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South European Society and Politics

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Surprising Elections in Exciting Times? Of Proxiesand Second-Order Events in the 2014 EuropeanElection in Cyprus

Giorgos Charalambous, Bambos Papageorgiou & Adonis Pegasiou

To cite this article: Giorgos Charalambous, Bambos Papageorgiou & Adonis Pegasiou(2015): Surprising Elections in Exciting Times? Of Proxies and Second-Order Eventsin the 2014 European Election in Cyprus, South European Society and Politics, DOI:10.1080/13608746.2015.1078221

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2015.1078221

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Surprising Elections in Exciting Times?Of Proxies and Second-Order Events inthe 2014 European Election in CyprusGiorgos Charalambous, Bambos Papageorgiou andAdonis Pegasiou

The concept of second-order national elections has generated a rich literature, but its

universality, in particular its predominance in contexts affected by shocks, has not beensufficiently studied. The 2014 election to the European Parliament in the Republic of

Cyprus, taking place one year after an European Union/International Monetary Fundbailout, could be classified as one of the most puzzling contests in the history of second-

order elections. The incumbent party, Democratic Rally (DISY), was not punished, despitethe harsh economic environment in the country, while protest voting affected theopposition more. Abstention was exceptional, indicating a delegitimisation of the political

system. Moreover, the micro-level analysis reveals that the decision to vote or abstain wasdriven by attitudes towards both domestic institutions on the one hand and European/

international institutions on the other.

Keywords: EU/IMF Bailout; European Parliament Elections 2014; Cyprus; Second-OrderElections Model; Economic Crisis; Abstention

On account of being less important for the allocation of executive power than first-

order national elections, European elections have been largely approached as second-order events in the national electoral process. Their key features, as developed initially

by Reif and Schmitt (1980) and elaborated upon by several others, are often testedthrough an evolutionary perspective that considers the potential universality of thesecond-order election model through space and time. As Marsh and Mikhaylov (2010,

p. 14) ask, ‘Does it (the second-order model) hold as well in the states that have joinedafter 1979, and in particular does it hold in the states joining in 2004, most of them

post-communist?’ In this article, we take up this type of question and extend it toinclude the economic crisis affecting Southern Europe, with a focus on the Republic

of Cyprus. In the light of recent events that reveal the interconnections betweenthe domestic and the European Union (EU) arena, one wonders if there is at last

q 2015 Taylor & Francis

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a relationship between politics at the European level and political behaviour inEuropean elections.

Scrutinising the ‘universality question’ of the second-order election model is ofcompelling concern. The literature is, to an extent, pervaded by the approximation of

the model to a pessimistic view of European integration. European elections are seento be consistently failing as an instrument of democracy according to which the will

of European citizens on issues concerning the process of European integrationand decision-making is expressed and legitimacy is provided to the supranational

construction about which the elections are held in the first place (Føllesdal & Hix 2006;Clark 2010). Hence, the universality of the second-order election model acrossEuropean elections at different times and in distinctive spaces can only paint a dark

future for the European integration project. In this sense there are both theoretical andnormative reasons for reflecting upon whether the crisis in Southern Europe has a

positive side as well – that is, if it has led to the politicisation of the EU in domesticaffairs and highlighted the value of ‘thinking like a European’.

Focusing on the 2014 European election in the Republic of Cyprus as a case study,we ask whether the crisis affecting some Eurozone countries provides the grounds for

changes in elite and mass behaviour during European elections. The first two Europeanelections held in the Republic of Cyprus produced mixed results in relation to thesecond-order election model. Mainstream parties were not punished at the polls: the

protest vote was limited, but themain themes of the elections were domestic rather thanEU-wide, and abstention levels were quite high (Teperoglou 2010; Charalambous 2009).

In the next section we introduce the background parameters of the study.We outline the trajectory of the Cypriot economy since 2012 when the financial

problems experienced by the Cypriot banks significantly worsened the downwardtrend in consumer purchasing power, job supply, fiscal health and economic

development. Our hypotheses are presented in the second part of the article. The thirdsection examines the election campaign, while the fourth looks at the election results.

The findings of the individual-level analysis are presented in the fifth section.

From the Onset of the Crisis to the European Elections of May 2014

The critical juncture regarding the crisis came in March 2013 when Cyprus signed aMemorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Troika (European Commission,

European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund [IMF]). While thisarticle does not intend to assess the reasons for the Cypriot economic collapse

(see Pegasiou 2013), we consider it important to note the developments that led up tothe official request for external financial assistance, as these developments affected the

patterns of domestic political competition.Dimitris Christofias was elected president in 2008, the country’s first communist

president, at the head of a three-party coalition – although by the end of his tenure, inFebruary 2013, only the left-wing AKEL (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζομένου Λαού;Progressive Party of the Working People) backed his government. The other initial

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coalition partners, EDEK (Ενιαία Δημοκρατική Ένωση Κέντρου; United DemocraticCentre Union) and DIKO (Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα; Democratic Party) (traditional

nationalist ‘centrist’ forces) abandoned the government coalition early on, citing long-standing differences over the Cyprus Problem and the President’s handling of the

economic crisis.1 The effects of the crisis, touching both state finances and the bankingsector, were enough to force Cyprus out of the financial markets in May 2011. In June

2011 the country experienced a catastrophic explosion at its naval base in Mari, whichcost the lives of 13 people and left the country’s primary electric power station in ruins.

This resulted in an unprecedented social and political upheaval that further damagedthe government’s image.

