EARLY GENERAL ELECTION DID NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF COALITIONS

      The 14th general election in the northern part of Cyprus, which has been under Turkish military occupation since 1974, took place on 7 January 2018. Since 1974, this area has been ethnically cleansed from the Greek Cypriot population and the demographic structure has been changed through the settlers brought from Anatolia. A breakaway state was declared in 1983 on this territory occupied by the Turkish troops and this illegal state is recognized only by Turkey.

      In 42 years since 1976, 39 governments have been formed in this occupied area and the National Unity Party (UBP) took place in 24 of them. The UBP, supported by the separatist Turkish Cypriot leadership and its underground organization TMT, has been in power for 29 years. In the last elections, the majority of the votes went to the UBP.

       In the table below, you can see the names of the political parties that participated in the last three general elections, the percentage of votes they received and the number of seats they won in the 50-seat-parliament, shown in parentheses. The increasing number of the voters and the decreasing number of participation are also significant:

19.4.2009                   28.7.2013                    7.1.2018

UBP                                       43.97 (26)                   27.30 (14)                   35.57 (21)

CTP                                        29.34 (15)                   38.37 (21)                   20.97 (12)

DP                                          10.6 (5)                       23.11 (12)                     7.83 (3)

TDP                                                -                                  -                            8.61 (3)

  HP                                                 -                                  -                         17.10 (9)

YDP                                                -                                  -                           6.96 (2)

Number of voters                   161.373                      172.803                    190.553

Actually voted                       131.349                      120.287                    125.900

Participation (%)                     81.70                          69.61                        66.07

       As you can see from the table above, the National Unity Party (UBP) raised the number of seats from 14 to 21. The second party is the Republican Turkish Party (CTP), which used to be in opposition to the traditional Turkish Cypriot leadership and was on the left, lost 9 parliamentarians and won only 12 seats. The Head of the Democratic Party (DP) is Serdar Denktaş, the son of Rauf Denktaş, who was the founding President of the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (“TRNC”). The number of the seats of his party has fallen from 12 to 3, despite he was in the coalition government with the UBP before the election. Only three seats went to the Communal Democracy Party (TDP), which is close to the President of the “TRNC”, Mustafa Akıncı, who represents the Turkish Cypriot community in the present inter-communal negotiations.

         There are two newly formed parties that could gain seats in their first endeavour. The People’s Party (HP), founded by Kudret Özersay, an academician, who took part in the previous negotiation team, gained 9 seats with a significant success. Prior to the formation of his party, Özersay had a stance that supports the traditional Turkish politics in the Cyprus problem and he was leading the “Clean Community Association”, bringing forward demands such as fighting corruption, transparency and good governance. 2 seats are won by the Revival Party (YDP) that represents mainly the settlers brought from Anatolia.

      It was the first time that a new electoral system was implemented and it was adopted in the parliament that allowed all settlements to be identified as a single constituency, with a mix of party lists and independent persons, as well ticking a mixed cross-party list.

        As you can see from the table above, the number of those, who went to the ballot-boxes in the last general election was the lowest. Meanwhile, the rate of invalid votes has reached the highest level with 11.7%. 67,653 voters (33.8%) did not go to the ballot-box. Besides the fact that the new electoral system has not been adopted by a significant portion of the voters, the people are not satisfied with the policies of the existing political parties and this may have increased the proportion of those who abstained from voting. There were already 379 candidates from 8 parties and 9 independents. We have to consider also that 17,000 new citizenships were granted to the Anatolian settlers before the elections, which was strongly criticised by the oppositional parties.

       The illegal state, which was created by the occupying power Turkey and was defined by the ECHR as “a subordinate local administration of Turkey”, violated the Article 49(6) of the “Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. According to this article, “The occupying power will not transfer a part of its civilian population to the region it occupies, nor will it send through exile.” Unfortunately, Turkey, have sent since 1974 more than 300 thousand civilian population as settlers to the occupied northern Cyprus and this practice continues until today.

         In the booklet of “The Basic Economic and Social Indicators”, the “State Planning Organization of the TRNC” gives the population as 326,158 in 2015, whereas the “High Electoral Council” declared before the recent elections that the population of the “TRNC” was 230,747, out of which 190,553 are eligible to vote. De facto population was supposed to be 299,514 in 2016.  

        The local government granted the settlers the citizenship of the “TRNC” and distributed them the homes and the agricultural land that had been abandoned by the Greek Cypriots in 1974. They were given the right to vote together with the indigenous Turkish Cypriots for the general and local elections so that the collaborationist governments could maintain their power. Furthermore, they took part also in the voting of the Annan Plan.

        When we evaluate the results obtained in this early general election, we can see that the right-wing and non-solution political parties have won the majority of the votes. The positive outcome of 60:40 on the Annan Plan is now reversed and the parties that are in favour of a non-solution have a superiority with 70:30. In the campaigns run by the political parties before the last early election, which was held six months after the failure of the last round of the inter-communal talks in Switzerland, there was no debate whatsoever about the solution of the Cyprus problem. Although mainly the internal issues have been raised, no political party has presented a convincing project for their concrete solution.

       The new distribution of seats in the parliament indicates that a coalition government will be formed, rather than a stable government. The authorities in Ankara have already begun to work in order to transform the existing parliamentary regime in the occupied area into a presidential regime, similar to the one in Turkey.

      AK Party Istanbul deputy Burhan Kuzu shared the following statement in his twitter account related to the elections held in the “TRNC”: “Today, there was an election in the TRNC. A majority government did not emerge. Three governments were formed in the last four years. Obviously, this system doesn’t work in the TRNC. My recommendation is that they should go to the Presidential System. As a scholar who has studied 40 years the architecture of bringing this system to Turkey, I’m ready to give them my service.”  

