Executive Summary

The Cyprus Peace and Dialogue Centre (CPDC) organised the first workshop of a new initiative entitled “Civic initiative for an updated Cyprus peace process design (C-Up)” on Tuesday 28 May 2024. The rationale of the C-Up initiative is to address a 50-year-old process design for solving the Cyprus problem that has yet to produce a successful outcome. Yet successive polls have shown that ordinary citizens can be more flexible than their leaders on difficult Cyprus problem questions. Youth initiatives supported in Cyprus by the UN have also shown that it is possible for participants to work on a joint document, rather than two separate “Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot” documents, and to come to a common agreement.

The main hypothesis of C-Up, therefore, is that a carefully designed “deliberative democracy process”, which opens out, in whole or in part, to a representative cross-section of ordinary citizens, and which allows them the time, space and resources to engage with some of the most sensitive aspects of the Cyprus problem, can help the political leaders “walk the last mile” in finding a negotiated settlement to the Cyprus problem that will be sustainable long into the future. It is of course assumed that the final decision will remain with the elected leaders, and that any settlement agreed upon would be endorsed by a democratic vote in both communities.

It is important to note that the aim of the C-Up initiative is not to launch an assembly or other deliberative democracy process as such but to present proposals for how such a deliberative process might be designed. The seven steps of C-Up are presented in visual form at the end of this executive summary. It is also acknowledged that any moves to update the process are highly sensitive and that there many different ideas about how to get from the current stagnation in the formal process to the point of negotiations. Any updated design therefore needs to be planned very carefully, taking into account the sensitivities of all players. It is for this reason that, for the purposes of the C-Up initiative, the use of terms is kept very broad and prescriptions about outcomes are avoided.

The workshop considered the four questions summarised below. It is acknowledged that these subjects are by no means comprehensive. For example, there was not time to include other questions, such as the role of technology or the role of parallel processes such as truth commissions.

What type of deliberative process? The pros and cons of four broad types of assembly were considered. First, a citizens’ assembly, in which ordinary citizens are selected from a representative cross-section of society using professional, randomised controlled sampling techniques. This model has been widely used across developed and developing economies and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – a club of developed economies – has developed a “toolbox” for governments embarking on such a process.(1) A second option is an elected assembly appointed by voters. It would typically include political parties but there would also be specific spaces reserved for under-represented voices. A classic example is the Northern Ireland assembly. Third, a constitutional assembly, which would work on a specific mandate to produce a new constitution. A classic example is that of post-Apartheid South Africa. Fourth, given the challenges of each type of system, it was suggested that perhaps in Cyprus a hybrid system might be appropriate, starting with a citizens’ assembly or even smaller “safe space” groups, before moving to an elected assembly and then potentially to a constitutional assembly. Another form of deliberative engagement under Transformative Scenarios Process (TSP) model, which was tested in 2022 under the Cyprus Futures Project, was also presented.

Ensuring true inclusivity. The session started with a presentation of lessons from Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy, to understand that the many expectations that large donors such as Canada expect when they fund programmes. It was also noted that there are international frameworks for ensuring inclusivity. During this session the importance of storytelling and reconciliation in fostering peace was also emphasised, as well as creating small safe spaces for discussion. Humanitarian issues should also be de-politicised to promote peace and healing.

Ensuring political engagement but non-interference. Engaging political leaders but ensuring that they allow participants to deliberate without political interference is perhaps the most difficult challenge of a deliberative democracy process in Cyprus. To ensure legitimacy and ownership, the first presentation emphasised four essential elements for engaging the political leaders and securing their buy-in: a clear mandate produced in consultation with the political leaders; a neutral mediator such as the UN; engagement of the political leadership in the planning process and keeping them informed at each stage of the process; and regular reports/updates to the leaders. In this session it was also noted that academic research with representative sample from both communities show a significant number of citizens in both communities who find the status quo unacceptable and an increasing trend of support for a settlement based on a bizonal bicommunal federation (BBF) after the collapse of the high-level talks at the Swiss resort of Crans Montana in 2017(2). Moreover, sophisticated conjoint analysis indicates that it is possible to reach majority support in each community for a settlement on variations of the Guterres framework on the basis of BBF by presenting different packages of options.(3)

Referendums. Another form of testing opinion is through “peace polling”, an iterative process where citizens are involved in ranking options by preference on different aspects of the process, feeding those results back to the political leaders, and eventually being polled on the full settlement. In this model the process is not derailed by a single No vote. Separately, the pros and cons of four referendum design options were considered: a referendum to start the process; a referendum on the final settlement; a later referendum to confirm the arrangements; or an incremental approach to a settlement, in which elements of the final deal are implemented in reversible stages. Under the fourth approach, further integration would be sanctioned by ordinary elections, rather than by referendums. Any referendum held would have a greater chance of success if elements of the property settlement were made crystal clear to voters and if there were clear mechanisms for deadlock-breaking or arbitration.

As regards next steps on managing the project, an integral part of the C-Up initiative is to work incrementally (see image below) to make proposals that can be supported by the political leaderships. These take-outs will be therefore shared with the Representatives, the UN, EU and other interested members of the international community. Other project management steps
include assigning roles to those interested in working on the project; deciding which subject/s should be focused on first to produce an options paper; conducting a mapping exercise to assess other complementary or potentially overlapping initiatives; and, importantly, securing funding for the labour required to continue this project.

References

1. OECD, Deliberative Democracy Toolbox (several publications), https://www.oecd.org/governance/innovative-citizen-participation/.

2. Trends in support for a bizonal bicommunal federation (BBF) 2010-2023 for Greek Cypriots (GCs) https://infogram.com/greek-cypriots-view-of-bbf-2010-2023-1h7g6k3gmr3o2oy?live. Trends in support for BBF 2010-2023 for Turkish Cypriots (TCs) https://infogram.com/stance-of-tcs-towards-bbf-2010-2023-1ho16voq7drvx4n?live.

3. Loizides, N., Psaltis, C., Morgan-Jones, E., Sudulich, L., Popp, R., & Baykiz, T. (2022). Citizens and peace mediations in divided societies: identifying zones of agreement through a conjoint survey experiment. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 66(9), 1619-1649.

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