An extraordinary coalition beckons
THE recent TRNC general election was a lacklustre affair. With the prospect of a permanent solution ever more distant, the Cyprus talks barely got a mention. Instead the focus was on the domestic agenda, but there was little to fire up the electorate. North Cyprus’s multiple TV channels gave us a continuous feed of nice and well-meaning people of all political hues desperately promising the world. Yawn!
The results were broadly in line with opinion polls, which had predicted the incumbent National Unity Party (UBP) would return as the largest party, but without enough seats to form a majority government. Results from the election, held on Sunday January, 7, gave UBP 35 per cent of the vote and 21 seats — five shy of an absolute majority.
In spite of all the scandals and sleaze plaguing UBP and its leader Hüseyin Özgürgün, the nationalists enjoyed an 11 per cent swing from the 2013 general election. Many attribute UBP’s success at the ballot box to the party’s controversial decision to issue citizenships to more than 10,000 people, the vast majority from Turkey, after coming into power in 2015. These new citizens were never going to vote for the TRNC Left, who view them as a problem and their permanent presence an obstruction to achieving a peace deal with Greek Cypriots.
Yet things may not go in UBP’s favour. By the time you read this, the UBP-DP (Democrat Party) government will have been dissolved, with Prime Minister Hüseyin Özgürgün formally tendering its resignation. All 50 MPs are due to be sworn in on Monday, January 22 at Parliament and the challenge will be on to form a new coalition — the TRNC’s 40th government no less!
A total of six parties have been returned to the TRNC Parliament, two of them for the first time. The centrist People’s Party (HP), led by former chief negotiator and Toparlanıyoruz (We Are Pulling Ourselves Together) civil society head Kudret Özersay, grabbed 17 per cent of the vote and nine seats, while the right-wing pro-Turkey Rebirth Party (YDP) received 7 per cent and two MPs.
The big losers were the leftwing Republican Turkish Party (CTP), who came in on 21 per cent and 12 MPs, and DP, which scored just under 8 per cent of the vote and three MPs. Back in 2013, CTP had received 38 per cent of the vote, while DP was on 23 per cent. HP’s entry into TRNC politics has grabbed vital support from both of these parties.
As potential kingmaker, HP immediately ruled itself out of a coalition with UBP. The combined seats of UBP-HP would give them a comfortable working majority, but Özersay is adamant HP will not work with the nationalists for fear of tainting themselves. HP have accused UBP of fundamentally failing Turkish Cypriot interests and breaching key TRNC laws. Indeed, one of HP’s first actions following the election was to make a formal police complaint against two former UBP ministers, ex-transport chief Kemal Dürüst and ex-foreign minister Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, alleging they have misused ministerial powers. Now out of office, these two veteran politicians no longer enjoy immunity from prosecution.
President Mustafa Akıncı is expected to give UBP, as the single largest party, the first option to form a new government. However, with CTP and fellow left-wingers the Social Democratic Party (TDP) and its three MPs also refusing on principle to enter into a pact with their right-wing opponents, UBP leader Özgürgün is left with few options.
He could form an alliance with DP and YDP, pushing UBP just over the majority threshold with 26 MPs. But having been sidelined multiple times by their larger coalition partner these past two years, DP is also said to be unwilling to support UBP this time around.
Instead the most likely outcome is for CTP to join forces with HP, TDP and DP to form an unprecedented four-party coalition government. They would have a combined majority of two and the prospect of having to create consensus across four party lines. No easy feat given the ideological differences on how to manage the economy and relations with Turkey.
It’s understood the leaders of all four parties have already met and thrashed out a broad-brush deal that would see ministerial posts split as follows: three each for CTP and HP, and two apiece for DP and TDP. CTP would take over the Prime Ministry. The decision now rests with their national executives, but commentators close to each party expect them to ratify the deal. These are challenging times for Turkish Cypriots and no-one really wants to hold a fresh round of elections later this year that could further push up UBP’s share of votes and seats.
If we do end up with a CTPHP-TKP-DP government, President Akıncı will, for one, be happier as it will be easier to work with these parties than an outwardly right-wing coalition that wants the Cyprus talks to permanently falter and happily kow-tows to Ankara.
In a fortnight’s time, the Greek Cypriots will decide who their new leader is. Incumbent Nicos Anastasiades is favourite to win again. Whoever the president is, the age-old charade of professing a desire to “restart the Cyprus talks to unite the island” will begin. Having invested so heavily before, both the UN and President Akıncı will be wary of rushing into a new round of negotiations. The South must first exhibit real sincerity that there is a genuine prospect of concluding the talks positively. That will be made all the harder given Turkey’s presidential contest next year; Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is unlikely to risk alienating his nationalist support base by agreeing to concessions over Cyprus that could leave him short of the 51 per cent he needs to win.
With little action likely from the talks, it will be interesting to see what the priorities of a CTPHP-led alliance would be. The one thing we can safely expect from these two parties headed by former academics, CTP’s Tufan Erhürman and Kudret Özersay, is that TRNC politics is likely to be cleaner, more transparent and more democratic. And that can only be a good thing for everyone in North Cyprus.