The ongoing crisis at the heart of Turkish Cypriot politics was frozen on Monday with many ‘MPs’ having travelled to Turkey to be present for the resumption of proceedings regarding the deaths of 35 Cypriots in a hotel in the country during last year’s earthquakes.
A full 20 days after the beginning of the new legislative year and 11 days after the deadline foreseen by the ‘TRNC’s’ constitution, it is still unclear whether or not the north’s ‘parliament’ has successfully managed to elect a ‘speaker’.
Last week, the north’s ‘attorney-general’s’ office had ruled that despite his claims to the contrary, previous ‘speaker’ Zorlu Tore had not been re-elected to the role after receiving 23 votes in his favour and 25 votes to reject him.
Tore had claimed that as he was the only candidate, 23 votes were enough to see him re-elected, but the ‘attorney-general’s’ office was of the opinion that as he had not received more approvals than rejections, he had in fact not been elected.
As such, the ruling coalition turned to a new candidate, namely former ‘interior minister’ Ziya Ozturkler.
Ozturkler had initially promised that should he fail to be elected within two rounds of voting, he would withdraw his candidacy. However, in the end, he went a full five rounds, bringing the total number of votes held since the start of the month to 15.
In the 15th round, the ruling coalition announced that Ozturkler had received 26 votes in his favour and 23 votes against and that he had thus been elected ‘speaker’.
However, opposition party CTP ‘MP’ Dogus Derya quickly revealed that three ballot papers the ruling coalition had counted as approvals had been stamped twice. In Turkish Cypriot elections, ballot papers which are stamped twice are counted as invalid.
As such, if the three votes are ruled invalid, Ozturkler would have received 23 votes in favour and 23 against, and it is unclear what would happen next in those circumstances.
The CTP has remained steadfast in its view that the votes are invalid and that Ozturkler is thus not ‘parliament speaker’, with ‘MP’ Erhut Sahali telling the Cyprus Mail on Monday “we think they will have to accept our claim” on the matter.
Despite this, he said, his party currently has no plans to take the matter to the ‘attorney-general’s’ office.
“In our opinion, this is a situation which politics should resolve,” he said.
Fellow CTP ‘MP’ Armagan Candan told the Cyprus Mail the next concrete developments are to be expected next Monday.
Party leader Tufan Erhurman had called on the ‘government’ to resign, saying, “if we have a government which nominates three different people and cannot reach an absolute majority in any of the 15 votes, this means the government in question has lost the support of the majority of parliament.”
“One thing is clear: under these conditions, even if the bills and budget were voted on in a secret ballot in parliament, this government would not be able to pass any of them. It is for this reason that this government is finished, and unnecessary games are being played to waste the country’s time,” he said.
He added that as such, “there is no other solution than early elections”.
The only ‘government’ figure to comment on the matter is Turan Buyukyilmaz, deputy leader of the smallest party in the three-party ruling coalition the YDP.
He told the north’s public broadcaster BRT that there is “no authority which will find [the CTP’s] objections justified, though was also critical of the largest party in the ruling coalition, and the party to which Ozturkler and Tore belong, the UBP.
“The meaningless and fruitless rounds of voting in parliament had tired the public. Continuous voting, voting, and voting. The chaos within the UBP was also affecting the YDP,” he said, later adding that the YDP would have withdrawn from the ruling coalition if Ozturkler had not, in the coalition’s view, been elected.
