For the greater good
NEARLY a month after the elections, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus finally has a new government. The outcome of the January 2018 general election meant no single party had an outright majority, requiring either a coalition or a new round of elections. No-one really fancied the latter.
With 21 MPs in the new parliament, the centre-right National Unity Party (UBP) is the single largest party. Its leader Hüseyin Özgürgün had called for the right to form a new government, knowing full well his party would be shunned by four of the five parties, leaving him unable to form a working government — and so it proved to be.
Earlier this week, President Akıncı passed the baton to the next largest party, the left-wing Republican Turkish Party (CTP), which has 12 MPs. CTP leader Tufan Erhürman’s job was relatively easy as he had previously met with the leaders of the People’s Party (HP), Democrat Party (DP) and Social Democratic Party (TDP) to thrash out a coalition government that would give him a working majority of two. Having mapped out the positions in Cabinet already, the primary task was for their negotiations to be ratified by the national executives of their respective parties, which was duly achieved.
The TRNC is now set for its 40th government, headed by 47-year-old former law academicturned-politician Tufan Erhürman. His Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister is HP leader and former TRNC chief negotiator Kudret Özersay — someone who intimately understands the Cyprus problem and the need for soft diplomacy, enabling the TRNC to grow its political connections intelligently worldwide.
HP general secretary Tolga Atakan becomes the Transport Minister. Let’s hope he quickly focuses on the twin major problems of security at Ercan airport and air fares. Ercan needs to prove it is up to international standards to alleviate TRNC travellers to the UK of the irritating need for compulsory disembarcation when the aircraft touches down in Turkey. The minister should also investigate the outrageous fares airlines flying into Ercan are charging. At times they seem more like a cartel taking advantage of the isolated position of the TRNC, which has pushed many people to look for cheaper alternatives across the border.
President Akıncı will also be looking for a new chief negotiator, as Özdil Nami has stepped down from his position to take up office in Erhürman’s Cabinet, where he has been named the new Economy and Energy Minister. No doubt if the elusive peace deal had seemed likely, Nami would have stayed put in his role at the helm of the Cyprus talks. With his departure and Özersay’s arrival as Foreign Minister, we can expect a serious rethink of how Turkish Cypriots will broach future negotiations with the Greek Cypriot side, whose new leader will be known after tomorrow’s presidential election run-off.
There are two women in Erhürman’s Cabinet — hooray! A lawyer by profession, newly elected HP MP Ayşegül Baybars Kadri is Interior Minister, while CTP’s Filiz Besim, who failed in her bid to get elected as an MP in Güzelyurt and is herself a dentist, was appointed the new Health Minister.
The immediate backdrop to this coalition is important too. Several commentators believed Özgürgün would succeed in tempting Serdar Denktaş into joining a new rightwing coalition comprising UBP, DP and the Rebirth Party (YDP). For all his public pronouncements that a deal with UBP was off the table, the ever-pragmatic Denktaş could have reversed this if his party had believed it to be the right course of action.
However, the siege of the Afrika newspaper offices by rightwing extremists, who also climbed on top of and stormed inside the TRNC Parliament during the swearing-in ceremony of new MPs on Monday, January 22, changed the political landscape. Turkish Cypriots, like their neighbours in the South, are politically conservative creatures, but there is a clear line when it comes to fascism. The events last Monday highlighted a series of serious threats and deficiencies, which were seen as likely to have got worse, not better, if an UBP-led right-wing government took office.
Six people have been arrested in relation to the attack on Afrika, which saw its office windows smashed and its premises ransacked as staff barricaded themselves in, and they and their supporters were subject to vile death threats. The fascists also sought to disrupt proceedings in the TRNC Parliament on the same day and prevent the swearing in of left-wing MPs, who they view as “traitors”. More difficult to understand was the passive role of the police, who initially did the bare minimum to prevent these hard-core protesters from wreaking mayhem.
The assaults had occurred 24 hours after an incensed President Erdoğan had referenced a headline in Afrika that described Turkey’s military operation in Afrin, Syria, to rid the area of terrorists, as an “illegal occupation” on a par with its “Cyprus occupation”. He called on his Cypriot brothers to “teach the paper a lesson”.
Debates have raged on social media about who bears responsibility for the events, and whether freedom of expression extends to allowing the clearly provocative nature of Afrika. Many people in the TRNC are often disgusted by Afrika’s dreadful editorial stance and give the paper a wide berth, but in no way do we condone physical attacks on them, a point well made when thousands took to the streets in the rain in Lefkoşa last Friday to protest against the attack.
Within the space of a few days, the political pulse of Turkish Cypriots veered away from the parties who seem to be at the beck and call of Ankara, and towards those who are most likely to safeguard TRNC independence. Serdar Denktaş was no doubt mindful of this when he chose CTP over UBP, putting the greater good of Turkish Cypriots above his own party interests.
It will be a tough mission, but if it can stay the course this four-way coalition contains the people to bring out the very best in North Cyprus, including addressing the many deep institutional ills that prevent improved performance at state level. I wish them well.