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Cyprus POLITICS IN THE REPUBLIC OF CYPRUS
Political Institutions
In 1990 the Republic of Cyprus operated under the terms
of the
1960 constitution as amended in 1964. It consisted of
three
independent branches: executive, legislative and judicial.
The
republic's president, George Vassiliou, was head of state
and
presided over a council of eleven ministers.
Presidential authority remained as outlined in the
constitution. Cabinet portfolios included agriculture and
natural
resources, commerce and industry, communications and
works,
defense, education, finance, foreign affairs, health,
interior,
justice, labor and social insurance. Policy making was in
the hands
of administrative directors who were appointed civil
servants with
lifelong tenure. In an effort to make government more of a
meritocracy, Vassiliou reassigned a number of ministerial
directors
to other positions, but encountered resistance from the
parties
when he tried to replace some of these directors.
The legislative body, the House of Representatives,
consisted
of fifty-six Greek Cypriot members, with twenty-four seats
held for
Turkish Cypriots, who had not recognized or participated
in the
republic's legislative life since the constitutional
amendments of
1964. Originally a chamber of fifty, with thirty-five
Greek
Cypriots and fifteen Turkish Cypriots, the House of
Representatives
was enlarged in 1985.
The Republic's judicial branch largely followed the
original
structure outlined at independence. The 1964 amalgamation
of the
Supreme Constitutional Court and the High Court of Justice
into the
Supreme Court, combining the functions of the two former
courts and
eliminating the neutral judge, also led to the
establishment of the
Supreme Council of Judicature. Assigned the judicatory
functions of
the former high court, it was composed of the attorney
general of
the republic, the president and two judges of the Supreme
Court,
the senior president of a district court, a senior
district judge,
and a practicing advocate elected every six months by a
general
meeting of the Cyprus Bar Association.
As a result of the withdrawal of Turkish Cypriot public
servants from the government, the Public Service
Commission could
not function as provided for in the constitution.
Therefore, the
Public Service Law of 1967 established a new commission to
exercise
the same functions. Its five members were appointed by the
president. President Vassiliou's effort to replace the
incumbents
with members of his choice was thwarted when the
parliament would
not provide funding to complete the contracts of the
replaced
members.
At the district level, a district officer coordinated
village
and government activities and had the right to inspect
local
village councils. The mayors and councils for
municipalities were
appointed.
At the village level, there had been since Ottoman
times
councils, each composed of a village head (mukhtar)
and
elders (aza; pl., azades). Large villages
that prior
to 1974 had sizable mixed populations had separate
councils, one
for each community. Under the Ottoman empire, the village
head and
elders were elected by the villagers. In the British
period and
after independence, the village heads were appointed by
the
government and then chose the elders. New legislation in
1979
provided that village and town government officials should
be
elected rather than appointed, and elections for village
councils
and their presidents have occurred every five years
beginning in
1979. The cycle for municipal elections was different:
elections
were held every five years, most recently in 1986. These
election
results generally followed the national pattern, in terms
of the
relative shares won by each of the parties. In some cases,
however,
parties were able to cooperate at the village level, while
competing nationally.
Data as of January 1991
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