The Cyprus referendum: an example of how not to ask a question

In Northern Ireland with a problem similar to the Cyprob, the referendum question on the Good Friday Agreement was much simpler

Last week President Nikos Christodoulides told a conference in Limassol that his government would hold non-binding consultative referendums on policy. It’s a great idea that confounds his critics who claim he waffled his way to the top job with meaningless generalities.

The proposal is as novel as it is concrete. It could have the unintended consequence of kickstarting negotiations to settle the Cyprob if the Turkish side agrees to it in principle as a process worth considering in search of common ground.

A pre-negotiation referendum on a bicommunal bizonal federation (BBF) would by definition be non-binding since its final outcome would depend on a negotiated agreement by the leaders and their constitutional advisers.

The problem with centrifugal federations – the pseudoscientific name of federations designed to hold diverse communities together – is that they require fine-tuning by trial and error all the time, which is why it is necessary for referendums to be held first to clear the way for a settlement and beyond.

There is a research paper called Power Sharing and the Paradox of Federalism in Belgium in which the author puts forward the proposition that careless federalism can exacerbate rather than heal division, which is why voters should enable their leaders to work out flexible federal arrangements without too many strings attached.

The 2004 Cyprus referendum in which the Greek Cypriots rejected a BBF happened 19-years ago. It did not precede negotiations and the question posed was not well-constructed. It asked more than one question, which as every barrister knows is a cardinal error in any form of questioning.

People were asked: do you approve the Foundation Agreement and all its annexes as well as the constitution of the Greek Cypriot/Turkish Cypriot state and the provisions as to the laws to be in force, to bring into being a new state of affairs in which Cyprus joins the EU united? It was an example of how not to ask a question. Quite apart from its convoluted syntax, it reads like an exclusion clause in the small print of a contact.

Six years earlier in 1998 in Northern Ireland with a problem similar to the Cyprob, the referendum question on the Good Friday Agreement was much simpler. Do you agree with the agreement reached in the multi-party talks on Northern Ireland? Voters were referred to where they could find the agreement but as people do not live in an information vacuum, the core parts of the agreement were made widely known in the media and there was no need to go into the complexities of the Good Friday Agreement.

However, in a BBF referendum prior to negotiation its meaning should be spelled out because people on both sides would need to know that their compatriots are being asked to agree the same system.

Next time round – assuming there is a next time – a referendum on BBF to settle the Cyprob should be non-binding. It should precede negotiations and the question should have a short preamble containing the essentials of a BBF in broad outline sufficient to enable people to approve or reject it.

Something along the lines that the territory of Cyprus shall comprise two zones with constituent state power and shared federal power their size jurisdiction and composition to be agreed. Do you approve a BBF as a basis for a negotiated settlement in Cyprus? Yes/No.

I don’t buy the argument that the average Cypriot is not sophisticated enough politically to be entrusted with mature consideration of such a referendum question. Cypriots are as well-informed as Britons or Swiss or anybody else – some might even claim they are better informed. The political systems in Britain and Switzerland may be more sophisticated than Cyprus but the people are not better able to make political judgments just because they are born north of Italy.

A majority of Cypriots may in the end reject a BBF: Greek Cypriots may reject it as a byproduct of conquest and what they really want is majority rule in a unified state. Turkish Cypriots may reject it because power sharing is known not to work and did not work in the past or because a two- state solution is preferable.

If they reject a BBF it would not be because they are unsophisticated but because there are arguments for and against a BBF on which rational people may differ.

In either event the people would have spoken and sealed the fate of the BBF one way or the other. If people reject it, so be it. That’s how democracy works. As Winston Churchill, who was booted out of power at the end of World War II in 1945, said in a speech in 1947 “democracy is the worst form of government except for all the other forms of government that have been tried from time to time.”

To be fair to democracy, the Labour government the British elected in 1945 was one of the finest governments in British history.

But if people approve a BBF it would free negotiators to concentrate on solutions to difficult problems rather than the political acceptability of their negotiations. We know from past experience in Cyprus between 1960-63 and from recent events in Northern Ireland that power-sharing is not easy and should be flexible enough to allow for trial and error post settlement.

Not even a flying visit by US president Joe Biden into a windswept Belfast last week was enough to get the Ulster Unionists to play second fiddle to a government at Stormont headed by Sinn Fein.

It is in not in the nature of political power to be shared by political leaders. That kind of issue, however, would not have to be resolved in a non-binding referendum on a BBF. It would have to be sorted out by those most directly affected namely: the politicians.

Alper Ali Riza is a king’s counsel in the UK and a retired part-time judge