Cyprus-Forum.com

Kikapu wrote:Most of the bills will pass as a joint voting in the north between the GC's and the TC's with very few deadlocks, and in those deadlocks, we will have a mechanism to resolve it with the vice President or the President.

I did of course meant to say, "joint voting in the both Houses between the GC's and the TC's".!

You are getting common sense and political will mixed up Kikapu....You ask why????Think in both terms and you will find out...If you are honest that is.


As I have said to you before....Sell it to he GCs and Greece first and then to us.

zan wrote:You are getting common sense and political will mixed up Kikapu....You ask why????Think in both terms and you will find out...If you are honest that is.


As I have said to you before....Sell it to he GCs and Greece first and then to us.

No Zan, it is not the GC's that this needs to be sold to solely so stop trying to pass the buck by trying to duck the issue, because it is the TC's who keeps bringing up the "safeguards" issues in any Power Sharing deal. What I want to know from you is, do you accept this plan as a remedy to make up for the veto vote that was in the 1960 Constitution.?

As a GC I would accept a plan like this. As I said before the house (upper and lower) will have the seats assigned and not the communities (as Kiks states clearly)

As a BC (British Cypriot (Cypriot by osmosis and length of tenure) with GC wife and loads of GC kids), this plan makes a lot of sense to me too.

The biggest problem seems to be getting the external (not in Cyprus) Cypriots of all communities to accept a plan like this. We will ignore the views of the non-Cypriots posting here..

I know that Kikapu isn't here, but all of his postings show that he is a TRUE CYPRIOT and he has obviously put a lot of thought into his plan.

One thing interests me, Kikapu. You know two federations, the USA and Switzerland, very well. I am curious as to why you have looked to the former, rather than the latter, as your model. The USA, while certainly a successful working federation, is very different from Cyprus. It is the size of Europe and the individual states themselves are the size of European countries. In terms of size, Switzerland comes closer, and its individual cantons are even smaller than the proposed constituent states in Cyprus. The USA is a very multicultural place, but English is the official language and it is assumed that immigrants will melt into the wider American culture - that is the dream, at least. The Swiss constitutional order, on the other hand, manages to balance the interests and aspirations of different ethnic and linguistic groups and fuse them into a single nation. I have known Swiss Germans. They consider themselves to be different from French, Italian or Romansch-speaking Swiss, and are proud of their German cultural identity, but on the other hand most definitely consider themselves to be Swiss and not Germans (or Austrians). Does Switzerland not provide a better model for a place like Cyprus where the two main communities have a dialectical sense identity in which they are torn between the two conflicting poles of different motherlands and a shared Cypriot home?.

A map of the Swiss cantons:

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Suisse_cantons.svg/400px-
[/img]

Tim Drayton wrote:One thing interests me, Kikapu. You know two federations, the USA and Switzerland, very well. I am curious as to why you have looked to the former, rather than the latter, as your model. The USA, while certainly a successful working federation, is very different from Cyprus. It is the size of Europe and the individual states themselves are the size of European countries. In terms of size, Switzerland comes closer, and its individual cantons are even smaller than the proposed constituent states in Cyprus. The USA is a very multicultural place, but English is the official language and it is assumed that immigrants will melt into the wider American culture - that is the dream, at least. The Swiss constitutional order, on the other hand, manages to balance the interests and aspirations of different ethnic and linguistic groups and fuse them into a single nation. I have known Swiss Germans. They consider themselves to be different from French, Italian or Romansch-speaking Swiss, and are proud of their German cultural identity, but on the other hand most definitely consider themselves to be Swiss and not Germans (or Austrians). Does Switzerland not provide a better model for a place like Cyprus where the two main communities have a dialectical sense identity in which they are torn between the two conflicting poles of different motherlands and a shared Cypriot home?.

A map of the Swiss cantons:

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Suisse_cantons.svg/400px-
[/img]

Because if you provided Turkey with a loose confederation that has power stemming from the bottom up (i.e municipalities- cantons and then country) then the state would last approximately 3 seconds before the first canton separated off.

CH is a confederation not a federation Tim.

DT. wrote:

Tim Drayton wrote:One thing interests me, Kikapu. You know two federations, the USA and Switzerland, very well. I am curious as to why you have looked to the former, rather than the latter, as your model. The USA, while certainly a successful working federation, is very different from Cyprus. It is the size of Europe and the individual states themselves are the size of European countries. In terms of size, Switzerland comes closer, and its individual cantons are even smaller than the proposed constituent states in Cyprus. The USA is a very multicultural place, but English is the official language and it is assumed that immigrants will melt into the wider American culture - that is the dream, at least. The Swiss constitutional order, on the other hand, manages to balance the interests and aspirations of different ethnic and linguistic groups and fuse them into a single nation. I have known Swiss Germans. They consider themselves to be different from French, Italian or Romansch-speaking Swiss, and are proud of their German cultural identity, but on the other hand most definitely consider themselves to be Swiss and not Germans (or Austrians). Does Switzerland not provide a better model for a place like Cyprus where the two main communities have a dialectical sense identity in which they are torn between the two conflicting poles of different motherlands and a shared Cypriot home?.

A map of the Swiss cantons:

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Suisse_cantons.svg/400px-
[/img]

Because if you provided Turkey with a loose confederation that has power stemming from the bottom up (i.e municipalities- cantons and then country) then the state would last approximately 3 seconds before the first canton separated off.

