A new old page in northern Cyprus

A new but old page was opened in northern Cyprus during the weekend with National Unity Party (UBP) leader Hüseyin Özgürgün declaring that he has forged a coalition government with the Democratic Party-National Forces (DP-UG) with the support of four independent deputies. It was a new page because the badly failed "grand coalition" government of the Republican Turks' Party (CTP) and the UBP has been replaced with a new government. It was an old page because since its inception, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has been mostly ruled by the UBP while the DP-UG has always been "the other party" of the UBP supporters. Besides, the UBP becoming the junior partner in a CTP-led grand coalition was something spectacular and special, while the UBP and DP forging a coalition together cannot be considered anything extraordinary.

The grand coalition of the CTP and UBP was established almost a year ago after a CTP-DP-UG coalition collapsed after a traumatic confidence crisis between the two partners. The grand coalition was demanded by a very large segment of the Turkish Cypriot people in hopes that structural reforms could be far easily achieved and the Turkish Cypriot state could be ushered into far better economic and political governance which, with or without a settlement on the island, would be in the best interest of the Turkish Cypriot people. Thus, the pro-settlement CTP and the pro-separate state UBP managed to reconcile and form a grand coalition that they believed would help achieve the much needed structural reforms.

The failure to move an inch in achieving structural reforms, therefore, was the main reason behind the collapse of the CTP-UBP coalition and in that, unfortunately, far more than the UBP as the junior partner dragging its feet,...