Pro-reunification party wins Turkish Cypriot elections

[struggle4progress]

By Alex Efty
ASSOCIATED PRESS
4:08 p.m. February 20, 2005

NICOSIA, Cyprus – The pro-reunification governing party of Mehmet Ali Talat won parliamentary elections Sunday in the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state, a victory seen as a boost for peace efforts on the divided island, but one that will not allow the party to govern alone.

Talat's Republican Turkish Party got 44 percent of the vote, while the National Unity Party of Dervis Eroglu, which opposes a U.N. plan for reunifying the island, had around 32 percent, the official elections board said.

Those preliminary results mean a seven-seat gain for Talat's party, which will now hold half the seats in the 50-seat parliament. <snip>

"May it be for the best," Eroglu said, congratulating Talat and calling the election, in which some 74 percent of eligible voters participated, "a good example of democracy." <snip>

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20050220-1608-cyprus-elections.html

[bemildred]

1. Can't be bad.

IIRC Turkey has agreed to allow this to get sorted out as part of
the EU membership deal. There was a story I posted about it back
there somewhere acouple weeks ago.