The coalition ‘government’ in the occupied north collapsed on Thursday after “prime minister” and leader of the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) Tufan Erhurman submitted his resignation to Mustafa Akinci.
Earlier in the week, the head of the People’s Party (HP) Kudret Ozersay who was deputy ‘prime minister’ and ‘minister of foreign affairs’ and head of the Democratic Party (DP) Serdar Denktash who was ‘finance minister,’ also resigned.
Denktash resigned on Wednesday afternoon after it emerged his ‘ministry’ leased ‘state’ land, without proper procedures being followed, to the Rauf Denktash university, in which his son is a main shareholder.
According to Turkish Cypriot media, a probe has been launched into the case. Denktash said he stepped down to facilitate the investigations.
Accepting Erhurman’s resignation, Akinci said that he believed that he had worked in harmony and dialogue with the four-party coalition.
He added that 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 Akinci, Erhurman 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 north is 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 CTP-HP-TDP (Communal Democracy Party) -DP coalition ‘government’ was established on February 16 2018.
Yeni Duzen wrote today that there have been 34 administrations in 36 years in the occupied north.
