fabric is undergoing a serious transformation due to the economic
malaise the country has been experiencing, overall the nature of interest aggregation remains
resilient during the crisis due to the absorption of changes into a fixed type of political behaviour. In other words, the culture has changed, but not so much behaviour. What changes have
been witnessed in culture have not generated significant behavioural reactions on behalf of
elites. The party system, in terms of both format and mechanics, is not really responding to
the ongoing cultural changes. The parties are adapting to their environment not by changing
their organization and modus operandi, but by reproducing it and extending it to other types
of activities. Similarly, elite interaction remains deeply corporatist, and party-society relations
are neither weakening nor are they taking on new forms of linkages. A path-dependent
trajectory that is deeply entrenched in Cypriot history, mainly in terms of political behaviour
but to a certain extent also in terms of cultural traits, is evident in the crisis years as well.
95
APPENDIX
SCHEDULE OF INTERVIEWS
Anonymous interviews were carried out with social and political actors. There was no common
questionnaire for all interviews but rather, questions were chosen according to the interviewee’s occupation or social activity. The interviews were used for objective data on events
and sources, as well as subjective data on the protagonists’ intentions and interpretations of
events. Where direct references to the interviews are not made, these are not cited in the text.
-
Interview with anonymous municipal Nicosia official of AKEL, 15 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous civil servant at the Ministry of Interior, 21 October 2013,
Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of the Pancyprian Workers’ Confederation
(PEO), 21 October 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of the Association of Single Parents,
10 January 2014, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of the Pancyprian Organization of Greek
Teachers (POED), 2 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of the Cypriot Organization of Consumers,
5 December 2012, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of the office of the Commissioner for
Voluntarism, 30 October 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of DIKO Youth Organization (NEDIK),
5 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous civil servant at the Ministry of Finance 27,
September 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of EDEK Youth, 20 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of United Democratic Organization
of Youth (EDON), 18 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of Union of Cypriot Pensioners (EKYSY),
8 November 2013, Nicosia.
96
Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
-
Interview with representative of Union of Cypriot Farmers (EKA),
6 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of Pancyprian Association of Entrepreneurs
of Land Development and Construction, 13 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of the Pancyprian Confederation of
Organizations of Craftsmen and Shop Owners (POVEK), 29 October 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of Federation of Employers and Industrialists
(OEV), 21 October 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous EDEK leading official 5 December 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (KEVE), 22 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of Federation of Associations of Construction
Managers, Cyprus (OSEOK), 12 December 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of DISY Youth (NEDISY),
8 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of Trade Union of Semi-governmental,
Municipal and Community Workers – Pancyprian Federation of Working People, at the
Cyprus Telecommunications Authority (SIDIKEK-PEO CYTA), 13 December 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous AKEL leading official, 15 January 2014, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous leading official of Organization of Greek Functionaries
of Secondary Education (OELMEK), 6 November 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous member of National Council for the Economy,
28 February 2014, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous high-ranking official of the Pancyprian Trade Union
of Civil Servants (PASYDY), 18 December 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous DISY leading official, 6 March, 2014, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of Movement for Equality,
Support and Anti-Racism (KISA), 17 January 2014, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of Commission for Potato Cultivators,
23 November 2013, Dasaki tis Achnas.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of the Cypriot Association of Livestock
Breeders, 5 December 2013, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous DIKO leading official, 10 March 2014, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous representative of the Citizens Alliance, 10 April 2014, Nicosia.
-
Interview with anonymous presidential official, 17 April 2014, Nicosia.
97
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About the author
Giorgos Charalambous is a political scientist and holds a PhD in Politics from the University of
Manchester. His research interests lie in the areas of political behaviour, political parties and
ideologies, the domestic politics of European integration and south European politics. He is a
Senior Research Consultant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo Cyprus Centre and also teaches
as part-time Lecturer at the University of Cyprus. In May-June 2011 he was a visiting Fellow at
the Hellenic Observatory, LSE and in 2012/2013 he was Visiting Fellow at the Institute of
Commonwealth Studies, University of London. Since late 2012 he is a founding member and
Secretary of the Cypriot Association of Political Science (KYSYPE). His monograph European
integration and the Communist Dilemma: Communist Party Responses to Europe in Greece, Cyprus and
Italy has been published in 2013 with Ashgate.
The report can be ordered from:
PRIO Cyprus Centre
P.O.Box 25157, 1307 Nicosia, Cyprus
Tel: +357 22 456555/4
[email protected]
PRIO CRISIS FINAL_Layout 1 17/10/2014 09:23 Page 2
Political Culture and
Behaviour in the
Republic of Cyprus
during the Crisis
This report takes a detailed look at and re-evaluates political culture and behaviour in
the Republic of Cyprus post-2012, when the financial problems of the Cypriot banks
significantly worsened the already downward trend in consumer purchasing power, job
supply, fiscal health and overall economic development. Analyzing and comparing trends
over the past two years with longer term patterns, the report aims to answer the following
overarching question: If and what changes have been witnessed in what concerns political
culture and behaviour during the crisis in the Republic of Cyprus? Traditionally, social
science research about the island has been premised on anthropological and sociological
perspectives, focusing exclusively or primarily on the Cyprus problem and minority issues.
Lying at the crossroads of political sociology, political science and political economy, this
report seeks to bring politics “in from the cold” and initiate a process of reflection on the
state of Cypriot democracy during the crisis and especially during the time in which the
Troika (International Monetary Fund, European Commission and European Central Bank)
bailout has been in effect (2013-2014).
The report can be ordered from:
PRIO Cyprus Centre
P.O.Box 25157, 1307 Nicosia, Cyprus
Tel: +357 22 456555/4
[email protected]
PCC REPORT 2/2014 Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis
ISBN 978-82-7288-565-5 (print)
ISBN 978-82-7288-566-2 (online)
Giorgos Charalambous
PCC REPORT 2/2014