Are Greek Cypriots warming to the idea of partition?
Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos has a 64% approval rating according to the state TV station, CyBC, and 61% believe he has strengthened the position of Cyprus with respect to the Cyprus problem, while Demetris Christofias, the leader of the main coalition party, the communist AKEL, is the most popular politician with 65% of the vote. Meanwhile, the proportion of Greek Cypriots who want to live with Turkish Cypriots has dropped below 50%.
The survey was taken among 1,200 people, and the results were given on Monday and Tuesday night.
Other results from the poll relating to politicians are: Yiannakis Omorou, head of the small coalition party EDEK was second most popular at 54%, Nicos Cleanthous of ruling party DIKO 46%, opposition DISY leader Nicos Anastasiades 30%, opposition United Democrats leader Michalis Papapetrou 21%.
The government also gets a reasonably good approval rating, with 51% approving of how it is handling domestic matters.
Opposition DISY fairs poorly, with only 28% approval of how it has performed its duties.
Do Greek Cypriots want partition?
The same survey showed that almost half of Greek Cypriots (48%) want to live separately from Turkish Cypriots and only 45% would actually opt to live together. This is a smaller ratio than the 67% in 2003 and 51% in 2004.
Among the young, 64% of 18-24 year-olds are against living together; 59% of 25-34 year-olds; and 49% of 35-44 year-olds.
Although living separately is an oft-quoted sentiment by Greek Cypriots in private, it has normally been political suicide to mention the idea of negotiated partition in public.
Much of Greek Cypriot policy over the past few decades has been predicated on reunification, in contrast to the policy of the previous Turkish Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, who argued in favour of agreed partition (as opposed to the current situation of not-agreed partition).
For the conspiracy theorist, the fact that CyBC never does anything without government approval, that the government has recently decided to give titles deeds of land in the south to a large proportion of refugees who have lost land in the north, and the fact that we are no closer to negotiations than we were after the referendum two years ago, raises questions about whether the government is about to do a U-turn and suggest that we all live separately after all.
Ironically, such a policy might get a majority of both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots to agree, but then they would have to persuade the EU and the UN, who have spent so much time working on the assumption that Cypriots want to live together, that a quite different state of affairs is what is wanted.