CH is a confederation not a federation Tim.

I can't claim to be a great expert on Switzerland, but according to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland

"Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called cantons."

I am not necessarily suggesting that the Swiss constitutional order be replicated in full in Cyprus. I just wonder if Switzerland has anything to teach Cyprus. Kikapu knows better than me, obviously.

Tim Drayton wrote:

DT. wrote:

Tim Drayton wrote:One thing interests me, Kikapu. You know two federations, the USA and Switzerland, very well. I am curious as to why you have looked to the former, rather than the latter, as your model. The USA, while certainly a successful working federation, is very different from Cyprus. It is the size of Europe and the individual states themselves are the size of European countries. In terms of size, Switzerland comes closer, and its individual cantons are even smaller than the proposed constituent states in Cyprus. The USA is a very multicultural place, but English is the official language and it is assumed that immigrants will melt into the wider American culture - that is the dream, at least. The Swiss constitutional order, on the other hand, manages to balance the interests and aspirations of different ethnic and linguistic groups and fuse them into a single nation. I have known Swiss Germans. They consider themselves to be different from French, Italian or Romansch-speaking Swiss, and are proud of their German cultural identity, but on the other hand most definitely consider themselves to be Swiss and not Germans (or Austrians). Does Switzerland not provide a better model for a place like Cyprus where the two main communities have a dialectical sense identity in which they are torn between the two conflicting poles of different motherlands and a shared Cypriot home?.

A map of the Swiss cantons:

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Suisse_cantons.svg/400px-
[/img]

Because if you provided Turkey with a loose confederation that has power stemming from the bottom up (i.e municipalities- cantons and then country) then the state would last approximately 3 seconds before the first canton separated off.

CH is a confederation not a federation Tim.

I can't claim to be a great expert on Switzerland, but according to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland

"Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called cantons."

I am not necessarily suggesting that the Swiss constitutional order be replicated in full in Cyprus. I just wonder if Switzerland has anything to teach Cyprus. Kikapu knows better than me, obviously.

Tim,
official name of the country is
CH = Confederation Helvetica
Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft
Confédération suisse

and in Italian

Confederazione Svizzera

DT. wrote:

Tim Drayton wrote:

DT. wrote:

Tim Drayton wrote:One thing interests me, Kikapu. You know two federations, the USA and Switzerland, very well. I am curious as to why you have looked to the former, rather than the latter, as your model. The USA, while certainly a successful working federation, is very different from Cyprus. It is the size of Europe and the individual states themselves are the size of European countries. In terms of size, Switzerland comes closer, and its individual cantons are even smaller than the proposed constituent states in Cyprus. The USA is a very multicultural place, but English is the official language and it is assumed that immigrants will melt into the wider American culture - that is the dream, at least. The Swiss constitutional order, on the other hand, manages to balance the interests and aspirations of different ethnic and linguistic groups and fuse them into a single nation. I have known Swiss Germans. They consider themselves to be different from French, Italian or Romansch-speaking Swiss, and are proud of their German cultural identity, but on the other hand most definitely consider themselves to be Swiss and not Germans (or Austrians). Does Switzerland not provide a better model for a place like Cyprus where the two main communities have a dialectical sense identity in which they are torn between the two conflicting poles of different motherlands and a shared Cypriot home?.

A map of the Swiss cantons:

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Suisse_cantons.svg/400px-
[/img]

Because if you provided Turkey with a loose confederation that has power stemming from the bottom up (i.e municipalities- cantons and then country) then the state would last approximately 3 seconds before the first canton separated off.

CH is a confederation not a federation Tim.

I can't claim to be a great expert on Switzerland, but according to Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland

"Switzerland is a federal republic consisting of 26 states called cantons."

I am not necessarily suggesting that the Swiss constitutional order be replicated in full in Cyprus. I just wonder if Switzerland has anything to teach Cyprus. Kikapu knows better than me, obviously.

Tim,
official name of the country is
CH = Confederation Helvetica
Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft
Confédération suisse

and in Italian

Confederazione Svizzera

I don't want to stick my neck out too far here because, as I said, I don't know much about this Alpine nation, but I thought that even though it retains the word "confederation" in its name, it essentially became a federation. As far as I can see, this happened with the adoption of the 1848 constitution:

http://history-switzerland.geschichte-s ... -1848.html

This is how another source describes the political make-up of Switzerland:

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/Switzerland

Switzerland is a federation of 20 cantons and six half-cantons (canton is the name for a political division, derived from Old French). The constitution dates from 1874 and provides for a two-chamber federal assembly, consisting of the National Council and the Council of States. The National Council has 200 members, elected by universal suffrage, through a system of proportional representation, for a four-year term. The Council of States has 46 members, each canton electing two representatives and each half-canton one. Members of the Council of States are elected for three or four years, depending on the constitutions of the individual cantons.
Federal government lies with the Federal Council, consisting of seven members elected for a four-year term by the assembly, each heading a specific federal department. The federal assembly also appoints one member to act as federal head of state and head of government for a year, the term of office beginning on 1 January. The federal government is allocated specific powers by the constitution with the remaining powers left with the cantons, each having its own constitution, assembly, and government. At a level below the cantons are more than 3,000 communes. Direct democracy is encouraged through communal assemblies and referenda.