Already all the analysts and liars in north and south are in full swing to "explain" and twist reality to fit their own agendas.
But what happened in the occupied north of Cyprus is simple, and on the whole it constitutes Good News.
1. The campaign led by the New Cyprus Party (YKP) to boycott the elections was successful! The boycott was called on the basis that the elections are illegal and invalid under an occupation regime; they were enacted among an ethnically cleansed by violence population whose composition has been altered by massive illegal settling of the island; and, worst of all, that the occupation regime has no real autonomy but is entirely dependent and subservient to the occupation army from Turkey that holds half the country under the military boot with US weapons.
Abstention and Boycott of the elections was around 20% of the vote. In a small community where everyone knows everybody and where uniformity of activities - especially on unspoken assumptions, like the value of voting - is enforced by many ways including social peer pressure, this percentage is astounding!
It shows a total disenchantment with the political process and an alienation from the system of large numbers of voters.
When significant numbers of people feel "there's no point in participating" there is always a political vacuum, ready to filled with liberatory political action and ideology. (The danger, of course, is always present that if progressive and radical forces do not move into that vacuum, reactionary and authoritarian political forces will exploit it. As is happening now in the south part of the country, due to the opportunism, hypocrisy and spinelessness of the Left leadership.)
2. The fact that a large percentage of Turkish Cypriot voters has moved away from the ruling party is healthy!
The party had presented itself as "progressive" with the aid of the local Turkish military occupation authorities, of advisors from the US Government and with great assistance from Greek-Cypriot collaborators who lied a lot in public to sustain the fake "progressive" image of the ruling party. The electoral results show that the Turkish Cypriot population is disenchanted, the spell is broken, and people see through the lies of the party and of its head in particular, Mehmet Ali Talat who is currently the nominal "Head of State" who puts a human face on the illegal occupation and apartheid regime in the north.
It's excellent to see the mass of voters move away from the lies. The greatest value in this is that is that it shows that the Turkish Cypriot majority is still in motion, seeking, in political movement that continues one way or another for a decade now. The majority of the population has gone from a continuous state of near-insurrection in the early parts of the decade that lasted for about three years, to investing emotionally and politically in Mehmet Ali Talat's party which it believed was to bring about progressive (even revolutionary) change, to now moving away from it and seeking alternatives.
The greatest danger would have been to remain frozen, for the population to continue investing politically and emotionally in a "progressive" lie (Talat's party) backed up by the militarists in Turkey, the Imperialists in Washington, and the ass-lickers who lead the major parties in the south of Cyprus.
The US Government did its best to signal to the Turkish Cypriots that they preferred Talat, but the people rejected those signals.
In the absence of a coherent and functional radical or meaningful anti-imperialist and patriotic Left, voters moved to an existing alternative, at least something which now appears to be patriotic and less integrated with the Imperialists. Even if the party that has won the elections seems to be more to the Right, the population is willing to give it a chance to show its potential. Time will show.
A bit about the lies
An excellent example of lies and twisted, manipulating distortions is an article about the elections written by Menelaos Hadjicostis for the Associated Press and published internationally a few hours ago. I've placed a copy of the article below for your reading pleasure. With a little effort, all of the lies and propaganda of the fake Left and other allies of Imperialism that have been spread throughout Cyprus and the rest of the world, dominating local politics for the last five years can be seen congealed in his article. Despicable.
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All of the above mean that it is *imperative* for progressive forces in the north and the south of Cyprus, both together and separately, to create functional, dependable, honest and sincere political organizations and mobilizations based on genuine anti-imperialism, a committed orientation to Socialism, guided by feminist, gay-positive and green, anti-racist values aimed at personal, social and spiritual liberation of our peoples. "If we build it, they will come".
Petros Evdokas, petros@cyprus-org.net
Cyprus IndyMedia
http://petros-evdokas.cyprus-org.net/Another-sort-of-Introduction.html
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Features
Celebrating independence while forgetting completely about the nakba? Now Tel Aviv, the "Hebrew" city, is even celebrating it's 100th anniversary, completely forgetting the Palestinian localities found within its borders. Sumeil, Jamasin, Sheikh Muwanis, Salame, Manshiyya and others were here before the neighborhood of "Ahuzat Bayit" was established in Jaffa, which had been here for thousands of years.