CYPRUS: Turkish Cypriot hopes of joining the EU alongside Greek Cyprus next year were looking slim yesterday as results from Sunday's parliamentary elections showed a dead heat between supporters and opponents of a UN plan to reunite the two communities divided since 1974.
Both sides won 25 seats in the 50-seat parliament. Superficially, this was a resounding triumph for chief opposition leader Mr Mehmet Ali Talat, whose party topped polls with almost three times the votes they won in 1998 elections.
With 80 per cent of the votes counted, Mr Talat told supporters the results were a victory "for peace and the European Union", and promised to "change the status quo". But if this was a victory, it was a Pyrrhic one.
Opposition parties may have won 3 per cent more votes. But without the clear parliamentary majority he had hoped for, Mr Talat cannot fulfil his pledge to take over from Turkish Cypriot President Rauf Denktash as chief Turkish negotiator of the reunification plan.
Hawkish Mr Denktash broke off talks with his Greek Cypriot counterparts earlier this year, claiming the plan for a federal Cyprus would wipe out the island's Turkish minority. He insisted the world joins Turkey in in recognising the 200,000-strong statelet that he proclaimed in 1983.
In an apparent softening of tone, Mr Denktash yesterday joined the US and the EU in describing the results as proof that Turkish Cypriots want to join Europe.
"With luck, this is a sign that he has understood the need for a less uncompromising position on the Annan Plan," said Mr Mete Hatay, Turkish Cypriot member of a Norwegian organisation that monitored the elections.
Other observers are more sceptical. With a cross-party coalition necessary if a parliamentary majority is to be formed, they believe Mr Denktash could use his position as kingmaker to obstruct opposition demands for dialogue.
"There is a possibility the opposition could co-operate with the smaller of two status quo parties to form a majority", said Mr Erdal Guven, Cyprus expert for liberal Turkish daily Radikal.
"Mr Denktash would only give his blessing to such a coalition if assured that he will remain chief negotiator."
That, he added, is likely to rule out a satisfactory compromise, condemning Turkish Cypriots to further isolation, as well as seriously undermining Turkey's own hopes of getting a date for European accession next year.
Mr Denktash's influence could, however, be countered by the Turkish government, which is painfully aware that failure to reach a solution on Cyprus could undermine its painstaking efforts to bring Turkey in line with European accession criteria.
"The time has come for Turkey's civilian leaders to lend the Cypriot opposition a hand," said Istanbul-based foreign policy expert Mr Mensur Akgun.
Ultimately, observers fear the first effect of the electoral deadlock could be to deepen divisions between Turkish Cypriots and the estimated 70,000 settlers brought in by Mr Denktash since 1974 to replace emigrating locals.
Closer to Turkey than most Turkish Cypriots, Turkish settlers have traditionally supported the status quo.
Sunday was no different, as settler-heavy rural districts voted overwhelmingly against the Annan Plan. Omnipresent at pro-Denktash meetings, Turkish flags were all but absent at the headquarters of the two main opposition parties yesterday evening.
Yesterday's polling was undoubtedly fair, though many here question the lack of voting facilities for the 100,000-strong Cypriot diaspora.
But with evidence mounting that several thousand settlers have been given shotgun citizenship in the last year alone, it is not difficult to find Cypriots ready to blame the settlers for the electoral impasse. "Cypriot demands to join the EU have been blocked by a bunch of semi-literate peasants from Anatolia," fumed one shopkeeper in the resort town of Girne, expressing a mixture of impotence and snobbery common here. "We are Cypriots first, and Turks second, and the Cyprus problem is ours to solve," said Ms Ece Aktunc, sitting gloomily with a group of her friends in the Turkish Cypriot capital of Lefkosa.
"It is time for Denktash and Turkey to stop holding us hostage to their own interests."