I'm not sure how we all missed this, but Cyprus just had their Presidential primary elections. The current president from the left-centre party, Tassos Papadopoulos, has been eliminated by the Communist party candidate Demetris Christophias and right wing candidate Ioannis Kassoulides. The big issue in Cypriot politics is reunification of the island, as the northeastern portion is controlled by Turkey.
But the most interesting thing about the article is this statement: "Cypriots living abroad, in Britain and Greece, were flown home on specially-chartered planes to take part in the vote." To me, it doesn't really seem like this is good for democracy. It's already expected to be a close election (the primary was decided by under 800 votes--that's not very many flights!), and it appears that whoever has the most money to charter the most planes might in fact tip the balance. Sure, I know that in the US the parties hire buses to shuttle people to and from polling places, but something about chartering planes to fly people in for an election seems to go way beyond that.
But maybe that's just me.
But the most interesting thing about the article is this statement: "Cypriots living abroad, in Britain and Greece, were flown home on specially-chartered planes to take part in the vote." To me, it doesn't really seem like this is good for democracy. It's already expected to be a close election (the primary was decided by under 800 votes--that's not very many flights!), and it appears that whoever has the most money to charter the most planes might in fact tip the balance. Sure, I know that in the US the parties hire buses to shuttle people to and from polling places, but something about chartering planes to fly people in for an election seems to go way beyond that.
But maybe that's just me.
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