Tatar on election defeat: Turkish Cypriots did not accept being directed by others
Former Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Thursday evaluated the landslide election defeat which saw him removed from office in October, saying that the Turkish Cypriot people had refused to be “directed by others”.
“The Turkish Cypriots are a free and self-determining people. They said, ‘we will never accept being directed by others’,” he told Turkish news website T24 in reference to the support he received from many powerful circles in Turkey during the election campaign.
“I did not ask anyone to come and support me, to intervene here. They came and went out of good intentions,” he said.
He did, however, say that his election opponent and now incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman also won support from outside the island, saying that “the French ambassador, the British ambassador also came for this”.
“They came, too. Perhaps even more came, but we did not hear about them. They have associations here, and they have a considerable amount of money. The state does not even know about this money. Turkey supported those like us, and they supported them,” he said.
He added that people “know about the money coming from Turkey”, and that “because Turkey recognises us, everything is open and clear”, but that when money arrives in the north from other sources, “we do not know what that money is for”.
Additionally, he made reference to controversial Turkish Sufi scholar Ahmet Unlu, colloquially known as ‘Cubbeli Ahmet’, who called on his followers to pray for Ersin Tatar in the days leading up to October’s election.
“Before the election, Cubbeli Ahmet made his statement. He cost me five per cent of the vote. Like, thanks a bunch, he cost me five per cent of the vote. This people do not fall for stuff like that,” he said.
He was then asked to comment on remarks made by Turkish nationalist political party MHP leader Devlet Bahceli, who said the election that the result was “unacceptable” and that northern Cyprus should “join the Republic of Turkey” instead.
He elected to somewhat defend Bahceli, beginning by saying that “the Turkish Cypriot island, the Ottoman island, the federation won”, and adding that “from their perspective, it is as if, with a federation, this place would become a province of the European Union”.
“I guess what they meant was, if it is going to be a province of the European Union, it would be better off as a province of Turkey,” he said.
He also spoke about how he believed one of the major factors leading to his election defeat was the fact that Erhurman spoke at length about the “mixed-marriage problem” – wherein people born to one Turkish Cypriot parent and one non-Cypriot parent are often denied Republic of Cyprus passports.
“Tufan’s biggest argument in this election was the promise of granting Greek Cypriot passports to people of Turkish origin. He managed this through communicative language. I also discussed this extensively with the Greek Cypriots, but, of course, given my stance as the president of North Cyprus, it would not be right to tell my people that the Greek Cypriot side will give you passports,” he said.
However, he said, “the promise of EU passports was appealing” to the electorate and in particular to those of partial Turkish descent.
“I asked the Greek Foreign Minister [Giorgos Gerapetritis] in the presence of [Turkish Foreign Minister] Hakan Fidan why they were not granting this right. I also fought hard on this issue but I could not achieve anything, but for the first time, in this election, so many people from Turkey voted for Tufan,” he said.