Next government must focus on the long term
ON THE way back from a trip to Lefke, a friend pointed out to me the fact that many, if not most, of the street lights on the roads that we were using were not turned on. This is the case in many parts of North Cyprus, and can potentially be a serious problem.
Pedestrians have been injured and in some cases killed after being hit by drivers while walking alongside unlit roads.
As with any such tragedy, the lack of attention paid to the causes of it is only increasing the likelihood of it happening again to someone else.
Much has been made of this country’s drink-driving problem, and rightly so, but the fact is the lack of adequate lighting on the road network makes the roads needlessly more dangerous, especially when the solution to the problem is so obvious.
It was obvious, too, to the Public Works and Transport Minister Resmiye Canaltay who, following the tragic death of pedestrian David Shepherd, promised his grieving relatives that the road on which he died would be lit.
That was last April, and the road between Girne and Güzelyurt on which Mr Shepherd died, as well as many other roads up and down the country, is still plunged into darkness every night.
The unfortunate fact is that this subject has been neglected by the government, which in recent times has proven itself unable to effectively implement any meaningful policy whatsoever. The cost of living crisis was also slowly handled, with the government almost frozen like a rabbit in headlights in the last few months of last year as prices rose and the Turkish lira fell.
Last weekend saw the return of blackouts, too, with there not being enough fuel in the country to adequately power it all at once.
Neighbourhoods were plunged into darkness on Saturday and Sunday evenings
without warning, and with no comment from the government about why that was happening and what they planned to do to ensure it would not happen again.
This appears to be the problem of the current government in North Cyprus — they have no plan.
The last couple of years at least have seen prime ministers come and go and coalitions rise and fall, all of which seemingly have no real long-term plan outside of their own survival in office.
There has been no vision laid out, no project unveiled, and no coherent set of policies divulged, which would give the people of this country an idea of where it is headed and how it is going to improve.
It seems to me that we are currently locked in a cycle of “government for the sake of government”, where the people in ministerial posts largely hold them just because they are there, rather than because they have any particular plan for what the sector of society for which they are responsible should look like in one, five, or 10 years’ time.
Even when the solution to a problem seems simple enough,
like adding working street lights to a road, heels have been dragged and promises have been broken with, let us not forget, potentially deadly consequences.
There is a general election tomorrow, which I do hope will allow for the formation of a government that does have a long-term plan for this country’s infrastructure.
I am not going to tell you
who to vote for — I respect both myself and you much more than that, and there are rules against it — but I do believe it is important that whichever government may be formed after this election actually has a coherent plan for what it believes this country should look like in the future, and how it will arrive at making that vision a reality.
This country’s serious problems, such as the cost of living crisis, the neglected infrastructure, and its place in the world, all require a government to take them seriously, and to put together a set of policies that will improve all of those situations.
I do hope that the electorate of the TRNC have also had enough of the current state of government, which more often than not in recent times has been more focused on hanging on to its post and falling out with each other than actually doing what governments should do.
This is not by any means an attack on Mrs Canaltay, or any other minister past or present, for that matter.
Rather, the mentality of government is what needs to change, and priorities need to change. Government for the sake of government, and power for the sake of power, needs to be put in the rear-view mirror, and the government that is formed after the election must implement a set of policies that directly improve the lives of ordinary people, and combats the problems they face.
Whether it is election season or not, the problem of low wages
and high prices is still ongoing,
and something still needs to be done about it.
The same very much applies to this country’s dangerous and largely unlit road network, the blackouts, and the burning question of what North Cyprus’s place in the world actually is, and how it will interact and trade with the rest of the world.
The next government will hopefully be the one to break this cycle, and implement a set of policies that amount to a coherent plan to improve ordinary people’s quality of life in this country, and to develop both the TRNC’s economy and society into one fit for the modern age.
It will hopefully have a renewed set of priorities, and carry out the promises it makes. North Cyprus has been largely mismanaged over the last few years, and I would hope that the aftermath of this election can serve as a chance for whoever forms the next government to begin with a fresh slate and manage this country correctly.
I say this because, despite the embargoes and the difficulties that come with its lack of international recognition, there is potential in the TRNC to be much more than what it is.
We are lucky that this country is home to many vastly intelligent minds, people who become entrepreneurs, lawyers, and scientists. While there are many steps in between, the foundations laid by a good government today can persuade those minds to stay in this country and work to improve it even further, and may even begin to attract more of the brightest and the best from abroad.
Those steps would and should of course be part of the long-term plan that I have been writing about ad nauseum on this page, but building a North Cyprus in which people can earn competitive wages and rely on good-quality infrastructure would be the beginning of that process of elevating it out of its current position. That should be the priority of the next government, and that should be the goal of every minister to take a post.
It remains to be seen whether a government with such priorities will be formed following the election. As one would expect, almost every party is promising to be the source of that change and transform this country into something better, but the extent to which those promises are true remains to be seen. Actions speak much louder than words, and it will of course be the actions of the next government that will be the marker of its success, or otherwise.
If words were enough, the road between Güzelyurt and Girne would already be lit, but instead it remains a symptom of the malaise, lack of progress, and lack of strategy that has characterised the last few years of government in North Cyprus.
It is now up to the electorate to decide who will form the next one, and then up to whomever they may select to make good on their promises, and work to make this country a better place. While implementing an entire long-term plan is a difficult and arduous task, the first move in the right direction could be as simple as turning a light on.