While following current events on the Star Kıbrıs Newspaper website, www.starkibris.net, a news item caught my attention!
The headline read, “Half of Greek Cypriot MPs are doctors.”
The headline caught my attention, and clicking the link to look at the details had become an instinctive reflex for me.
And there it was, the story filling my computer screen.
The Star Kıbrıs editors had written the following in the news brief: “Of the six Greek Cypriots who won the European Parliament (EP) elections held in the south of Cyprus, three were found to be doctors.”
Although every phrase in the brief brought different things to mind, I tried to focus on just one issue.
The story mentioned six Greek Cypriots, and amid all those associations, one question came to mind: “I wonder which two of them are ‘supposed’ to represent us!”
After all, we have two seats allocated to us in the European Parliament (EP), and in the latest elections the Greek Cypriots chose two of their own for those seats!
And as a result of that choice, two Greek Cypriots will take their places in the EP on our behalf.
Beyond the question—and problem—of who will sit in the seats allocated to us, the question of how long these representatives will represent us, or, as I put it in the headline, “Are the representatives temporary?”, is the key issue here.
In fact, finding the answer to this question would mean resolving many others!
Because whether these representatives are temporary depends on the success of the negotiations being conducted by the leaders…
If the leaders reach an agreement through their negotiations, and that agreement is put to a referendum and approved by both sides, EP elections will be held again in Cyprus.
And this way, those two seats currently allocated to us and occupied by Greek Cypriots will be filled by Turkish Cypriots this time.
The same question also applies to the parliamentary arithmetic that took shape after the April 19 snap general election. If a solution to the Cyprus Problem is found, the representatives currently in parliament will also enter a new election period…
Ultimately, resolving the Cyprus Problem means something else for both communities too: whether the representatives elected to the Greek Cypriot parliament, the Turkish Cypriot parliament, and the EP are temporary!
Hope to see you on Tuesday…
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