Turkish Cypriot ruling coalition party YDP leader Erhan Arikli on Wednesday night said that ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel’s decision to relieve him of his duties as ‘transport minister’ three days after a ferry sank off the coast of Kyrenia and killed at least nine people was not “ethical”.
“So this was the end of the road. The prime minister called me to inform me that he was compelled to remove me from office for the sake of the investigation’s integrity. As he is the head of the government, I respect his decision, even if I do not consider it ethical,” he said.
He added that his party’s decision-making assembly will now convene on Thursday to discuss withdrawing its support for the ruling coalition, with Arikli having been the YDP’s only cabinet member.
Earlier in the day, he had said that he had cancelled the plans for the assembly to convene and discuss withdrawing its support from the government in light of the ferry disaster, though now he is out of office, he has reversed that decision.
Later on Wednesday night, opposition party CTP leader Sila Usar Incirli stressed that removing Arikli from office will now allow Ustel to escape accountability.
“For over five years, our country has been living through what is essentially a nightmare. The Unal Ustel government, which has eroded the state’s institutional infrastructure, paralysed oversight mechanisms, completely eliminated meritocracy, and shaken the foundations of the state through corruption and mismanagement, cannot absolve itself of responsibility simply by sacking a single minister,” she said.
She added that “the Ustel government’s mismanagement lies at the root of many of the adversities our people face today”, before stressing that “Ustel cannot evade political accountability or exonerate himself by sacking Arikli or hiding behind cabinet reshuffles”.
Then, she pointed out that the coalition had last month refused to acquiesce to her calls for the Turkish Cypriot legislature to be recalled from its summer recess to discuss “safety issues” following a spate of stabbings, saying that “the government blatantly avoided discussing this vital manner and refused to face the public”.
“The stark reality is this: under this government, the state has transformed from an entity which serves and protects its people into one which generates problems,” she said.
She then listed various incidents which have occurred in the north in recent years, including the “fake prescription scandal”, the death of a newborn baby who was erroneously fed alcohol, and the collapse of a grain silo in July.
Those incidents, in combination with the ferry disaster, she said, are “but a few examples of the heavy price our country has paid for an administration which is incompetent, corrupt, and devoid of any sense of responsibility”.
“The Turkish Cypriot people are by no means condemned to this mismanagement, this lack of foresight, this bleak situation. Together, we will lead a country toward a brighter future through an approach to governance which is honest, transparent, trustworthy, and places people at its core,” she said.
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