Cyprus-Forum.com

by **Omer Seyhan** » Wed Apr 22, 2009 11:53 pm

The New Cyprus Party, held a press conference on Tuesday 21st April in front of the Turkish Embassy in Nicosia. During the press conference the results of the “elections of the new agents” were evaluated and referring to Turkey’s deep state and civil administrations it was announced “May you enjoy your new agents!”

Members of the New Cyprus Party and friends of the party met on the corner of the Turkish Embassy before the press conference and walked to the entrance of the building carrying a banner which said “May you enjoy your new agents!”. The security guards of the Embassy and a group of policemen attempted to obstruct the press conference and a brief commotion ensued between the group and the police. There were also scuffles during the press conference between the group members on one hand and the police and security guards on the other. Despite this, the group continued to resist, chanting slogans and insisted to continue the press conference. The extraordinary security measures in front of the Embassy after the press conference were also noticeable.

Murat Kanatli, the General Secretary of the Executive Committee of the New Cyprus Party had to stop reading his statement several times due to police intervention.

Kanatli ended his statement by saying “We say to the deep state and the civil administration of Turkey, through the Turkish Embassy, 'may you enjoy your new agents! We shall continue our struggle for the reunification of Cyprus and Cypriots, for a Cyprus with no borders and weapons, with no soldiers and no guarantors.”

The full text of Kanatli’s statement is as follows:

We have been through another “election” process in the northern part of Cyprus, where there are 40 thousand soldiers, 500 thousand de-facto population and an unknown number of military and civil bureaucrats of Turkey, who have been involved in this “election” process.

Everything that YKP, who called for a boycott of the elections, claimed during its extraordinary congress regarding the “election” process has come true and everyone has already started complaining about the “election” process.

The discussion regarding the population issue is the primary example. Both the deep state and the civil administration of Turkey intervened in various ways in the “election” process. Different circles have complained at different times about the stance of various mass media organizations, the extravagant expenditures for the elections have astonished everyone, but no one asked to investigate the source of this money, that is, the “election” process was not just, democratic, transparent or in conformity with the international law. The will of the people was not reflected in the process.

But at the end of the day, the process of “the elections of the new agents” was completed, and now the final partial arrangements will take place. They will determine who will take part in the agents’ administration

Despite all the pressures and manipulations to force people to vote, the participation rate of 81% is a failure for them. In addition, if we take into account the votes casted that were invalid, the valid votes were 77% of the total voters. This is also an important reaction against the regime. In addition to this, when looking at this number and the electoral structure is also taken into account, it will be easily understood that the reaction is even greater. The meaning of this is that Turkish Cypriots gave meaningful support to the call for boycott, they have not been part of the process in determining who will be the new agents, and refused to obey directives; hence, we salute this reaction.

YKP, through various meetings, will evaluate all these results and the conditions for struggle as it has done at the beginning of this process and it will produce decisions, especially by reconsidering co-operations and collaborations. For this purpose, we will be organizing meetings with our party members and friends on 23rd April in Famagusta, on 27th April in Nicosia, and on 4th May in Kyrenia… The final decision will be taken at the Party Council meeting on 12th May.

However, at this point we want to remind people that we do not need to reconsider our struggle just because new agents have been appointed. As we emphasized at the beginning of the process, a new socio-economic package has been prepared in parallel to the protocols with Turkey and the new agents will be implementing this. YKP had already announced that it would fight against all neoliberal and anti-labour measures that the old agent would have implemented and today we emphasize again our resolve to struggle against the same measures…

YKP does not accept that these agents are new and that they should be given time. It will struggle against this and similar economic/destructive packages of Turkey, it will not leave alone those who are also struggling against this, it will be in solidarity with them.

YKP continues to emphasize its demand for a speedy solution to the Cyprus problem and underlines its determination to continue this struggle. YKP emphasizes again that it will hold responsible all of Turkey’s administrative organs for any backward step or stalemate concerning the Cyprus problem. YKP wants to emphasize once more that for a speedy solution to the Cyprus problem, the immediate implementation of confidence building measures such as the demilitarization of Nicosia, the return of Varosia to its former owners, the recognition of the right of all Maronites to return to their villages, withdrawal of ten thousand soldiers, de-confrontation, the opening of new checkpoints and the easing of the bureaucratic procedures in crossings, will provide an impetus to the process. We also remind that the responsibility for the delays in such matters during the recent years lies above all on the shoulders of Turkey’s general staff.

YKP will continue its struggle to fulfil its final aim of a Cyprus solution envisaging above all the end of the occupation by Turkey, a Cyprus free from all foreign troops, with no borders, no weapons and no guarantors.