In order to prevent the uncontrolled collapse of the island’s second-largest bank

(Laiki Bank), in June 2012 the government decided, half-heartedly, to request externalfinancial assistance. Negotiations with the Troika, however, were protracted and did

not conclude before the presidential election of February 2013, during which time theneed to recapitalise the banks remained. Given this ongoing uncertainty, the

presidential election campaign focused almost exclusively on the economy.Anastasiades (leading the centre-right DISY (Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός;

Democratic Rally)–DIKO coalition) directly blamed the extraordinary economicdistress on what he claimed to be AKEL’s catastrophic five-year term in power. AKEL,in turn, stressed the reckless expansion of the banks and the ineffective regulation by

the governor of the central bank (Athanasios Orphanides) as the primary causes ofthe crisis. The third candidate, Giorgos Lillikas, supported by EDEK and, unofficially,

by sections of DIKO, proposed a more uncompromising stance on the CyprusProblem and introduced some imaginative, yet unrealistic, alternatives that would

mean Cyprus could avoid having to adhere to the MoU. As expected, the AKELand DISY–DIKO candidates, Stavros Malas and Nicos Anastasiades, respectively,

made it to the second round, which Anastasiades comfortably won on 24 February2013. The Cypriot left’s first time as the main party of government ended

ingloriously, leaving AKEL electorally and programmatically scarred (Charalambous& Ioannou 2015).

Only days after taking over, President Anastasiades had to conclude the MoU with

the Troika. In a dramatic Eurogroup meeting on 15–16 March 2013, Cyprus wasoffered a rescue package in which a bail-in clause targeting all depositors was

introduced to cover the needs of the banks. The House of Representatives rejected thispackage with the result that the banks remained closed until an agreement was finally

reached on 25 March 2013. This agreement included the dissolution of Laiki Bank anda substantial bail-in of uninsured depositors in Bank of Cyprus (the largest of the

commercial banks), accompanied by the imposition of capital controls that were onlygradually lifted, the last of them remaining in force until April 2015.

Anastasiades was left embarrassed by the final outcome, particularly given that his

election commitment was not under any circumstances to accept a bail-in ofdepositors. He was even accused of knowing prior to the crucial Eurogroup meeting

that a bail-in was on the agenda and for not preparing adequately to negotiate

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an alternative solution (Sigma Live 2013). However, the government has remainedcommitted to implementing the MoU as the only way back to economic stability.

In the months leading up to the elections to the European Parliament, the harshand strict conditions imposed on Cyprus led to continuing high levels of

unemployment in a contracting economy with a troubled banking sector. Issuessuch as unemployment and the overall economic situation became highly important

to the public, and constituted an important potential driver of political behaviour.Evidently, the percentage of respondents claiming that unemployment is their

main concern rose from eight per cent to well above 70 per cent between 2011 and2014, while the EU average decreased by 30–40 percentage points (Eurobarometerseries).

A strong public sentiment of disappointment with and distrust of the politicalestablishment has emerged over the past years as the crisis has also brought to light

long-standing inefficient and corrupt state mechanisms (Faustmann 2009). This hasbeen reflected in a dramatic fall in party identification (from 71 per cent in 2006 to 49

per cent in 2012), in trust in political institutions and parties (Figure 1) and insatisfaction with democracy (from 66.3 per cent in 2006 to 48.9 per cent in 2012)

(European Social Survey 2012; 2006). As these traits were expressed before economicconditions significantly worsened in Cyprus, we might conclude that the economiccrisis was preceded by a political crisis.

Given Cyprus’s small size and the limited systemic risk it posed, European leadersare believed to have approached the country as a test case for introducing a bail-in

clause without providing for its devastating consequences. The traditional pro-European enthusiasm of Cypriots has thus been seriously tested as doubts have arisen

over how much the EU can be trusted. While Euroscepticism has fluctuated onthe island, within an otherwise largely pro-European environment, especially at the

political elite level (Katsourides 2003), the prolonged and significant decline of

Figure 1 Indicators of Political Crisis: Trust in Political Institutions in Cyprus, 2004–14Source: Authors’ elaboration of Eurobarometer data.

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support for the EU between 2008 and 2013 constitutes a divergence from previousattitudes on the island (Figure 2).

Theoretical Framework and Hypotheses

Second-order elections are less important because, while still open to influence from

national party politics, they determine the outcome for less important positions (Reif& Schmitt 1980; Reif 1997). In the case of Cyprus, which has a presidential system of

government, European elections can be seen as second-order compared with both thelegislative and the presidential elections.

Second-order elections commonly display the following features: (1) lower levels ofvoting participation; (2) in a cyclical pattern, governing parties often experience a fall in

support, particularly in the mid-term period, as people treat the contest as anopportunity to protest against the incumbent administration; (3) minor parties areusually the main beneficiaries of any temporary protest vote against the government.

Voters aremore likely to vote for protest or fringe parties rather than for themainstreamparties they would generally vote for in a first-order election (Reif & Schmitt 1980).

The timing of the European election within the national electoral cycle can eitherexaggerate or restrain these tendencies. Reif and Schmitt (1980, p. 9) argue that

Figure 2 Indicators of Declining Trust in the European Union in Cyprus, 2004–13Source: Authors’ elaboration of Eurobarometer data.

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European election results reflect government popularity curves. By mid-term,governments are past their honeymoon period in the sense that voters are able to form

retrospective evaluations of tangible policy outcomes from government actions, andare more likely to protest against the government in order to pressurise it to change

(Kousser 2004). This is especially true towards the end of a government term (37–48months): in other words, the closer the European election falls to the next first-order

election, the more likely it is that voters will opt for ‘strategic defection’ or ‘voting withthe boot’ (see Schmitt & Teperoglou in this issue).

