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NATIONALIST Dervis Eroglu looks set to replace Mehmet Ali Talat as the chief Turkish Cypriot interlocutor in ongoing reunification talks with President Demetris Christofias, an opinion poll published in the north predicted yesterday.
The poll, conducted by the widely-respected market research and trend surveyor KADEM, said yesterday its findings suggested ‘prime minister’ Eroglu would win the upcoming ‘presidential’ election in the north with almost 53 per cent of the vote against Talat’s 42.1 per cent.
This would give him an 11-point margin, making him the new leader of the Turkish Cypriot community, and consequently chief negotiator in UN-sponsored talks aimed at reuniting the island’s divided communities. Just over 164,000 people are eligible to vote in the April 18 election.
The findings of the poll were however contested by London-based Turkish Cypriot daily Kibris Postasi which quoted an anonymous source saying the same poll had in fact found that Eroglu would only win by a margin of four points with 37 per cent of the vote to Talat’s 33 per cent.
However, KADEM accurately predicted the outcome of last year’s ‘parliamentary’ elections in the north and is contracted to carry out the EU’s Eurobarometer surveys.
Attempts to contact KADEM director Muharrem Faiz yesterday were unsuccessful. A close friend of Faiz told the Mail he had been trying to contact the market researcher for the last five days.
A source close to Talat yesterday said he believed the 11-point gap to be inaccurate.
“We have been carrying out our own survey regularly with reputable firms, including KADEM, and we know that the picture is not like this,” he told the Mail, adding that he was among those who were trying to contact Faiz in London.
Whichever version of the poll is correct, an Eroglu victory appears to be currently on the cards and this is a possibility that worries many in the international community, on the Greek Cypriot side, and even Ankara.
With Eroglu a staunch believer in a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem, many fear an Eroglu win could herald the end of the ongoing reunification talks started by Talat and Christofias. Although Eroglu has repeatedly said he will not call off negotiations if he wins, his insistence on recognition of the breakaway ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ or ‘TRNC’ as a prerequisite for talks will, it is believed, make it untenable for the Greek Cypriot side to take part.
Such an outcome could further weaken Turkey’s already trouble-prone EU accession process, and thereby weaken Greek Cypriot leverage in its efforts to carve a reunification plan it finds palatable.
Some in Eroglu’s camp are already smelling victory. Speaking to the Cyprus Mail yesterday, a high-ranking official in Eroglu’s National Unity Party (UBP) said Eroglu’s victory would stem more from the public’s lack of confidence in Talat’s ability to solve the Cyprus problem than from Eroglu’s popularity.
“Talat became president five years ago by telling the people he would deliver a solution in months, but after five years all he has delivered is a big zero,” the official said.
Eroglu, meanwhile, had advised caution, suspecting the Greek Cypriot side was not ready for it.
“Talat told the people that now [former nationalist leader] Denktash was out of the way, it would be easy to solve the [Cyprus] problem and reunite the island. Five years have now passed and people can see that Eroglu was right,” the official said.
Talat has meanwhile been trying to inspire confidence in the ongoing reunification talks. On Tuesday this week the two leaders broke off talks until after the elections in the north. Talat had requested that he and his counterpart issue a joint statement outlining what the two leaders had so far achieved in 18 months of meetings.
For his own domestic reasons, Christofias refused to do this, leaving Talat alone in a last-ditch attempt to persuade his people that progress was in fact being made. On Thursday, he and chief members of his negotiating team briefed the press in the north on “serious advances” made in negotiations on the issues of governance and power sharing, the economy and EU matters.
Ertugruloglu: Eroglu doesn’t have what it takes
By Simon Bahceli
BY GOING against his party’s wishes and joining the race for the ‘presidency’ in the north, Tahsin Ertugruloglu has become the Lone Ranger of Turkish Cypriot politics.
“I’m seen as such, and I’m happy with that because I know it’s not true,” the suave fifty-seven year old says from his campaign office in the north of Nicosia.
Ertugruloglu, who claims to have the support of the “silent majority” of Turkish Cypriot voters, was expelled from the National Unity Party (UBP) when he announced his candidacy for the April 18 ‘presidential’ election as it put him in direct competition against the party’s official candidate and pollsters’ favourite Dervis Eroglu.
He now believes he can beat the incensed Eroglu in the first round on April 18, and then the incumbent Mehmet Ali Talat in round two on April 25.
How Ertugruloglu will actually fare is anyone’s guess at this stage. His late candidacy means that none of the opinion polls carried out so far have included his name. But representing similar political views to Eroglu, his presence on voting slips is likely to split the right-wing vote.
Causing further consternation to UBP supporters loyal to Eroglu is the fact that Ertugruloglu has a number of attributes the official UBP candidate can only dream of. These Ertugruloglu is more than willing to spell out.
“The main problem for Eroglu is that he has absolutely no qualifications for anything international – no foreign languages, no diplomatic skills, no depth in terms of argument. He is not qualified to sit at the negotiating table with Greek Cypriots, the UN, the EU or anyone. He is simply a local politician,” Ertugruloglu said.
“And not a good one at that,” he added.
Ertugruloglu, on the other hand, speaks fluent English, was educated in political science in the US and has had plenty of experience during his time as ‘foreign minister’ in the nineties.
The rogue MP’s main tenet in the election campaign is that neither Eroglu nor Talat can do the job of negotiating a fair settlement for the Turkish Cypriots, fair meaning that the existing-but-unrecognised ‘Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus’ or ‘TRNC’ be accepted by the Greek Cypriots as “sovereign”, and that a new Cyprus be built from the existing ‘TRNC’ and the Cyprus Republic. “This is the realistic alternative,” he said.
Criticising Talat’s approach to ongoing negotiations, Ertugruloglu said the incumbent’s “problem” is that he doesn’t believe in the state he is ‘president’ of.
“He sees it as a temporary state of affairs only to be undone with a settlement,” he said.
He also accused Talat of having “a fixation with what he calls a unified Cyprus and a single sovereignty”.
Although Ertugruloglu has never really met President Demetris Christofias - they had dinner in the same room at the Hague in 2003 - he is keen to negotiate with him.
“I am a very good negotiator,” he insisted, adding that part of being a good negotiator was being able to understand the other side’s point of view.
“I recognise the Greek Cypriot mentality, their obsession that Cyprus is a Hellenic island, and that Turkish Cypriots should be at best dominated if they wish to remain here.”
He added that while all Greek Cypriots may not hold this view, he was yet to meet one who didn’t.