User talk:KnolGua

First female legislator in Cyprus
Hello. Just thought you may be interested that some further research has uncovered that one woman (Kadriye Hulusi Hacıbulgur) was elected to the Communal Chambers in 1960, which I think makes her the island's first female legislator (she is listed as such in The Almanac of Women and Minorities in World Politics). Cheers, Number   5  7  13:17, 21 January 2021 (UTC)

Hi. Thank you for informing me of this, I did not know that there was a woman in the Turkish Communal Chamber! However, her being the first female legislator of Cyprus is something I doubt is true. First of all, the Communal Chambers' legislative power was relatively low. According to the constitution, they had legislative power over their respective communities in the matters of: “ a.all religious matters; b.all educational, cultural and teaching matters; c.personal status; d.the composition and instances of courts dealing with civil disputes relating to personal status and to religious matters; e.in matters where the interests and institutions are of purely communal nature such as charitable and sporting foundations, bodies and associations created for the purpose of promoting the well-being of their respective Community; f.imposition of personal taxes and fees on members of their respective Community in order to provide for their respective needs and for the needs of bodies and institutions under their control as in Article 88 provided; g.in matters where subsidiary legislation in the form of regulations or bye-laws within the framework of the laws relating to municipalities will be necessary to enable a Communal Chamber to promote the aims pursued by municipalities composed solely of members of its respective Community; h.in matters relating to the exercise of the authority of control of producers' and consumers' co-operatives and credit establishments and of supervision in their functions of municipalities consisting solely of their respective Community, vested in them by this Constitution: Provided that- i.any communal law, regulation, bye-law or decision made or taken by a Communal Chamber under this sub-paragraph (h) shall not directly or indirectly be contrary to or inconsistent with any law by which producers' and consumers' co-operatives and credit establishments are governed or to which the municipalities are subject; ii.nothing in paragraph (i) of this proviso contained shall be construed as enabling the House of Representatives to legislate on any matter relating to the exercise of the authority vested in a Communal Chamber under this subparagraph (h),”. To me, this sounds more executive than legislative, although constitutionally it was not, and I am no separation-of-power-scholar. Also note that paragraph g never took effect as the municipalities were not established (instead, the president Makarios III exploited a loophole in that he made “development councils” which were in effect municipal councils without the constitutional requirements for each community). Another issue is that the Communal Chambers were not a single body. This means that they in effect functioned as something similar to state legislatures in federations such as Germany. Only if by “legislator” you mean any legislator would the characterisation apply. Also, there is the complication that the Greek Communal chamber also had a female member, Constantia Varda of Aradippou, who was also one of the island’s first female lawyers. It is more likely that ms. Hacıbulgur was declared elected first, because there was originally a candidate running against AKEL (whose only candidate there was Varda) and the Patriotic Front in Nicosia district, and thus it took them some time to withdraw, although I have not found the official date in any source. In some countries, like the UK, seniority in cases of ties is determined by the time of being elected, but in Cyprus it is determined by age which is irrelevant, so the former tiebreaker is somewhat inapplicable, and, seeing as (I believe) the swearing in of the Chamber members occurred simultaneously, it is most likely that Hacıbulgur is tied with Varda if we consider Communal Council members legislators. By the way, I’d like to remark at how the question of the first female legislator in Cyprus is so confused. I can produce various sources claiming it was Rina Katselli of DIKO (the centrist party of Makarios III’s successor), MP from 1981 to 1996. By the way, she divorced her husband while she was an MP but seems to have kept his name. Some sources claim it was Aila Halit Kazim of the Independent Turkish Group (a Turkish nationalist group), although she only attended 2 meetings before withdrawing from the House along with the 14 other Turkish-Cypriot MPS in 1963. Other sources claim it was Constantia Varda of the communist AKEL, who was in the Communal Chambers from 1960 until their de facto abolition, and I have now stumbled across some sources saying it was Hacıbulgur. The possible claims, in my opinion are as follows: -Katselli can only claim to be the first Greek-Cypriot MP if we do not consider the Communal Chambers’ members MPs.