Which of these second-order characteristics can be observed on the occasion of theCypriot European elections of 2014? Have recent developments, in particular theeconomic crisis and its transposition into domestic political competition, amplified or

reduced the second-order nature of the elections? These are the main questions, andhere we examine several theoretical avenues for a response. Given that the results of

European elections are influenced by the situation in the first-order political arenaduring preceding months (Reif 1985; 1997, p. 117), we establish at least four points

(not mutually exclusive, but nevertheless conceptually distinct) in relation to thepossible ways political elites and voters may have behaved at the last European

elections: (1) the performance of the recently elected Anastasiades government thatagreed the final version of the MoU that was intended to lead the country to recovery;(2) the impact of austerity on the social fabric and, by extension, a climate of ‘anti-

systemness’ that is related to the political management of the crisis; (3) the growingEuroscepticism, especially after 2012; and (4) the mounting challenges to the

legitimacy of political institutions and Cypriot democracy tout court. Our mainresearch question is whether these four points can be considered potential

explanations for elite and voter motivation: in other words, whether the Europeanelections were approached as a proxy for each of them.

Assessing the Government’s Performance

If citizens voted and political elites behaved in such a way that the main issue ofcontestation was government performance in line with the second-order election

model, European attitudes would hardly matter during European elections(Hypothesis 1.1) (Schmitt & Van der Eijk 2007). Nevertheless, if the rhetoric andactions of the incumbent are the main objects of elite interaction and voting, the

mainstream, as well as the smaller and newer parties, should be dealing predominantlywith the agenda according to which the government’s performance can be gauged

(Hypothesis 1.2). This agenda includes European issues conjoined with domesticones, more specifically the place of Anastasiades’s government in the EU.

Moreover, given that turnout in European elections is affected by citizens’perceptions of how much is at stake (Franklin & Hobolt 2011), citizens can be

expected to turn up to vote as a means to evaluate the government if elections areapproaching (Hypothesis 1.3). Responding to a first-order issue of importance for

domestic dynamics, party mobilisation can be expected to be intense and vibrant

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(Hypothesis 1.4), rather than limited and insignificant, as anticipated by Reif andSchmitt’s initial formulations. Finally, the political divisions of recent years between

left-wingers/supporters of the Christofias government, on the one hand, and right-wingers/supporters of the Anastasiades government, on the other side, should affect

electoral behaviour (Hypothesis 1.5). Thus, abstention would be especially unlikelyamong supporters of the two largest parties.

Indeed, in the context of the question ‘Who is to blame?’ it is worth considering thatin Cyprus from 2008 to 2013 the left was the main party of government for the first

time in history. Even if the AKEL government faced an intense negative rhetoricagainst it (Charalambous & Ioannou 2015), it remains to be seen whether the electoralbehaviour that followed the left’s incumbency has been subsequently affected by

developments during those five years. Moreover, at the time of the European electionsthe Cypriot government was in its honeymoon period, having been in office for just

over a year, yet events related to the MoUmay have actually brought this honeymoonperiod to a premature end.

The Impact of the Economic Crisis

The second potential proxy concerns the economic situation directly (the austerity

measures, the MoU and the social repercussions of the economic crisis). The mainhypotheses to be tested here are the following: domestic economic issues must have

been dominant in public discourse (Hypothesis 2.1) and party campaigning andvoters must have channelled protest behaviour in accordance with the impact of the

crisis on their socio-economic status and personal financial situation (Hypothesis2.2). Finally, in terms of participation, the decision to vote or abstain would be

driven by one’s perceptions of systemic failure in the light of economic crisis(Hypothesis 2.3).

Euroscepticism

Hobolt, Spoon and Tilley (2009) argue that negative attitudes towards European

integration are more likely to matter in shaping behaviour in elections to the EuropeanParliament. However, it is not yet certain if abstention is associated with negativeattitudes to the EU and European integration. Some research suggests it is (Blondel,

Sinnott & Svensson 1998), but most find it is not (Schmitt & Van Der Eijk 2008).If Euroscepticism and, more broadly, the issue of the EU were the main drivers of

behaviour during the elections, then we can expect to identify these as a highly salienttopic during the election campaign, to find evidence of protest behaviour targeted at

pro-EU parties (Hypothesis 3.1) and to witness an increased role for Europeanattitudes in terms of party choice (Hypothesis 3.2) or abstention (Hypothesis 3.3).

Greater party polarisation on the EU may boost the issue’s overall importance(Hobolt & Spoon 2012), perhaps leading mainstream parties to feel challenged

by more Eurosceptic actors and to engage in debate on the EU by offering a more

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nuanced pro-EU perspective or by mixing pro-EU and Eurosceptic positions(Giurcanu 2013, p. 5). Theoretically, during the election campaign, increased concerns

about the EUmay produce an osmosis between domestic and EU-wide issues, wherebythe domestic economic situation is discussed within the context of the problems facing

the Eurozone and/or vice versa (Hypothesis 3.4). With growing Euroscepticism beingchannelled into political and electoral behaviour, anti-EU parties should be contesting

the elections and on average must have done much better in these European electionsthan in the two previous ones (Hypothesis 3.5).

Political Disaffection and ‘Voting with the Boot’

Finally, if the fourth proposition holds – that the elections primarily reflect a feeling ofpolitical disaffection emerging from increasing institutional distrust and dissatisfac-tion with democracy – then new actors contesting the election will primarily hold

views that are targeted against austerity, corruption and conventional politicalorganisation. Once again, the effect will concern the quantity and quality of the actors

running for office, but this time, rather than revolving around party positioning on theEU, differences from past elections will embody a greater propensity to question the

domestic status quo. Mainstream parties should be severely punished (Hypothesis 4.1)in one of three possible ways: through increased votes for fringe competitors; through

the loss of mainstream votes to abstention; or through both. In all three cases, theelectorate ‘votes with the boot’, effectively protesting against the incumbent and the

political establishment as a whole (Van der Eijk & Franklin 1996).In addition to choosing between contestants, voters can abstain as a formof protesting

against the ‘corrupt state’ and ‘incompetent politicians’. Turnout in these European

elections may be lower than in the previous European elections and abstention higher inthe case of the mainstream parties (Hypothesis 4.2), and the number of people voting

