Early general election may be on the cards

A JANUARY general election could be on the cards now that Ersin Tatar has been sworn in as new TRNC President.

Mr Tatar had been the Prime Minister and leader of the National Unity Party (UBP) before last Sunday’s vote but has now stepped down from both posts after he was officially sworn in to his new role yesterday.

He will continue, however, to chair Council of Ministers meetings until a new UBP leader is chosen.

The UBP will vote for a new leader next Saturday. If no candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the support of UBP members then a run-off will be held between the candidates with the most votes on Saturday, November 7.

Mr Tatar, as President, will then ask the new UBP leader to form a government. If a new government cannot be formed then the country will once again go to the polls, in an early general election, which analysts predict could take place in January. Current ministers will remain in their posts.

Before this month’s presidential election the People’s Party (HP), which has been in a coalition with the UBP with its nine MPs since May 2019, announced it was withdrawing its support from the government following Mr Tatar’s surprise announcement to open part of the fenced-off town of Maraş. Deputy Prime Minister and HP founder Kudret Özersay, one of Mr Tatar’s rivals in the presidential election, said he had not been informed about the decision beforehand.

In the last general election in January 2018 the UBP emerged as the biggest party in Parliament with 21 of the 50 seats available, five short of the 26 needed for a majority.

The UBP, then led by Hüseyin Özgürgün, was unable to form a government and instead a four-party coalition involving the second-biggest party, the Republican Turkish Party (CTP), the HP, the Democrat Party (DP) and the Social Democracy Party (TDP) was formed.

That government collapsed when Dr Özersay withdrew HP’s support following a land-lease row involving the then DP leader Serdar Denktaş.

The UBP effectively now has only 19 MPs following Mr Tatar’s elevation to the presidency and the fact that Mr Özgürgün, whose immunity from prosecution was lifted last year over claims that he failed to fully declare the sources of his personal wealth, has been in self-exile since September 2019.

The DP won three seats at the 2018 election, but has seen that number fall to two after Mr Denktaş said earlier this month that he was quitting the party completely.

The CTP has 12 MPs, the TDP three and the Rebirth Party (YDP), whose leader Erhan Arıklı gave “conditional support” to Mr Tatar ahead of last Sunday’s presidential run-off, two MPs.

The new UBP leader will have the option of resuming the UBP-HP coalition, which will provide an effective number of 28 MPs, and could even add the DP and/or the YDP to the equation for a healthier majority.

If agreement with the HP cannot be reached, the UBP could, in theory, form a coalition with rivals the CTP, as it did in July 2015.

If no coalition deal can be struck then an early general election will have to be called.

On Tuesday Mr Tatar called on the HP “to clarify its position” in relation to the coalition, stating that an “early general election would be very difficult to hold”.

Speaking to CyprusToday, UBP general secretary Hamza Ersan Saner, said that the “formation of a new government will be a matter that will be taken up at the party assembly in the coming days”.

“The UBP is the biggest and most wellrooted party of the country,” he said. “The

UBP has no hesitation in attempting to form a coalition, neither is it hesitant to head for an early general election.

“We will debate all the issues in our party organs and make a decision.”

UBP Economy and Energy Minister Hasan Taçoy said that “despite the ‘different blood groups’ of the UBP and the CTP, the formation of a coalition would enable a wider communal unity”.

Mr Taçoy called on the five per cent votes threshold for political parties to enter Parliament to be increased to 10 per cent.

“Do we want to be a banana republic, or are we going to have a TRNC that stands tall?” he added.

Meanwhile Several UBP figures are expected to throw their hat into the ring to become the party’s next leader.

Names that have been touted so far are Hamza Ersan Saner, Hasan Taçoy, Faiz Sucuoğlu, Nazım Çavuşoğlu, Sunat Atun, Dursun Oğuz and Ünal Üstel, the former tourism minister who was forced from his job earlier this year over a quarantine scandal.