-Kazim can claim to be the first MP (which obviously means she was the first Turkish Cypriot MP) if we consider Communal Chamber members to not be MPs, despite the very short duration of her term (and the fact that the only words she ever uttered in the house were the oath and “thank you, mr. President” (referring to Glafcos Clerides) - Varda and Hacıbulgur can claim to be the first legislators if we consider Communal Chamber members to be legislators.

Also, regarding pre-independence Cyprus, women had no right to be candidates in elections to the legislative council during the British era, and I do not know of any female members of the Ottoman-era legislature. However, in the medieval era, the legislature of the kingdom of Cyprus was the High Court (sometimes referred to as the Upper Parliament) of the Kingdom. The High Court had legislative, executive and judicial powers. It’s speaker was the monarch. Thus, it is possible that queen. Charlotte, the first queen of Cyprus, presided over sessions of the High Court, although she ruled simultaneously with her husband, Louis of Savoy, who could have taken her position. Also, queen Catherine Cornaro was single and ruled alone, so if the High Court convened under her rule (for which I have no source) it seems natural she would have presided. I believe that besides the queen women had no right to property so I doubt there were female landowners (the members of the High Court were the nobles who owned fiefs), and I do not believe if there were any female members of the Low Court (composed of the Bourgeoisie). Thus, we have 2 more possible contenders for the title “first female legislator of Cyprus”, those being queen Charlotte and Catherine Cornaro. KnolGua (talk) 00:23, 25 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks as always for the detailed response and for the information about Varda – I agree she should be listed equally with Hacıbulgur.
 * Personally I would not count monarchs sitting in parliament, although Princess Isabel of Brazil had the right to (an ordinary) seat in the Senate, but apparently never took it up. Had she done so, she would have been the first proper female parliamentarian, at least in the modern era.
 * And yes, there is a huge amount of confusion for many countries (although the Communal Chambers create an added layer of complexity as I am not sure there is any other country that has had a similar situation). I have found at least four claims to be the first female legislator in the Cook Islands... It's kind of surprising how many countries do not seem to have a definitive answer (another one I am mulling over at the moment is Sao Tome, where a Constituent Assembly (with one woman)_was elected in July 1975; this Assembly wrote a constitution and then dissolved itself, and was replaced by a wholly nominated legislature with six women. The book I got the info about Hacıbulgur claims they were the first female MPs, but I am unsure whether the Constituent Assembly was not counted as a parliament, or she was omitted because the election was before independence (this is the case for several other countries in the book)... I am also stuck with the former Yugoslav countries, as I have identified the women elected to the Yugoslav parliament in 1945, but not where they were elected from. Number   5  7  23:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding monarchs, I think that in cases where they have a vote (as did the monarch of the kingdom of Cyprus) it would be logical to include them, but I have no idea about the two female Cypriot monarchs’ statuses. The High Court of Cyprus was a sort-of unique institution of crusader states, of which Cyprus was the last.

I don’t think that Cyprus’ independence would logically factor in to these two women’s status as first female legislators, because they got sworn in after independence, and they were both elected unopposed, so no actual elections were held pre independence. By the way, regarding the Cook Islands, seeing as they were legally considered colonies until 1965, are any of the claimants from before 1965 by any chance (because that may help eliminate some)? I was also wandering if you include non-national legislators (so, for the USA, do Clara Cressingham, Carrie C. Holly and Frances Klock count as first female USA legislators, for example)? If not, then these two women can be excluded, as they both only had powers over their respective communities. I think that even if this doesn’t matter, calling the Communal Chambers legislatures may be incorrect; they were more like parliamentary committees seeing as their legislative power only extended to some specific issues (such as all religious issues), although their decisions did not require approval by the House of Representatives. Nevertheless, they could still make laws over these issues so overall I think the strongest claim to the first female legislator in Cyprus would be those of Constantia Varda and Kadriye Hulusi Hacıbulgur. KnolGua (talk) 00:53, 26 January 2021 (UTC)

1891 elections
Are you sure this is correct? Pericles Vontitsianos was an incumbent member – is that the same person as Ioannis Vontitsianos? If so, they should be called by the same name in both articles. Cheers, Number   5  7  17:18, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

Oh, no, please excuse me, I didn’t realise they were different. KnolGua (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2021 (UTC)