Crisis in TRNC parliament on Monday as it fails to elect a new speaker

There was crisis in the TRNC parliament on Monday as it fails to elect a new speaker following a series of votes.

The ‘parliament’ descended into crisis on Monday night after spending all day failing to elect a new ‘speaker’ despite the former speaker, Zorlu Tore standing for reelection.

The post was up for re-election following the beginning of a new legislative year that began on Tuesday last week. 

On Monday morning, two member of parliaments, from the ruling party (the UBP), incumbent ‘speaker’ Zorlu Tore and former ‘prime minister’ Faiz Sucuoglu initially squared up for the post with Tore emerging with 13 votes to Sucuoglu's 10 in an internal election of the party.

After the election, Sucuoglu was pictured leaving the ‘parliament’ building and reportedly said he would “never come back”. He had served as ‘prime minister’ between November 2021 and May 2022 when he was ousted after failing to form a ruling coalition and has since remained on the back benches.

The party then returned to the chambers to officially ratify Tore's nomination in a secret ballot by the entire assembly.

While 23 ‘MPs’ voted to ratify him, 23 also voted against, with two abstentions, and as such he did not become ‘speaker’.

Ustel then nominated him again, with the second vote seeing 23 ‘MPs’ in favour, 24 against, and one abstention. The UBP then decided to have an internal party meeting and adjourned the ‘parliamentary’ session for 10 minutes.

After the meeting, Tore’s nomination went to a vote for a third time, with the number of votes against once again rising. 23 ‘MPs’ once again voted in favour of him, while 25 voted against, and one more abstained.

The same result was reached after the fourth round of voting, with Ustel then having the session adjourned again.

During the second adjournment, he held individual meetings with each of his ‘MPs’.

The parlaiment has 50 seats, 29 are held by ruling coalition parties – 24 by the UBP, 3 by the DP, and 2 by the YDP. As such, for Tore to not be elected as ‘speaker’ it would require some members of those parties to vote against him.

One suspect was Hasan Tacoy, who had challenged Ustel for the UBP’s leadership and thus the office of the ‘prime minister’ at the party’s conference last month.

The logic was that after Tacoy had described the conference as “suspicious” after chaos had erupted during the voting there, it is assumed that he and his four close allies in ‘parliament’ had all voted against Tore.

Mathematically, their votes would have reduced the ‘government’s’ figure from 29 to 24, and with Faiz Sucuoglu having left ‘parliament’ vowing to never return, placed the figure at 23.

However, Tacoy moved to dispel these rumours, telling news website Haber Kibris that he and his four allies had voted for Tore, adding, “we do not know who did not vote [for him]. The prime minister should decide why this situation came to pass by looking at his close friends.”

With Tore having been rejected by ‘MPs’ four times, the UBP then searched for a new candidate, eventually deciding Kutlu Evren.

Kutlu Evren voting for himself [Photo: Tak]

Evren has held multiple ‘ministerial’ positions, most recently serving as ‘interior minister’ under ‘prime ministers’ Ersan Saner and Faiz Sucuoglu before being shuffled out and replaced by Unal Ustel in Sucuoglu’s post-election reshuffle in 2022.

However, when his name was put up for confirmation, some 5 and a half hours after Tore was rejected for the first time, he was rejected by a larger margin than Tore ever had been, with 22 ‘MPs’ voting in favour and 26 voting against.

At that point, legal advice had to be sought as it was initially unclear whether an ‘MP’ who is rejected by 26 or more of their peers for the ‘speakership’ is allowed to be nominated again during the same legislative year.

Retired former ‘auditor-general’ Emine Dizdarli weighed in on the matter, saying the TRNC’s ‘parliament’s’ internal regulations state that firstly, an ‘MP’ who is rejected by 26 or more of their peers for the ‘speakership’ cannot be nominated again, and that secondly, there can be no more than five rounds of voting.

With this going on, things ground to a halt, with no further votes taking place so far on Monday evening.

News website Kibris Postasi reported that Hasan Tacoy’s ally and former ‘health minister’ Ali Pilli had ruled himself out of any bid for the ‘speakership’, and that fellow ally and fellow former ‘health minister’ Izlem Gurcag Altugra had said she had not been asked.

Following the drama, Tufan Erhurman the leader of the major opposition partly CTP said the ‘parliament’ should to be immediately dissolved and called for early elections.

“This movie is over. What needs to be done is to go back to the owner of the will of the people, and get their decision,” he said.

He described Monday’s events as a “serious disgrace”, and called on the Turkish Cypriot electorate to “engrave these events in your memories”.