YKP will continue to be very sensitive regarding the issue of population. Since it is the Turkish Embassy which approves all the “citizenships” given, we hold both the Turkish Embassy and its agents responsible for this in the first degree. We emphasize that we will continue our struggle, as we did in the past, against all new faits accomplis. In the mean time we state that we anxiously followed last Sunday night’s slogans “citizenships for all of us” and that we noted Eroglu’s words during his election campaign.

YKP reiterates its demand for a new census with the active participation of international experts and observers and emphasizes that it will continue its struggle for this.

YKP also underlines its anxiety that a party like the UBP, who for 30 years made propaganda for a separate state and has been the architect of a system of looting and robbing, is appointed head of the agents. For this reason, with the knowledge that congratulating UBP and wishing it success would mean supporting it, YKP will continue to struggle for UBP’s failure if it continues to pursue those policies.

Under these conditions we say to the deep state and the civil administration of Turkey, through the Turkish Embassy, may you enjoy your new agents! We shall continue our struggle for the reunification of Cyprus and Cypriots, for a Cyprus with no weapons, no soldiers and no guarantors.

New Cyprus Party

Basic information regarding the elections of April 19th 2009 in the northern part of Cyprus

The parliamentary elections in the northern part of Cyprus took place on April 19th 2009.

The parliament in the northern part of Cyprus consists of 50 seats and 161,373 people were eligible to vote in these elections. In the 1976 elections there were only 75,824registered voters and the huge increase in this number reflects to the transfer of population from Turkey in 1981 and the 1990’s, to whom citizenships were granted.

Since 2003, YKP has been calling for boycott in order to show their reaction to the regime in the northern part of Cyprus. The participation percentage in 1990 was 91%, in 1993 92.9%, in 1998 88.05%, in 2003 86.46%, in 2005 80.85% and in this election 81.62%. Especially this year, all the political parties gave importance in mobilizing people to go to vote. The two big parties made a big effort to gain most votes, and despite all the efforts the participation percentage was only 81.62%. In addition to this, 4.66% of those who voted casted invalid votes. This was especially high in the Morfou area (6%) which implies a conscious invalid vote. So, in total only 77% of the total people eligible to vote casted valid votes.

The population is small and the number of parties and candidates large, which means that this low participation is significant. At the same time the people of Turkish origin can be easily influenced to vote by the Embassy, Army and Deep State and other authorities. More than half of the voters are people of Turkish origin, meaning that the reaction to the regime in the northern part of Cyprus by boycotting the elections is even more significant among the Turkish Cypriot voters.

The results of the elections are as follows:

Political Party

% of valid votes

Parliamentary seats gained

UBP – National Unity Party

44.04

26

CTP – Republican Turkish Party

29.26

15

DP – Democrat Party

10.65

5

TDP – Communal Democracy Party

6.87

2

ORP – Freedom and Reform Party

6.21

2

BKP – United Cyprus Party

2.42

0

HIS – Politics for the People Party

0.49

0

After the election of 2005, CTP had 25 seats in parliament and now it has lost 10 seats, mainly because of the economical situation. At the same time, this drop is due to the disappointment in the negotiation process and the very low interest in the European Union and lack of relation with the EU structures. Because of all these, 3 ministers did not manage to get re-elected – namely the ministers of Finance, Interior and Tourism.

UBP has held 3 party congresses in the last 3 years and has changed 3 party presidents, every time accusing each other that they do not exercise enough opposition to the government. Despite this fact, UBP has gained a big majority in the parliament. The deep state and the military of Turkey supported UBP and DP in these elections. This has affected the results, and especially the votes of the settlers.

AKP (Justice and Reform Party) of Turkey has tried to intervene in these elections and support CTP and ORP. Until the last point, ORP could not pass the electoral limit, but with the last operation of AKP, not only did ORP pass, but also gained 2 seats. The fact that UBP has won the elections is not a crucial problem for AKP, because AKP controls all of the negotiation process through the foreign affairs of Turkey.

However it seems that there will be a problem, because of the composition of UBP’s MPs that were elected. The MPs elected mainly come from the ultra right wing of the party; one of them is the ex-president of the Grey Wolves branch in Cyprus and another is a right wing trade unionist, who was visited by the Turkish right wing trade unionist, president of METAL SEN who was accused of being in the leadership of Ergenekon. The composition of UBP MPs means that the grassroots and affiliates of UBP can mobilize the UBP against the negotiations. They also have good relations with the paramilitary groups in the northern part of Cyprus.

DP has gained 5 seats, just because of the name of Rauf Denktash who appeared more intensely in the news recently and was the main organizer of the election campaign of DP.

TDP, the social democrat party, has gained only 2 seats and this result is very disappointing for them as well.

There is a possibility that UBP will try to continue to govern alone, with just their 26 MPs, but this is a critical number of MPs, so they might try to establish a coalition, most probably with DP.