Sibel Tatar considers move into frontline politics

Former Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar’s wife Sibel Tatar on Friday said she is considering entering frontline politics after having “received an offer” from former Turkish Cypriot chief negotiator Kudret Ozersay, who now heads centrist, anti-corruption party the HP.

She told news website Haber Kibris that she had been given a “political offer” by Ozersay “about three weeks ago”, and that she is now “in the decision-making process”.

“I believe that in times like this, everyone who loves their country should do their part,” she said, before adding that she will inform Ozersay of her intentions “shortly”.

However, the HP sought to distance itself from claims that Tatar would stand as a candidate for the party in the next Turkish Cypriot legislative election, with the party’s secretary-general Turgut Alas saying that potential conversations between Ozersay and Tatar should not be considered to be a concrete offer.

“The HP and [Ozersay] meet everyone who requests a meeting and always keeps the path of dialogue open, because the HP, which aspires to power, acts with awareness that it must govern all segments of society fairly, equally, and impartially,” he said.

He added that “it is not the case that everyone the HP meets and everyone with whom it engages in dialogue will become a candidate for the HP”, and that Ozersay “meets everyone – there is nothing more natural than that – but it would be incorrect to interpret this as the offering of a place on the ballot”.

For most of her public life, Sibel Tatar had been reticent to openly express political opinions, but this changed last year, when she openly expressed her opposition to the Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition’s attempts to legalise the wearing of hijabs by girls in public schools.

She had written in a social media post in April last year that she would have marched alongside the 13,000 Turkish Cypriots who demonstrated against the change had she not attended a museum opening with her husband, decrying an “unnecessary change in the regulations” and extolling the “rightful reaction of the people to take to the streets”.

“Had it not been for the opening of the Cyprus doors and chests museum, the date of which was decided months ago … I would have been at the march, too,” she said.

Days later, she telephoned television channel Kanal T and doubled down on her position, saying that the changes would “definitely not be compatible with Cypriot Turkishness and the Cypriots”.

She also said that “this situation will serve no purpose other than to divide the people and to endanger our future” and that continuing to pursue the changes would “show a great lack of conscience” on the coalition’s part.

These interventions had come despite the fact that the ruling coalition’s largest party, the UBP, had already endorsed her husband’s campaign to be re-elected as Turkish Cypriot leader, while the other two parties, the DP and the YDP, followed soon afterwards.

Ersin Tatar failed to win re-election when Turkish Cypriots went to the polls last October, winning just 35.8 per cent of the vote – the lowest final percentage of any incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader at an election – with Tufan Erhurman winning the election.

Sibel Tatar’s potential joining of the HP is the latest in an undulating relationship between the Tatars and Ozersay, which began when the HP won nine seats in the Turkish Cypriot legislature at the election of January 2018, becoming the effective kingmakers for any ruling coalition.

Initially, Ozersay elected to enter into a coalition with the CTP, then led by Erhurman, alongside the DP and the TDP. However, he then withdrew from that coalition and entered into a two-party coalition with only the UBP in May 2019, with Ersin Tatar having become UBP leader in late 2018.

As such, Tatar replaced Erhurman as ‘prime minister’ and Ozersay retained the post of ‘foreign minister’, to which he had been appointed by Erhurman, though the two-party coalition was fraught with internal disagreements and controversies throughout its period in office.

On one occasion in January 2020, ‘interior minister’ of the day Aysegul Baybars, then of the HP and now an independent, believed that she had struck a deal with local stakeholders to implement a zoning plan in Famagusta, Ayios Sergios, and Trikomo, only for Tatar to say that he would “review and evaluate” it.

Baybars said at the time that she believed Tatar “does not have the authority to withhold” the plan, while fellow HP member Yenal Senin accused Tatar of “disregarding the law”.

In June 2020, in the midst of Covid-19-induced travel restrictions, a private jet with nine passengers on board landed at Ercan (Tymbou) airport, with the passengers not facing any quarantine, testing, or even immigration procedures, and instead leaving the airport through a gate used by fire engines.

The nine were part of a consortium which planned to construct a marina in the Kyrenia district town of Lapithos

‘Transport minister’ of the day Tolga Atakan, of the HP, said he had no knowledge of the incident, before later saying that cabinet had been “misled” into approving the jet’s arrival.

Following a week of dispute, Tatar agreed to dismiss ‘tourism minister’ Unal Ustel, of the UBP, who days earlier had said that blame lay with Atakan and then ‘health minister’ Ali Pilli, of the UBP.

However, when the change to the cabinet was presented to then Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci, a second change was also proposed – replacing ‘labour minister’ Faiz Sucuoglu with Aytuc Caluda.

Akinci vetoed the appointment of Caluda as he was at the time under investigation for illegally importing third country nationals to work in the north.

In July that year, it emerged that Tatar had engaged in negotiations with the DP and the YDP to form a new coalition without the HP, with Tatar, DP leader Fikri Ataoglu, and YDP leader Erhan Arikli travelling to Ankara in August to discuss the matter.

Both Tatar and Ozersay then stood as candidates in that year’s Turkish Cypriot leadership election, and the coalition collapsed five days before that election was held after Tatar had travelled to Ankara to jointly announce the opening of Varosha to tourists alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Ozersay said that he had elected to leave the coalition as he and his party had not been consulted on the matter. Tatar was then elected as Turkish Cypriot leader, and the UBP, by then under the leadership of Ersan Saner, entered into a coalition with the DP and the YDP that December.