Eroğlu’s comeback in northern Cyprus

In a way, UBP delegates have decided to go back to square one in the party and reinstalled the party’s leader of 25 years back in the chairman’s seat. Eroğlu had left party chairmanship in 2005 following a humiliating electoral defeat. It is of course no surprise - indeed a tradition - in either Turkish or Turkish Cypriot politics to see a political leader who was forced to step down from chairmanship to work behind the scenes against the succeeding party chairmen, prepare grounds of their return to leadership and then with the pretext of, "The party organization demanded, I could not escape from duty," cliche try to make a comeback when the party appears to have recaptured an upward trend in public opinion. There are lots of examples of this in Turkey.

Now, in public opinion polls UBP appears to have recouped its lost prestige and has become once again the largest party with over 40 percent popular backing. With parliamentary elections tentatively scheduled for February 2010, the UBP delegates, to a certain extent, have selected the next premier of the KKTC, although popular tendencies may change a lot between now and the election date, depending on the success of the ruling socialist-led coalition and President Mehmet Ali Talat in either striking a settlement deal with Greek Cypriots or bringing some relaxation to the international isolation of northern Cyprus.

While Eroğlu’s reelection as party leader could be considered as a blow to the rejuvenation efforts within the UBP - the party established by founding President Rauf R. Denktaş and in a way is considered as the political transformation of the Turkish Resistance Movement, or TMT, of the 1960s - the old guard of the party overtaking the leadership might mean President Talat and his former party, coalition’s senior partner Republican Turks’ Party, or CTP, will have a more limited area of maneuver at the talks with the Greek Cypriot leadership for a compromise power sharing deal to end the over 45-year-old Cyprus problem. Talat will have to take into account that at the helm of the main opposition party there is now a cunning veteran politician who could even wage an indecisive fight against Denktaş.

Stress on "KKTC reality"
Indeed, delivering a victory speech late Saturday evening, Eroğlu declared that any Cyprus settlement must be established not only on the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, or KKTC, reality but also continuation of the KKTC even after a settlement as one of the two founding states of the new partnership federation. He was clear in stressing that there can be no compromise from the Turkish Cypriot state; the new federation cannot be a continuation of the 1960 Cyprus Republic and that even after settlement the two constituent states must continue to possess residual sovereign rights. He also underlined that there could be no compromise on the Treaty of Guarantee and of Alliance, that provide Turkey, Greece and Britain guarantor powers status on the island.

While there is no difference on major policy issues between Ertuğruloğlu and Eroğlu, the 70-year-old new UBP leader with his vast political experience is expected to stage a more rigid and creative opposition to the socialist-led, two-way coalition government, and Talat.

On the other hand, while the senior coalition CTP has been in very close cooperation with Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, the junior coalition partner Freedom and Democracy Party, or ÖRP, was established two years ago with intense manipulation of the AKP in center-right flank of Turkish Cypriot politics. Special thanks goes to then AKP deputy chairman, Şaban Dişli, in ÖRP’s establishment, collapse of the CTP-Democrat Party, or DP, or Serdar Denktaş, coalition government and creation of the new "Denktaş-free" coalition. The UBP, however, has always been in tune with the Turkish military and the conservative establishment.

That is, in the period ahead in a way we will most likely start seeing a proxy war of the "Ankara sovereigns" in northern Cyprus.