and abstaining is conditioned largely by political disaffection (Hypothesis 4.3).Overall, the separate possibilities (and the various sub-possibilities) highlighted

could either enhance the main features of the second-order election model (forexample, if government parties are punished and voters make decisions based on

national criteria), thus turning the election into a more second-order battle than theprevious two European elections. Alternatively, their significance could be reduced(for example, if there is a higher turnout, the incumbent does not suffer major losses

and small parties do not gain much influence), thus producing an election in whichsecond-order characteristics are less important than the ideal-type model would

suggest. Which proposition (or which parts of each proposition) stand is essentially aquestion of to what degree past European elections before the crisis have been second-

order (Marsh & Mikhaylov 2010, p. 16; Giebler 2014, p. 135).In the process of determining the degree to which previous elections were second-

order, the characteristics of elite interaction may not fit perfectly with those of electoralbehaviour. On the one hand, electoral dynamics are linked to a series of events at

the analytical level of the party system, while, on the other, for all we know so far

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from second-order theory, the chain of causality between the political sphere andthe electoral market may be both top-down and bottom-up, or neither of the two in

the sense that individual motivations are (partially or largely) unrelated to partybehaviour (Marsh & Mikhaylov 2010). In order to address this relationship in each set

of propositions between the aggregate hypotheses of the SOE model and those for themicro-level analysis, below we test separately the main aspects of the secondary-

election model: the campaign and election outcomes and voter motivations.

Election Campaign

A record number of 61 candidates (53 from ten parties or groupings and eight

independent) contested the six European Parliament seats allocated to Cyprus.2 Theten parties can be divided into two groups. The first includes the parties of the oldpolitical establishment: DISY with EVROKO (Ευρωπαϊκό Κόμμα; European Party),

AKEL, DIKO and EDEK with the Ecologists–Environmentalists (Greens) (electoralcoalition). The second group covers the newly formed parties and emerging protest

groups: CA (Συμμαχία Πολιτών; Citizens’ Alliance), Message of Hope (ΜήνυμαΕλπίδας), ELAM (Εθνικό Λαϊκό Μέτωπο; National Popular Front); DRASY–EYLEM(Δικοινοτική Ριζοσπαστική Αριστερή Συνεργασία – iki Toplumlu Radikal Solİşbirliği – Bi-communal Radical Left Cooperation), Animal Party (Kόμμα τωνΖώων), and the Stalinist Turkish-Cypriot Cyprus Socialist Party.

Public debates and discussions did not escape the national political agenda while

European issues were, as expected in second-order elections, generally downgraded.They were mostly limited to who bore the blame for the country’s economic downfall,in an attempt to attract those hit most by the crisis, and the progress, if any, of

negotiations over the Cyprus Problem (Kathimerini 2014). Each party approached thecrisis through its own ideological lens and in line with its short-term interests.

In its election campaign, DISY once more emphasised the country’s unequivocalEuropean destiny and party officials stressed the need to implement the MoU while

avoiding any kind of anti-European rhetoric, despite the disappointment associatedwith the haircut forced on Cyprus. Voters were asked to send a message to Europe that

the country was on track with its modernisation (Neophytou 2014; Christophorou2014). AKEL focused on its differences from DISY. It warned voters that a favourableresult for the ruling DISY would be interpreted by the government as a vote of

confidence in its policies and actions, while any weakening of AKEL, the mainopposition to the government, would be interpreted as acceptance of even harsher

neo-liberal and anti-social measures (Loukaides 2014). DIKO claimed to offer analternative between DISY’s blind allegiance to the Troika and the unproductive

negativity of AKEL. It was also critical of the two main parties and their ‘concessions’on the Cyprus Problem (Papadopoulos 2014). EDEK campaigned on its opposition to

and distance from the corruption and plundering of public money and demandedan uncompromising clean-up of the political system and punishment of those

responsible for the economic situation (Politis 2014a).

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The new parties and formations had rather divergent agendas and mostlycampaigned on single issues while, as expected, they all attempted to challenge the

political establishment at least to some degree. This was not done from an anti-systempoint of view, but rather in such a way that the main proposition was a change in

those governing or in the terms of certain policies. CA, led by Giorgos Lillikas,declared itself to be the only clean alternative to the traditional political forces,

though, paradoxically, many of its officials were previously high-ranking members ofother political parties and its leader had held several public offices. ELAM, which is

affiliated with the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή) in Greece, focused on itsstrict anti-federalist line on the Cyprus Problem, zero tolerance towards immigrantsand an absolute rejection of Troika-related policies (Simerini 2014). DRASY–ELYEM,

the first bi-communal organisation, brought together candidates from both Cypriotcommunities and vowed to fight the anti-social and neo-liberal policies prescribed

by Troika. Message of Hope highlighted the need to fight corruption and scandals byvoting against the political establishment, explicitly declaring its programme to be

deliberately issue focused.The question of the island’s relations with the EU post-bailout was not an important

part of the debate. In other words, in this first election after the bailout, Cypriotsfocused on austerity and the conditions of the MoU, but avoided talking aboutEU–Cyprus relations. Policies of European significance decided at the EU level were

not touched by either the candidates or the parties contesting the European electionand this was reflected in the local media. For instance, while in the months before the

election there was an increasing number of references to the European Parliamentin the press, there was no extensive qualitative analysis of issues pertaining to the

European agenda, and there was certainly no permeation of European and nationalpolicy issues.3 A rough indicator of the absence of European themes was the lack of

involvement by European politicians in the Cypriot campaign. With the exception ofDISY, which invited Jean Claude Juncker to visit the island to take part in some of the

party’s activities,4 no parties involved European figures in their campaigns.AKEL, for its part, avoided any identification with Alexis Tsipras, the left’s candidate

for the position of president of the European Commission. This was an important

reason why European themes were largely absent from its campaign; indeed, while in2004 and 2009, representatives and deputies from other left-wing European parties

took part in AKEL’s national campaign, on this occasion no such visits took place.The two traditional centrist parties, while members of the Party of European Socialists

(PES), did not promote any links with their socialist counterparts, mainly because oftheir uncompromising approach on the Cyprus Problem, something that has caused

friction with the leader of the European socialists, Martin Schultz, who was presidentof the European Parliament at the time of the elections. CA also avoided mention ofany European affiliation for much the same reason (Politis 2014b). The overall absence

of EU-related matters in public discourse meant mainstream parties had no reason tofeel challenged by more Eurosceptic actors and thus had no incentive to mix pro-EU

and Eurosceptic positions.