       Already the Directorate of the Aid Mission of the Turkish Embassy in Northern Nicosia and the “Prime Ministry of the TRNC” commissioned the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey to look into the existing electoral system in the “TRNC” and a report was published in April 2013. Under the title “The State of the TRNC Functional-Institutional Review Study”, the report reads as follows: “In case of a revision of the electoral system, it is recommended that the election districts in accordance with the district boundaries should be abandoned and that a single constituency be formed to cover the entire territory of the TRNC.” (pp. 23-24)

      Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu gave a statement after the election results were announced and asked the Turkish Cypriot politicians to stop saying that they will not participate in a certain coalition government, which was regarded as a clear order and a message sent to the public. A group of Turkish Cypriot Trade Unions issued a protest declaration and condemned Çavuşoğlu’s interference with the internal affairs of the Turkish Cypriot community. 

      In the coming days, Turkey’s socio-political engineering plans, which will be applied in the occupied part of Cyprus, will become clearer. 

UPDATE:

     On 19 January 2018, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his anger against Afrika newspaper, which wrote that Turkey’s military operation in Syria was similar to Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus. Erdogan reacted to Afrika’s main title with this call:  “What is necessary must be done by our friends in North Cyprus!” One day later, on 20 January 2018, an angry mob of ultra-nationalist Turkish settlers from the AKP’s youth organization, which had the support of some civilian organizations and ‘municipalities’, gathered outside the building of the Afrika newspaper and threw stones and eggs against its windows. Two protesters climbed on the balcony and removed the paper’s signboards from the wall in front of police’s eyes. The protesters attempted also to enter into the building, but the police prevented them.  The demonstration was turned into a lynching operation with slogans such as “Allah is most great.” Protests were made as well against the Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, who came to attend the first session of the ‘parliament’ on the opposite corner of the Afrika’s office.  He was jeered by the mob outside Afrika, when he approached to calm down the situation, but he was forced to get in his car and leave the scene with the help of his bodyguards. 

     The crowds were dispersed by riot police, but they then made their way to the ‘parliament’ where ‘deputies’ were being sworn-in after the elections on 7 January 2018. Two men managed to climb on top of the building from which they waved Turkish flags and a flag frequently waved at rallies by supporters of Turkey’s nationalist Good Party.

     CTP’s ‘deputy’ Dogus Derya was booed during her swearing-in by Nationalist Unity Party lawmakers and the protesters in the ‘parliament’. She reacted shouting “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism”. This caused the reaction of Bertan Zaroglu, ‘deputy’ with the settlers’ Revival Party (YDP), who threw a paper to Derya, something which caused tension in the room.  All these incidents were watched through a live broadcasting on television and shocked the ordinary Turkish Cypriots.

       A “Peace and Democracy March” was held on the evening of 26 January 2018 under the pouring rain in Nicosia in order to protest against the violent attacks by the ultra-nationalists. Around 5,000 Turkish Cypriots took part at this march, which was organized by the Trade Union Platform that represented 21 organizations. It ended up in front of the ‘parliament’ and Afrika newspaper, where a declaration of the Platform was read.

      On 2 February 2018, the prime minister-designate Tufan Erhurman presented his cabinet to the President Akinci. The cabinet, which was approved by Akinci is made up of following members: Tufan Erhurman (CTP), Prime Minister; Kudret Ozersay (HP), Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs; Aysegul Baybars Kadri (HP), Minister of Interior; Serdar Denktas (DP), Minister of Finance; Cemal Ozyigit (TDP), Minister of National Education and Culture; Zeki Celer (TDP), Minister of Labour and Social Security; Filiz Besim (CTP), Minister of Health; Tolga Atakan (HP) , Minister of Public Works and Communications; Fikri Ataoglu (DP), Minister of Tourism and Environment; Ozdil Nami (CTP), Minister of Economy and Energy; Erkut Sahali (CTP), Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

       In the meantime, CTP Famagusta ‘deputy’ Teberruken Ulucay has been elected as the speaker of the parliament, while Zorlu Tore from the main opposition UBP has been elected as the deputy speaker. The government received the vote of confidence on 15 February. While 27 deputies voted in favour of the new government, 22 deputies voted against it. One MP did not attend the session. According to the constitution, no party or group of deputies can table a motion of no confidence for the first three months after a vote of confidence is secured.

      The six men, charged for the attacks against Afrika newspaper and the ‘parliament’ building, have been sentenced on 21 February 2018 to between two and six months in prison. Judge Tacan Reynar, who was presiding over the case, found all of the six accused guilty of the charges of unlawful assembly, rioting, causing damage to property and inflicting intentional harm.

     On 7 March 2018, contacts were held in Ankara by ‘prime minister’ Tufan Erhurman (CTP) and ‘foreign minister’ Kudret Ozersay (HP) with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, Deputy Prime Minister Recep Akdag and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

    Havadis newspaper reported on 9 March 2018 that “everything was discussed” during these meetings and described as “interesting at first sight” the fact that the ‘finance minister’ Serdar Denktas (DP) was not included in the Turkish Cypriot delegation. A full harmony was exhibited on the Cyprus problem. The privatization of the “telecommunications authority”, the decrease of the number of “municipalities” and the “citizenship” were issues to which the government in Ankara attached importance. 
   Dogan News Agency reported on 13 March 2018 that President Erdogan asked for more “citizenship” to be given up to one million so that the population of the occupied area would be able to compete economically with the same population of the Greek Cypriots!

(published in In Depth, Bimonthly Electronic Newsletter, Volume 15, Issue 2 - March 2018, Cyprus Center for European and International Affairs,  University of Nicosia)