Extinction Looms for Cyprus’ Political Dinosaurs 
 

Every community has its political dinosaurs. But in the political process of Northern Cyprus political dinosaurs still occupy the seats of the main opposition party. Failing to provide a viable alternative to the ruling Left of Centre Republican Turkish Party (CTP) and failing to modernise, parties like the National Unity Party (UBP) are hampering communal efforts to find a peace in Cyprus; the price of which is the continued isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community. 

NEED FOR PLURALIST POLITICS

In Western democracies Conservative Parties are among the most respected political forces in society often boasting support from middle classes, business communities, and farming communities. But when I asked a group of young Turkish Cypriots from Cyprus what their equivalent of our Conservative Party was, they looked puzzled. “Do you mean fascists?” they asked. No, I answered, surely you must have moderate Conservative Parties even in Cyprus. They thought long and hard until somebody said, “Turgay Avcı’s ORP perhaps?  But then he remarked that even the relatively new Freedom and Reform Party (ORP) was still rather small. One of the youth reminded me: “This is Cyprus my friend, not Europe.” But surely, pluralist politics is a must for every healthy democratic society?  

POLITICAL IMMATURITY

Regrettably, doubts there is no viable opposition to CTP should not be easily dismissed. While modern British Conservatives still confidently hold their political ground they now support human rights issues, same sex marriages and anti-racist policies in open democratic debates with the Labour Party, a turn around from a decade ago. But the Turkish Cypriot UBP has yet to reach this level of political maturity. The only party left that still supports the unrealizable goal of seeking TRNC recognition, through nationalist newspapers, party members frequently generalise when referring to the “Gavur,” a derogatory term for the Greek Cypriots while dismissing any contact with this community as useless since its members are deemed “carbon copies of each other.” “They are Greek after all” is the basis of their opposition to any contact with Greek Cypriots. I wonder, how can they explain this politics to the world?

Without questioning the mistakes made by our own community, the party argues that there can be no coexistence of different peoples based on the fact that the Greek and Turkish Cypriots speak different languages and have different religions. Politically immature, UBP is lending support to a kind of segregation that Southern US States like Alabama abandoned decades earlier.  

A POLITICS IN DENKTASH’ SHADOW

Inevitably with such policies, UBP has declined in popular support from Turkish Cypriots falling from a high of 67% of the vote in 1991 where they formed a single party government to 22.8% of the vote in 2005. To make matters worse for UBP, the settler votes it had relied so heavily on that often determined the outcome of elections switched to the Left-wing CTP. Even the business community for whom internal trade with the Republic of Cyprus, the EU factor and prospects of a solution may present benefits has abandoned UBP. Inflexible to change, even leading up to the Green revolution days when Turkish Cypriots assembled in their thousands in Inonu Square, and after 65% of Turkish Cypriots backed reunification in the Annan Plan it appears that UBP regards itself unaccountable to the people.

Hardly surprising since UBP has little in the way of new politics or leaders, its ready-made politics seems to be unchanged over the decades. Despite the new leadership of Tahsin Ertuğruloğlu, it seems the party has not learnt lessons from its massive electoral defeat, still formulating its politics in the shadow of a veteran leader, even to the extent that the party recently boycotted the parliament of a political entity they had founded out of protest to a failure by all parties to seek recognition for the TRNC.  With a politics based on Denktaş’ very own collection of stories from the 1960s, perhaps the traditional voters were bored stiff of hearing the same stories of the inter-communal violence of the 1960s?  

EXTREMIST POLITICS

Acting in desperation, UBP politicians even here in London behaving on the verge of being arrested, using the labelling game against community journalists and columnists, and on British MPs, while arranging boycotts and the weekly slamming of ‘traitors.’ In their minds, if you seek rapprochement and a solution based on a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation then you must be a Communist! I too was the target of such name calling, little did the guy who dubbed me a Marxist realise that I was formerly a young Conservative who worked in the Central Office alongside such politicians like Ann Widdecombe, John Bercow and William Hague, and that my own views are somewhat more Libertarian.

But extremist policies such as political labelling, a remnant of the social psychology of fascism appeals to very few people and UBP’s current status according to a CTP official is “pitiful” as an opposition; “they are making it very easy for us,” a party member said. On the other hand, Greek Cypriot Rightwing Democratic Rally (DISY), which according to popular belief has ties with EOKA B, now has Nicos Anastassiades as a leader. Anastasiades is modern enough to endorse the idea of reunification and a shared state based on political equality with Turkish Cypriots despite the fact that many in his party would have repulsed at the idea decades ago. But UBP cannot even sit on the same table, as Greek Cypriots. 

PRAGMATISM

However, times have changed, the Cyprus problem has changed and therefore attitudes must change also. With no new ideas and a ready-made politics provided by veteran leader Rauf Raif Denktaş, they fail to realise that after the 2004 Referendum, a new Cyprus emerged when the country became an EU country, with Turkish Cypriots becoming EU citizens and the North EU territory. But CTP is aware of the new reality, as is ORP. Only this week, CTP young delegates went to Hamburg this week to meet the German Foreign Minister and World Social Democrats at a Socialist Congress where they established new connections, but still UBP clings on to its ‘mother’  - Turkey. But Mr Ertuğruloğlu who recently failed to secure Ankara’s support for his party’s re-election must realise that blindfolded loyalty does not necessarily pay off. Perhaps Mr Ertuğruloğlu should be asking himself now, why has Ankara whose interests UBP has always put first has now shifted its support for the newer ORP? Clearly, change occurs even in Ankara but the question is how can UBP continue to support a policy that Turkey herself has abandoned?  

NO FUTURE

Through its current politics, UBP cannot look to the future and as a result it will find that it has no future. Cyprus is now an EU state, but UBP has yet to formulate an EU policy. With minds closed to new realities the UBP’s isolationist stance in the Cyprus problem is hampering efforts for peace and leaving the inevitable peace process in the hands of the left, thus relegating the UBP from political life. This is a tragedy for everybody, since the very acknowledgment of diversity pluralism is widely regarded as the most important feature of a modern democracy. But if UBP is serious about re-election it must acknowledge that Turkey and much larger super-powers, the majority of Greek and Turkish Cypriots now endorse a bi-communal, bi-zonal federation as a solution. In fact if UBP is serious about helping the Turkish Cypriot community and Cyprus, the two are inseparable parties it has to begin to listen to them and act with greater pragmatism.