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In terms of spending, the (traditional) parties allocated relatively limited sums totheir election campaigns, which contributed further to the rather subdued campaign.

Generally, television adverts were scarce, while the parties did not prepare electionmanifestos or leaflets. The length of the electoral campaigns was shorter and parties

refrained from activities that would be usual during parliamentary electioncampaigns, such as holding meetings with interest groups and canvassing voters.

Interaction with potential supporters was for the most part left to the candidates, whoacted independently of their parties in promoting their candidacies. AKEL was

a partial exception, as the party does not allow candidates to place individualadvertisements.

Election Results

The four main parties experienced losses compared with the previous European

election. DISY lost around 12,000 votes, AKEL around 38,000, DIKO more or less9,000 and EDEK around 11,000. Comparing their electoral performance with the first-

order contest of 2011, it is clear this election was essentially second-order in terms ofpunishing the political establishment as a whole. In total, the five main parties

gathered 215,522 votes (83.3 per cent) in 2014, compared with 386,440 (95.6 per cent)in 2011. (See also Table 1A of the online Appendix)

Yet, the votes lost by the two mainstream parties did not go to their fringecompetitors; rather, there was a large rise in the number of abstentions. As Table 2

shows, the two largest parties achieved high vote consolidation – most of theirprevious voters either voted for them again or abstained, and there was no significantswitching between the two main poles of the party system (opposition AKEL and

incumbent DISY). The two centrist parties appear to have lost votes to their smallercompetitors, since not many of their voters switched to the other mainstream parties.

DISY experienced the greatest level of vote consolidation (relative to the three mainparties), as a result exhibiting a remarkable increase in its percentage share of the vote,

despite obtaining fewer actual votes.The new, smaller, parties were hurt by the high levels of abstention, which benefited

the two main poles of the party system, as can be seen by comparing the valid votes as apercentage of the electorate and the actual percentage awarded to each party (Table 1).Furthermore, the relatively high minimum percentage required for a party to gain a

seat in the European Parliament (around eight per cent), may have resulted in strategicvoting against the smaller parties. As a result of the high abstention levels, DISY

jumped from 16.1 to 37.75 per cent and AKEL from 11.51 to 26.98 per cent. Thisincrease, which was much greater for AKEL and DISY than it was for DIKO and EDEK,

was also the highest of all the four elections considered in Table 1. Taking abstentioninto account, the results of two of the ‘outsiders’ – CA (17,549 votes and 6.78 per cent)

and Message of Hope (9,907 and 3.83 per cent) – are particularly noteworthy. Thefar-right ELAM also increased its following ten-fold compared with the European

elections of 2009 and three-fold compared with the parliamentary elections of 2011.

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Table

1Resultsofthe2014

EuropeanElection(EP)in

CyprusCompared

withthe2009

EuropeanElectionandthe2011

Legislative

Election(Leg)

Vote

share%

Parties

EP2014

%EP2009

%Leg

2011

%EP2014

–Leg

2011

EPseats2014*

EPseats2009

DISY

37.8

35.7

34.3

3.5

22

AKEL

27.0

34.9

32.7

25.7

22

DIKO

10.8

12.3

15.8

24.9

11

EDEK

7.7

9.9

8.9

23.5

1Greens

1.5

2.2

1CA

6.8

––

–0

–Message

ofHope

3.8

––

–0

–EVROKO

–4.1

3.9

––

0ELAM

2.7

0.2

1.1

1.6

00

MovementforReunificationofCyprus

–0.4

––

–0

Anim

alParty

0.9

––

–0

–DRASY

–EYLEM

0.9

––

–0

–SocialistParty

ofCyprus

0.1

––

–0

–Valid

votes(%

oftotalelectorate)

42.7

58.2

76.1

Abstention(totalnumber)

340,025

213,581

113,216

Abstention(%

oftotalelectorate)

56.0

40.6

21.3

Source:Authors’ownelaborationbased

ontheofficialresultsfrom

theCyprusMinistryofInterior(w

ww.ekloges.gov.cy).

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Nevertheless, total party system fragmentation, as indicated by the number ofparties in the system weighted by their relative size (Effective Number of Electoral

Parties, ENEP) has not changed significantly since the parliamentary elections of2011,5 rising only from 3.86 to 4.17. The second-order thesis on small party gains onlyholds to a very limited extent. Moreover, the limited successes of the small parties were

not anti-EU successes. On average, anti-EU parties (AKEL and DRASY–EYLEMessentially, with the former mostly soft-Eurosceptic) did not fare better in these

European elections than in the two previous ones, and neither did protest behaviourtarget pro-EU parties alone.6

Protest behaviour notwithstanding, vote switching was largely concealed by theprofoundly low turnout. This was by far the lowest turnout for elections held in the

Republic of Cyprus. If one takes into account the abstention, invalid and blank votes,the young who did not register and the thousands of Turkish-Cypriots who wereprevented from voting due to legal technicalities, then the Cypriot European election

was an example of electoral democracy at its worst.7 Turnout fell by more than 30 percent since the parliamentary election of 2011 and by approximately 16 per cent since

the 2009 European election, representing the continuation of a consistent downwardpath. Increasing apathy, as manifested in electoral behaviour, suggests voters may

have voted with the boot by abstaining sincerely: that is, by expressing their truedisappointment with all of the options on offer.

