Tacoy promises to ‘dispel black clouds’ in UBP candidacy submission

Turkish Cypriot ‘MP’ Hasan Tacoy promised to “dispel the black clouds” in the north’s largest political party, the UBP, when he formally submitted his candidacy for its leadership on Monday.

 “Today, we have taken another step to eliminate the bad governance to which our party and our country have been subjected, and its painful consequences,” he said, speaking outside the UBP’s headquarters in northern Nicosia.

“Together with the courageous people who believe in the UBP and are devoted to this country, we will start a new era with the step we will take at the party conference on September 21,” he added, referencing the date on which the party’s leadership election will be held.

“First, we will save the UBP, and then our country from the difficult situation into which it has been dragged with a strong UBP government,” he said.

The UBP is currently the largest of a three-party ruling coalition in the north, with its party leader thus being ‘prime minister’.

The party has been in ‘government’ continuously since 2019, and if incumbent party leader Unal Ustel fails to defend his position in September, his replacement will be the fifth ‘prime minister’ to have taken office in that time.

He then made reference to his party’s logo, an orange sun, saying “today is an important day in terms of dispelling the black clouds which have darkened the sun … and are looming over the future of this country.”

One of the black clouds hanging over the UBP at present is reports of the Turkish embassy involving itself in the party’s leadership election, with perspective candidates reportedly being summoned to the embassy’s residence in Ayios Epiktitos and told to withdraw their candidacies.

The two allegedly summoned to the embassy, ‘energy minister’ Olgun Amcaoglu and backbench ‘MP’ Kutlu Evren, have not yet submitted their candidacies. Ahmet Karavelioglu, who currently holds no elected office, has submitted his candidacy, while Ustel is expected to also do so in due course.

Amcaoglu and Evren have not yet passed direct comment on the reports of the embassy interfering in the election, with Evren telling newspaper Yeni Duzen “if you were me, you wouldn’t say anything either”.

Tacoy on Monday told Yeni Duzen there was no “real high-level intervention on the part of the Turkish authorities” but that “there was a suggestion from somewhere”.

He went on to say that it was Ustel who had requested that Turkey intervene in the election, but that “I don’t know what happened”.

“[Amcaoglu and Evren] will say how it is. When they were considering running for election, there were rumours and news about them suddenly withdrawing. I said I never, ever accepted intervention, and in this context I could not,” he added.

Asked about reported Turkish intervention in the Turkish Cypriot leadership elections in 2020, he said he does “not accept” the idea as “the organisation was under our leadership”.

Tacoy was reported to have been at the centre of contacts between Tatar’s campaign and the Turkish government during the 2020 election campaign, but insisted this was business as usual.

“We used them, this is an election. Some use the European Union, some use America, we used Turkey during that election. We showed everyone the two or three friends who came here, we showed that [Turkey’s] support was on Tatar’s side,” he said.

With reports swirling about the embassy’s potential involvement, the Turkish foreign ministry then swiftly removed its ambassador in the north Metin Feyzioglu on Saturday, replacing him with now former Deputy Foreign Minister Yasin Ekrem Serim.

Serim is a known figure in the north, having obtained his bachelor’s degree at the Girne American University in Kyrenia and having reportedly subsequently had business dealings there.

It is unclear the exact reason behind Feyzioglu’s removal and replacement with Serim, with Feyzioglu having been appointed as Turkey’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, and no official reason having been given by the Turkish government for the change.

Asked about the sudden change in ambassador, Tacoy said, “change was expected, it was time”.