he four-party coalition government in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) collapsed after the People’s Party (HP) announced its withdrawal on Wednesday.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kudret Özersay, who is the leader of the centrist HP as well, announced his party’s decision to withdraw from the coalition on Wednesday, according to Turkish Agency Cyprus (TAK).
At a news conference, Özersay said the party members will decide on whether they will continue as an opposition party or make negotiations to form a government. He said the reason behind their withdrawal was the property rentals of the ministry of finance and “confidence crisis.”
Özersay added he does not exclude the possibility of snap elections.
Prime Minister and center-left Republican Turkish Party (CTP) leader Tufan Erhürman also announced that he will submit government’s resignation on Thursday.
Earlier Wednesday, Finance Minister Serdar Denktaş on Wednesday announced his resignation. Denktaş, who also leads the center-right Democratic Party (DP), explained in a written statement that he was solely resigning from the ministry post and would continue to support the current government in Parliament.
Denktaş said he had informed Prime Minister Erhürman of his decision to resign via a written statement earlier in the day. He added that he would provide necessary details about his resignation in the future.
The 60-year-old politician is the son of Rauf Denktaş, the founding leader of TRNC who died in 2012. He had been accused of renting without tender state fields to Rauf Denktaş University, of which his son is a partner, and had come under fire from coalition partner People’s Party (HP) and opposition parties.
Denktaş had served as the finance minister since April 2016. Before that post, Denktaş had held numerous other minister titles in the past 25 years, including several terms as deputy prime minister, a stint as acting prime minister and a term as foreign minister. Denktaş resigned as deputy prime minister in May 2015, stating that the post was no longer meaningful.
The four-party coalition government was formed in Feb. 2017 following long negotiations after the Jan. 7 snap elections, in which the conservative National Unity Party (UBP) led with a 35.6 percent plurality but was unable to form a coalition government due to allegations surrounding its leader, Prime Minister Hüseyin Özgürgün, who passed on the mandate onto runner-up CTP’s Erhürman on Jan. 24.
This article is originally published on Daily Sabah