These elections did display higher levels of fragmentation compared with previouselections, but protest behaviour affected the opposition more than the government.

In fact DISY was the big winner of the election in terms of the final percentage receivedby each party, as it was the only party to increase its share of the vote. In spite of theaccusations against President Anastasiades regarding the haircut on deposits, it seems

that voters articulated greater discontent with the previous government than they didwith the incumbent. Therefore, contrary to Reif and Schmitt’s (1980) original

assumption, the majority of those who had previously voted for the government didnot express dissatisfaction with, and thus exert pressure on, the incumbent by

abstaining or supporting an opposition party. The early end of the government’s

Table 2 Vote Switching between the 2011 Legislative Election and the 2014 EuropeanElection

Vote 2011 legislative election

Vote 2014 European election Total* DISY AKEL DIKO EDEK

DISY/EVROKO (%) 36 84 2 4 3AKEL (%) 26 1 81 3 3DIKO (%) 10 1 1 64 3EDEK/Ecologists (%) 7 3 2 4 66N 881 348.5033 256.9917 119.3434 58.76597

Source: Authors’ own calculations based on University of Nicosia (2014b).Note: *The other parties are not included due to restriction on sample sizes.

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honeymoon period caused by crisis-related developments may not have counter-balanced the important effects of the previous year’s first-order campaign, which was,

admittedly, an important year for the right, since it was the first time it was tryingto eject the left from government. The peculiarities of the Cypriot case in terms of

government–opposition dynamics during the crisis appear to be an important reasonwhy the ‘incumbent punishment’ part of the second-order election thesis is not

confirmed. DISY’s victory is related to lower abstention rates among its traditionalvoters. We may conclude that the economic crisis had an impact on domestic political

competition (Hypothesis 2.1). On the other hand, the other assumptions concerningpolitical behaviour are not confirmed.

Voters’ Motivations: Micro-Level Evidence of the Second-Order Election Model

To a large extent, the patterns within the high abstention seem to reveal some of the

rationale behind voting decisions. An examination of a Cyprus BroadcastingCorporation (CyBC) pre-election survey (University of Nicosia 2014a) reveals a closeconnection between propensity to take part in the election and positive attitudes

towards Europe. There are striking differences of opinion among those who intendedto take part in the European election (and probably did so) and those who said that

they were going to abstain (and also probably did so) (Table 2A of the onlineAppendix). Those predisposed to take part in the election were much more pro-

European (or at least less critical of European institutions and edifices) than those whoexpressed a predisposition to abstain. More than half of those intending to vote had a

positive view of the EU in general and of the euro currency, with almost half believingthat joining the EU had benefited the Cypriot economy. On the other hand, very few of

those planning to abstain held pro-EU views. Only one in eight of these believedthe Cypriot economy had benefited from the country joining the EU, and only one infour was positive about the single currency. In general, pro-EU voters were over-

represented in the election booths while those critical of the EU were over-representedamong the abstainers. DISY’s electoral base is significantly less critical of EU

institutions than the electoral base of the other parties, AKEL voters standing out asthe most Eurosceptic. This is confirmed by the cross-tabulation that relates attitudes

towards European institutions and political party preference (Table 3A of the onlineAppendix).

Method and Variables

In order to test and delve further into these impressions derived from descriptive

survey statistics, we ran a logistic regression model with intention to vote/abstain asthe dependent variable (0 ¼ definitely will not vote, 1 ¼ definitely will vote). We first

ran a factor analysis using Varimax Rotation in order to reduce the data to thosecomponent factors with an eigenvalue greater than one. We used 22 items from the

questionnaire fielded by the University of Nicosia for the CyBC March election poll,

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which we found to be theoretically relevant. Eight factors prevailed with cumulativevariance explained at 63.1 per cent. Factor 1 concerns attitudes towards European and

international institutions and includes five components: opinion on the EU, the IMF,the European Central Bank, the euro and the impact of EU membership on the

Cypriot economy. On Factor 1, a low score represents a negative attitude and a highscore means a positive attitude.

Factor 2 considers blame for the crisis, and includes three components: blamingthe government, blaming parties and blaming the parliament. It serves as a test for

the ‘systemness’ of the turnout : abstention ratio (our second proposition) in away that relates directly to whether a ‘punishment’ outlook against the main pillars(institutions) of the political system was in play.

Factor 3 has three components: blame the (left-wing) Christofias government,opinion on the current (right-wing) government and self-placement on the left–right

scale. This is somewhat distinct from systemic blame insofar as opinion is expressedabout particular ruling elites in charge of the executive rather than about the main

components of political life. Corresponding to the first proposition, it reflects how theleft–right cleavage may have crystallised in terms of political competition in the

context of the government–opposition dynamics during the crisis, with traditionalsupporters of the left having a negative opinion of the current government, and right-wingers blaming the Christofias government and having a positive opinion of the

incumbent government. On both Factors 2 and 3 a high score means blame and a lowscore means no blame.

