Turkish Cypriot politics in 2007

[moonskin]

Perhaps, most of us who try to follow the funny political world of Turkish Cypriots know that 2007 has been a year in which many hopes regarding our future were lost. We started off with a "classical" raw between the coalition partners DP and CTP which resulted in partial fragmentation of DP (Denktas's son's party) and UBP to form a new party called ORP. Note that, in the early 90s, DP was formed in the exact same way out of certain fragments in UBP.

So, why do we have so many parties in north formed in this particular way? Well, you already know the answer and the events that took place in 2007 regarding the formation of ORP, showed that the actual actors behind the scenes who create these formations are no longer afraid to do their dirty business in front of us.

It all depends on what the current interests of Turkey demand. A short while after Erdogan came to power in 2002, it was decided that Denktas's policies and himself are no longer needed for Turkey. Not only that, according to the new Erdogan government, a new way of "playing the game" in international politics was necessary and the best for Turkey's interests. Denktas had no role in this picture. Moreover, Turkish Cypriots did not seem to like him either, as they did for a long time in the past.

As a first step, the strongest loyal candidate which could stand up to Denktas in north Cyprus was identified as CTP and all support was given to party's candidate for the presidential election in 2005. Father Denktas accepted the reality and retired, letting Talat replace him as the new president. However, Denktas was still of a problem since DP was a coalition partner in the parliamentary system of north Cyprus. Not only that, as a retaliation and the only way of realizing his ideology, Denktas started to gather partners in Turkey and form a union of power against Erdogan.

This tension resulted by Erdogan's direct involvement in the establishment of a new party in the north, members which were formerly from DP and UBP and some of which were already MPs. Despite CTP seemed to have no direct involvement in this, it was clear that they were more than happy about the dissolution in DP and UBP.

Since then, enormous amounts of money seem to be flowing into the new party's bank account. Moreover, AKP has publicly made it obvious that they will be supporting the new party. When all these facts came together, people have realised that the "success" of ORP is immediate. Hence, the new party grew very fast in a very short amount of time. Of course, they grew on what was DP's or UBP's "land". Therefore, these two parties decided to "remember" the essential principles of democracy suddenly, but of course, they did not quit their begging visits to Ankara so that they could convince AKP or military to stop the support for the new party.

While all this pathetic theater game was being played in north Cyprus, Turkish Cypriots had the tickets in the first row! And this naturally made them loose any remaining respect for the system in north. DP and UBP humiliated themselves by preaching about democracy on the one hand and constantly visiting Ankara for having its support (which is currently provided for the ORP), on the other. CTP has lost a great deal of support for taking part in this organization of Erdogan's involvement. At the end of the day, CTP was perceived by many as the only possible way out from the corruption, militarist undemocratic rule, partisanship and isolation. The fact that we are here now, has caused a great damage in the hearts of Turkish Cypriots.

In this gloomy situation, Rasit Partev, who was working as a representative to Talat, has suddenly quit his job and announced that he is in the process of establishing a new party. So far, nobody seem to have any idea what this guy is really up to because there is no information given away by him about his plans. Who will be the financial supporters behind him? In which political lines will the new party be aligned with? We don't really know answers to these questions but we can try to interpret the signals. First of all, he said that this movement will not distinguish between settlers and the Turkish Cypriots, which suggest that he is willing to compete among right wing parties. But this is not surprising at all, given the situation those parties are currently in. We know that there is a strong support from the settlers to the ORP with Erdogan's backing but what about the Turkish Cypriots who are willing to vote for a right wing party and are sick of DP and UBP? It is widely conjectured that Pertev's actions are directed towards gathering support from precisely those Turkish Cypriots.

Pertev claimed that Talat had no information at all about his initiative but very few believed that. Actually, even Denktas junior said that he heard about Pertev's plans about one month before Pertev quit his job and went public with it. If this is true, if Talat already had information about this, then perhaps it is plausible to think of this situation as an operation to replace DP and UBP with a mature right-wing party in the Turkish Cypriot political life (something which will not hurt CTP much). Because with the drop of support of Ankara, since these parties had nothing to give to the people except theft and corruption packed with nationalist bullshit, they are likely to disappear soon as actors in Turkish Cypriot politics.

PS: I have not made any comments about the Ahmet Yonluer guy, since I really do not see him becoming an actor in north. He did quit his job as the person responsible of religious matters and claimed that he is in the preparation of establishing a new movement (that was very similar to Pertev's actions, wasn't it?). But it is almost impossible to have any support from Turkish Cypriots using religion. We just don't like that in politics. Therefore, he could only direct himself to the settlers who are being gathered under Erdogan's party. So, it is a very likely possibility that this guy will somehow join forces (or simply join) with ORP. This is the main reason I did not want to comment much on him.

[repulsewarrior]

thank-you moonskin. i wish i knew more about the politics in the north, your posting sounds quite realistic, and i think that Turkish Cypriots, as opposed to turcophones, are in worse shape, when it comes to their own self determination, than their counterparts in the south.

there will be elections in about a year and a half. i hope by that time a political party will be formed that seeks to represent the people not as "Turks" but as this island's dwellers, hopefully more able, with candidates in the south as well.

[cypezokyli]

according to politis, a poll made by KADEM showed that 35% of the Turkish Cypriots are today undecided whom they would vote for!

from the rest:
CTP: 23%
UBP : 22%
Democratic Party: 7%
ORP: 4%
Party of Communal Democracy (!!! what kind of name and party is that? - i guess it is the problem of too many translations...) : 7%

ofcource each party grows bigger if one does not account for those undecided.

is pertevs party included in this poll?
and what happened to akici, or other small left parties?


.......

the biggest problems for Turkish Cypriots are:

Unemployment: 31%
Inflation:30%
position of the north in the international community: 27%
drugs: 12%
relations with Greek Cypriots: 10%
(somehow the above add up to more than 100%!!)

in any case, is unemployment and inflation that bad ?
drugs also ?

i do not know if they were asked (because in such polls we are asked constantly) about the water problem! we almost run out in the south!

[city]

[moonskin]

[repulsewarrior]

thank-you again moonskin.

[cypezokyli]

some articles write about the re-formation of the platform "this country is ours".

they seem to be a non-homogenous group (ranging from liberals to left wingers)

and they seem to criticize talats policies on the cyppro.



my questions are:
is it a serious movement ?

and is it directly concerned with the politics of the cyppro, or is it sparked by other problems (economy , corruption etc) ?

[moonskin]

To put it as simply as possible, "Kıbrıs Barış Platformu (Cyprus Peace Platform)" is equal to "This Country is Ours Platform" minus CTP!

I am pretty sure that you are aware of the increasing tension between CTP and other left formations in the Turkish Cypriot politics. Things are getting even worse nowadays and the new platform is exactly a result of this division.

To be more precise about it, it includes the following parties and trade unions: From the unions, KTÖS + KTOEÖS (teachers' unions), Tıp-İş (doctors), Daü-Bir-Sen (emu university's workers union), KAB (Ali Erel's "Cyprus EU Organisation") and some other smaller unions. From the parties, TDP (Akinci's new party - tough he is not the leader anymore), BKP (Izcan's party), YKP (Durduran's Party).

BMPM still exists and the will for its continued existence was promised in the declaration announcing the new platform. To summarize, what we are currently seeing is the growing amount of differences between CTP + it's satellites and the other groups desiring a reunification in Cyprus.

Is it serious? Hell yes!

[stavrizatz]

[Bananiot]

Or it could be that we have been sending the wrong signals since 2004 and that even those in the Turkish community that are pro solution have been looking for alternative paths to follow. Perhaps we can get back on track after Sunday.