Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar “personally intervened” to stem the handing out of various permits by the north’s ruling coalition, allegedly largely to his supporters and allies, after large-scale complaints regarding the permits and other handouts by the ruling coalition had dogged it and his re-election campaign.
Both news website Haber Kibris and newspaper Kibris reported on Monday evening that Tatar had intervened, warning that the large-scale issuing of taxi and coach operation permits, rental car operation permits, firearms licences, and other permits and official documents could “undermine social peace”.
As such, both outlets said, he had urged the ruling coalition to “reevaluate its decisions”.
After this, it was reported that ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel had “supported [Tatar’s] initiative”, and that Tatar and Ustel had “reached a mutual agreement to repeal the controversial decisions for the time being”.
Earlier on Friday, ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli had announced in a post on social media post that he had ordered that the distribution of taxi and coach operation permits be halted after the initial move “sparked significant public debate”.
However, it has now been reported that “this step is only the beginning” and that “other controversial decisions will be postponed until after the election”, which is set to take place on October 19.
It is as yet unclear whether this will therefore extend to rental car operation permits, firearms licences, the reported hiring of 86 people into the north’s civil service, or the naturalisation of 129 people as ‘TRNC’ citizens, all of which took place within the final hours before the pre-election cutoff.
The rapid-fire handing out of permits, hirings, and naturalisations came about in the final hours before the north officially entered into a “pre-election period”, wherein various functions now off limits for the ruling coalition with the aim of preventing it from swaying the election one way or another.
Tatar’s “personal intervention” failed to convince his election opponent Tufan Erhurman, however, who asked “are we expected to believe that Tatar was unaware of the decisions when they were made?”
“The decisions made just before the pre-election cutoff point were made for the election. Everyone knows this, and everyone knows that Tatar was aware of these decisions,” he said.
He added that Tatar was “afraid not of social peace being undermined, but of the election itself”, before going on to say that “it does not take an expert to see that “.
“There has been no leadership in this country for five years. When a scenario is written which suggests leadership is being established for obvious reasons in the final two months [of Tatar’s term], the situation becomes even more tragicomic,” he said.
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