Factor 4 is a proxy for social class and refers to the personal financial impact of thecrisis. It includes effects on jobs, employment status and the sufficiency of current

income, and thus addresses three commonly used (and interrelated) constituentelements of social class, occupational status in terms of job and participation in the

labour market, and income level. Factor 5 concerns opinions about the impact of thecrisis on personal income and includes two components: negative effect on income

and no effect on income. Factors 6 to 8 are univariate and concern the effect of thecrisis on salary, opinion on the Cypriot parliament, and the effect of the crisis onfamily income. Opinion on the Cypriot parliament (Factor 7) is another test for

whether the decision to vote was driven by an attitude of political disaffection or not.In terms of its theoretical relevance, the difference from Factor 3 is that (dis)trust of

parliament denotes a more long-term rejection of politics, since it indicates a lack oftrust in institutions and not simply the attribution of blame to the political system for

the financial crisis.8

Motivations Behind Abstention

These eight factors, along with four demographic variables (age, gender, education level

[0 ¼ up to high school, 1 ¼ college/university] and residence [rural/urban]) were runas covariates with the intention to vote/abstain as the dependent variable. The

Nagelkerke R2 is 0.282. Also, our estimated logistic regression equation correctly

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predicts the classification of 508 (73.3 per cent) out of the total sample (N ¼ 693).The following variables were significant at one per cent confidence level (p , 0.01):

attitudes towards European and international institutions (Factor 1), trust in thenational parliament (Factor 7) and the demographic variables age and education. From

the attitudinal variables (factors), both attitudes towards European and internationalinstitutions and attitudes towards the national parliament are significant. There are

striking differences of opinion among those who intended to take part in the Europeanelection and those who said they were going to abstain. B coefficients show that

associationwith the intention to vote is negative in both cases. This means citizens withpositive attitudes towards political institutions (inCyprus and abroad)weremore likelyto vote. By extension, political disaffection is associated with abstention. All this is

preliminary evidence suggesting Euroscepticism and a lack of trust in themain nationalinstitutions in Cyprus are both linked to the propensity to abstain. Clearly there is an

indirect association between electoral behaviour and European attitudes, on one level,and electoral behaviour and attitudes to domestic institutions, on another. Both

Euroscepticism and a broader dissatisfaction with domestic politics may be part of thereason why citizens decided to abstain from voting in the election.

The variables that were used as proxies for the impact of the crisis on social class andthe personal financial impact of the crisis are not statistically significant, and neitherare those which tap into anti-systemic blaming. The political manifestations of

the left–right cleavage (expressed as left–right, pro/anti-government) are also notstatistically significant. The decision whether to vote or not is therefore unlikely to

have been determined by the actual and direct impact of the crisis on the social fabricor by perceptions of how the Cypriot system of governance has responded to the crisis.

Given simultaneously that trust in parliament is important (and uncorrelated with thefactor concerning anti-systemic blame), it was not so much the presence of economic

events and their impact on politics that played a role in the decision to vote, but rathera political crisis that runs deeper than the explicitly financial difficulty in which Cyprus

found itself, and which may be related to the undressing of institutional behaviourduring these troubled times.Of the demographic variables, age and education matter. Older citizens appear

more likely to vote. However, a note of caution is due with respect to education.Although the variable is statistically significant and the negative B coefficient indicates

that those without college/university education tend to vote in significantly greaternumbers than college/university graduates, it has to be borne in mind that in Cyprus

there is a strong association between age and higher education (Cyprus NationalCensus 2011). It is our belief that age is a more dominant variable in predicting the

intention to vote/abstain than education. Political dissatisfaction (with national,European and international institutions) along with age and, indirectly, educationare the significant variables affecting the decision of Cypriot citizens whether to vote

or abstain.Contrasting the possible expectations (our various propositions) with actual results,

we note that the proposition suggesting the elections were approached as a proxy for

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government performance, and thus signifying the election’s second-order featureswere reduced, gathers no support from either the qualitative exploration of the

campaign or the data analysis. Equally unsupported is the second proposition thatprobed protest behaviour in the elections as a function of an anti-systemic vote

directed towards those to be blamed for the crisis and of the impact of the crisis onsocio-economic status and personal financial situation.

Most support must be given to our third proposition, which claims the electionsreflect primarily an anti-systemic sentiment emerging from increasing institutional

distrust, rather than the attribution of blame for the crisis. Both the quantity andquality of political options offered to citizens were different from in the previousEuropean and parliamentary elections – indeed, in such a way that the prevailing

mood and discourse reflected a wide and deep rejection of everything political.Dissatisfaction was expressed mostly through abstention, illustrating that apathy and

not militancy has been the main outcome of the crisis environment. The onlycharacteristic of the election results not expressing its second-order nature and

rendering Cyprus an exceptional case within Europe was that the incumbent avoideddevastating or upsetting losses and achieved a result to brag about in terms of

percentages. Apparently, conjunctural factors specific to the patterns of governmentalternation on the island have set in, and thus a part of the first proposition isconfirmed. Arguably, the historic incumbency of the Cypriot left, combined with the

onset of the crisis and very intense criticism of the former executive, provides aconvincing explanation why protest was expressed against the previous government

rather than the incumbent during the elections.

Table 3 Logistic Regression Model (with intention to vote as dependent variable)

Factors B S.E. Wald Df Sig. Exp(B)

F1 – opinion on European and internationalinstitutions

20.577 0.106 29.471 1 0.000 0.562

F2 – anti-systemic blame 20.516 0.290 3.156 1 0.076 0.597F3 – left–right, pro/anti-government 0.011 0.034 0.111 1 0.739 1.011F4 – social class proxy 20.704 0.536 1.724 1 0.189 0.494F5– financial situation (income affected) 0.331 0.281 1.393 1 0.238 1.393F6(1) – financial situation (salary affected) 20.007 0.185 0.002 1 0.969 0.993F7(1) – trust in political institutions* 21.217 0.215 32.164 1 0.000 0.296F8(1) – financial situation (unemployment in family) 20.289 0.252 1.312 1 0.252 0.749D1(1) – gender 20.124 0.179 0.486 1 0.486 0.883D2 – age 0.474 0.094 25.275 1 0.000 1.607D4(1) – residence 0.362 0.195 3.442 1 0.064 1.436D5(1) – education 20.803 0.196 16.751 1 0.000 0.448Constant 2.297 0.579 15.742 1 0.000 9.947Nagelkerke R 2 0.282

Source: Authors’ own calculations based on University of Nicosia (2014a).Notes: N ¼ 693. Percentages are rounded up to whole numbers. *The questions on nationalinstitutions asked about trust and not a positive or negative opinion.

