TRNC Prime Minister, Finance Minister resigns from government

TRNC Prime Minister, Tufan Erhürman, Finance Minister, Serdar Denktaş and other members of the four party coalition has resigned from the government.

From left, DP's Serdar Denktaş, HP's Kudret Özersay, CTP's Tufan Erhürman and TDP's

Tufan Erhürman handed his resignation to TRNC President, Mustafa Akıncı on Thursday following the decision taken by coalition partners, the Peoples’ Party to withdraw from the government.

Finance Minister and leader of the Democrat Party, Serdar Denktaş handed in his resignation on Wednesday to Tufan Erhürman.

Denktaş who announced his resignation via social media said that he would make public the reasons for his resignation in the coming days.

In a statement on social media Wednesday night, Erhürman said that he had talked with President Mustafa Akıncı and would be handing in his resignation so that work to set up a new government without further delay would begin immediately.

Erhürman also thanked everyone he worked with during the coalition government’s 15 months in office.

Accepting Erhürman’s resignation, Akinci said that he believed that he had worked in harmony and dialogue with the four-party coalition. He pointed out that it was the country’s first four-party coalition.

Akıncı who said that Erhürman’s job had not been easy said he had asked the Prime Minister to remain in office until a new government was formed; the process which he added would begin next week.

He said he would be holding separate meetings with the leaders of all the political parties in parliament starting next week and to assign one of them to form a government that could secure a vote of confidence in parliament.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting with President Akıncı, Prime Minister Tufan Erhürman said that the assigning of the party with the largest number of seats in parliament to form a government would be the most correct thing for the President to do at this point in time.

The most correct thing to do is to give the UBP leader Ersin Tatar the task of forming a new government, he said.

He also said that it was important to form a new government as soon as possible due to the economic crisis the country was currently facing.

It is important to have a stable government during times like these. I would like to wish the new government all the best because we are truly going through a difficult time, he said.

The four-party coalition led by Prime Minister Tufan Erhürman had taken office after receiving a vote of confidence by parliament on February 16, 2018. 27 MPs had voted in favour of the coalition government, 22 had voted against it and 1 MP had abstained.

Meanwhile, rhe People’s Party (HP), one of the four partners of the coalition government, has withdrawn from the government.

The decision came following a four-hour meeting of the HP party assembly on Wednesday.

Speaking after the meeting, the leader of the HP Kudret Özersay said that they always strived to keep the government going over the past 15 months but added that the current situation was deeply disturbing and no longer sustainable.

We are face to face with a crisis of confidence and trust, Özersay said.

He added that decisions which the HP was against but which had been approved by the council of ministers had been implemented.

Edited from BRTK