Tacoy announces intention to run for UBP leadership

The north’s current ‘labour minister’ Hasan Tacoy announced on Tuesday his intention to challenge ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel for the leadership of the UBP.

Speaking in a televised interview, Tacoy claimed that the UBP’s party regulations stipulate that a party conference should be held this autumn, and confirmed that he will run for the party’s leadership, and therefore by convention the ‘prime ministry’.

Rumours have been swirling for weeks that Ustel was preparing to remove Tacoy from his post as ‘labour minister’, and Tacoy responded to those rumours, saying “I was not a minister in my mother’s womb. If the prime minister does not want to work with me, he will say it himself. I did not hear anything from the prime minister’s mouth”.

Ustel became ‘prime minister’ in May last year after his predecessor Faiz Sucuoglu had a series of failed attempts to form a majority coalition.

The move came from left field, and Sucuoglu remained parliamentary leader in name until September.

However, Tacoy’s wish for a party conference this year may not be granted. The party’s ‘parliamentary’ deputy leader Ozdemir Berova was insistent that UBP party conferences need only take place every three years, and said the next will take place in 2024.

Berova added “if the party leader wants to call a conference, he can call one, but if he does not want one, a conference cannot be held at the request of any MP. There is no chance of holding a conference without the party leader’s request”.