DP key to coalition
DEMOCRAT Party ( DP) leader Serdar Denktaş is being cast in the role of “kingmaker” following a general election in which, say observers, domestic concerns dominated and parties on both the Left and Right shed support.
The spotlight has turned on DP and its three MPs after the National Unity Party (UBP) emerged victorious on Sunday, but without the 26 deputies it needed to form a government, and both the larger Republican Turkish (CTP) and People’s Party (HP), as well as the Social Democratic Party (TDP), dismissed any prospect of entering into a coalition with them.
That would leave only DP, which was in coalition with UBP until the early vote was called, as the larger party’s sole route back to government, along with the Rebirth Party’s two MPs.
However DP is also seen as a potential critical member of an alternative coalition: a four-way link-up with CTP, HP and TDP to leave UBP out in the cold.
Either alliance raises the prospect of coalition parties being unable to sit on parliamentary committees because they do not have the requisite minimum of five MPs — and of a UBP-led administration being unable to push through unpopular measures because the party would be out- numbered on all committees by opposition CTP and HP members.
Mete Hatay, a senior researcher at the Peace Research Institute Oslo’s (PRIO) Cyprus Cen tre, told Cyprus Today: “Everyone agrees that Serdar Denktaş has a key role at this stage. What’s more, everyone is curious which role Sedar Denktaş will play.
“Will he be a conservative, who will protect the status quo and form a coalition government with UBP and YDP in line with the suggestions of some politicians in Turkey? Or will he assume his democratic and liberal role and act together with CTP, HP and TDP, paving the way for a new era?
“We will see which Serdar Denktaş wins through.”
Mr Hatay said both left- and right-wing parties had lost votes in this election, while the centre’s support was unchanged.
“UBP got its traditional votes, while DP’s votes went to YDP and CTP’s to HP. New parties stood for election and took votes from the old parties,” he commented.
Mr Hatay saw UBP as having “reinstated party unity” and put behind it a damaging row between party leader Hüseyin Özgürgün and his predecessor, İrsen Küçük, while its biggest rival, CTP, while also losing ground to HP, had suffered from the Cyprus problem — one of its “biggest areas of leverage” — not being a key part of the electoral agenda.
He praised HP, saying that “in the history of the TRNC we have not seen a new party securing such a success”, and also saw positives for TDP in its “recovery” from the split in which Mehmet Çakıcı last year left to re-form his Communal Liberation Party.
For Ahmet Sözen, a political science and international relations lecturer at Eastern Mediterranean University, Sunday’s sole surprise was the failure of CTP “to have attained a few more points”, but he agreed “the election axis was not centred on the Cyprus issue, but concentrated more on the status quo, transparency, good governance, and on the system based on patronage . . . and lack of accountability”.
“Those who favour the status quo are UBP, DP and maybe YDP. Those who emphasised good governance and change to a system based on transparency, accountability and meritocracy were CTP, HP and TDP.
“The result was a half-andhalf between the two sides.”
Dr Sözen predicted that any government formed would not be long-lasting or able to see out a five-year term, and predicted another early general election in 12 to 18 months. Both he and Mr Hatay rejected speculation that the number of voters abstaining — up 3 per cent to 34 per cent since the last general election in 2013 — had had a significant impact.
While there was consensus among analysts that domestic concerns were uppermost, former peace talks negotiator Osman Ertuğ said it didn’t mean the national cause was “not in voters’ minds”, and commented that prounification parties had suffered an “unprecedented setback”, along with those that “disfavour closer relations with Turkey”.
Mr Ertuğ rejected suggestions that the result had brought TRNC politics to “crisis point”, saying: “There are differences in forming and working out a sustainable government, but democracy offers many alternatives for overcoming the issues.
“It would be wrong and disrespectful to the wishes of the people for a political party to state that they will ‘never’ take part in a coalition with ‘X’ political party. They have to put national interests before party and personal interests.”