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However, with hindsight, this proposition is linked to the possibility ofEuroscepticism being a central driver in the election. Abstention was probably fuelled

by citizens’ attitudes towards the European and international institutions.All in all, it appears that political dissatisfaction and an anti-politics sentiment was

infused with Euroscepticism. Disappointment with politics was not limited toperceptions of the national arena, but rather it extended to the supranational and

international spheres. These results validate the expectation of the EU dimensionbeing more salient for political behaviour in member states implementing austerity

policies that stem precisely from the nexus between the national government andthe EU.

Conclusions: Of Proxies and Second-Order Events

This article set out to assess political behaviour during the European elections of May

2014 in the Republic of Cyprus. Its central intention was the theoretical importance ofthe contextual features of the Cypriot political environment that arose during the crisis

in relation to mainstream expectations of second-order theory. Upon this theoreticalchoice, a number of testable propositions (and hypotheses) concerning both elite

interaction and electoral behaviour were generated, asking whether a more or lesssecond-order election was witnessed in the context of crisis. We must recall that this

issue of the second-order nature of elections involves five expectations concerningelectoral outcomes (lower turnout, influence of timing in the national election cycle,

worse performance of government parties, worse performance of big parties, gains forsmall and/or new parties) plus the issue of vote motivations – including the role ofEuropean issues.

The combination of the EU and national politics as the main drivers of politicalbehaviour has had contrasting effects in terms of the second-order nature of the

elections. The absorption of the political crisis into voter motivations has strengthenedthe second-order nature of elections by fuelling abstention and encouraging voters to

punish the four main parties. But the significant role of European attitudes in decidingwhether or not to vote (along with the relative absence of incumbent punishment and

the limited gains for the small or new parties) pushes the results away from the second-order ideal-type model. A question then arises as to whether the EU-related natureof the crisis translates into centrifugal effects on the scale of second-orderness of

European elections in the countries that are in financial trouble.Finally, while the EU was largely absent as an issue affecting political dynamics, the

stimulus for protest-driven apathy comprised both national and European criteria.Furthermore, in relation to the position of citizens towards domestic and European

institutions, the distribution of abstention was such that most of those who intendedto abstain held negative opinions. This explains why the incumbent, while losing votes,

increased its overall share. However, the mixture of EU and national attitudes informing a decision on electoral participation was not accompanied by the permeation

of EU-related and domestic issues, but rather by a campaign that focused on the

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national arena. The campaign’s logic also differed from electoral behaviour withrespect to considering ‘who was to blame for the economy’: the campaign was all about

blame attribution, but the decision to vote or abstain was not. One final point:evidence from Cyprus suggests that elite interaction and voting decisions during

European elections can have different origins and are not necessarily affected by oneanother.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr. Stavros Pouloukas (University of Nicosia) for his assistance with thestatistical modelling in this article. We also thank the issue editors and the journal editors, as well astwo anonymous referees for valuable comments and feedback on previous versions.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Cyprus has been divided since Turkish military forces invaded the island in 1974, following a coupd’etat backed by the military junta in Greece and more than a decade of inter-communal conflict.Since then Turkish forces have illegally occupied the northern part of the island. Over recentdecades the public discourse has mostly concentrated on attempts to resolve the Cyprus Problempeacefully and to reunite the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities.

2. The electoral system is based on proportional representation, with a legal threshold set at 1.8 percent. Party lists are closed and non-blocked.

3. Interview with Alexandra Attalides, Nicosia, 8 July 20144. Juncker and Alexis Tsipras were the candidates of their respective European parties for the

position of president of the European Commission.5. Calculated as a reciprocal of the sum of the squared party shares (Laakso & Taagepera 1979, p. 4).6. In both cases, Euroscepticism can be classified as soft in the sense that the position of these parties

is critical of the EU and calls for an alternative to the EU’s neoliberalism, rather than critical of theidea of capitalist integration in Europe. While soon after leaving the government (in early 2013)AKEL compiled a report on the benefits and challenges of leaving the Eurozone, this wassubsequently shelved. The already scarce rhetoric against the single currency and Cyprus’smembership of the Eurozone soon disappeared from the party’s agenda.

7. Approximately 30,000 Turkish-Cypriots residing in the occupied areas were excluded from theelectoral roll due to a bureaucratic deadlock. According to an amendment to Cypriot electorallaw, passed in March 2014, approximately 90,000 Turkish-Cypriots aged 18 or more who hold aRepublic of Cyprus identity card and reside in the occupied areas are automatically granted votingrights with no need to register on the electoral roll. In contrast, Turkish-Cypriots aged 18 or overwho hold a Republic of Cyprus identity card but who reside in areas controlled by the governmentof Cyprus must register in order to obtain voting rights – just like Greek-Cypriots and otherresidents. Therefore, the amendment made automatic eligibility conditional, depending solely onthe voter’s home address.

8. The items that usually correlate highly with trust in parliament – trust in parties and trust inpoliticians – were not captured by the questions included in the University of Nicosia survey.

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Giorgos Charalambous is Senior Research Consultant at Peace Research InstituteOslo (PRIO), Cyprus Centre and an adjunct lecturer at the University of Cyprus. His

research and publications focus on political parties, political behaviour, left radicalism,the domestic politics of European integration and Southern Europe.

Bambos Papageorgiou is Head of Socio-economic and Political Research at the

European University Cyprus Research Centre. His interests include politicalphilosophy, socio-economic attitudes surveys and electoral polls.

Adonis Pegasiou is a research associate at the European University Cyprus andadjunct lecturer at the University of Cyprus. His research interests focus on political

economy, the financial crisis and Southern Europe.

Appendix

An online Appendix is available for this article which can be accessed via the online version of thisjournal at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13608746.2015.1078221

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