Ustel rules out north cabinet reshuffle, Tacoy claims fraud

The north’s ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel on Monday ruled out any imminent cabinet reshuffle after surviving an internal party leadership challenge at his party the National Unity Party (UBP)’s conference over the weekend.

Speaking to newspaper Kibris, he said, “I have no plans for any changes in cabinet. Everyone should mind their own business. Our people expect us to serve them.”

He added that “political gossip is very popular in Cyprus”, but did note that “[cabinet] positions are not permanent for anyone, not even me.”

Ustel won 65.8 per cent of the vote at the UBP’s conference, with his challenger, backbench ‘MP’ Hasan Tacoy, winning 33 per cent. He broke down in tears when the results were announced, before thanking his party’s members in his victory speech and promising to remain in power until 2027.

However, Tacoy told newspaper Yeni Duzen later the same day that he had borne witness to voter fraud taking place at the conference to ensure Ustel would win.

He said there were “major irregularities” on display at the conference.

“Voting was cast by getting signatures on A4 paper, and we do not know who was voting in that way. This method of voting was not announced or explained by the party’s authorities in anyway. This is a completely suspicious election. It is not clear to whom these votes were cast. It is not clear whether the people voters were carrying identity cards,” he said.

He went on to say facial recognition cameras were “removed” from the conference hall and that this fact “raised suspicions of people voting twice”.

“We had installed the facial recognition cameras, and they were removed, because we were suspicious that people may vote twice,” he said.

He also said he had heard allegations that people were voting in the conference hall’s car park and that photocopied ballot papers were found when the ballot boxes were opened.”

“Stacks of votes and photocopied ballot papers were found inside the ballot boxes. Everything was found,” he said.

He said he and his team have “not yet decided” whether or not they will take the matter to court, but that discussions will be held to decide their next steps.

Ustel first came to power in May 2022 when his predecessor Faiz Sucuoglu found himself unable to form a governing coalition after refusing to acquiesce to a list of demands put down by his coalition partners the DP and the YDP.

He is already the fifth-longest serving ‘prime minister’ in the north’s history, and with the weekend’s leadership challenge now having been survived, Ustel now cannot be removed by his party through conventional means until after the latest date on which the north can next hold ‘parliamentary’ elections, in February 2027.

Should he remain in office until those elections, he will be second in the all-time list behind only Dervish Eroglu.

To do so, he will require the support of at least one of the UBP’s two coalition partners, the Democratic Party (DP) and the Rebirth Party (YDP), and the leaders of both parties reaffirmed their support for his ‘government’ after his victory at the conference was confirmed.

DP leader Fikri Ataoglu said, “I have full confidence that the projects carried out in harmony by our government as a coalition partner will progress even more strongly”, adding, “I want to express once again my belief that we will achieve great things together.”

YDP leader Erhan Arikli concurred, describing Ustel as a “true leader”, and added, “when it comes to the interests of the country, we will easily join hands.”

Ustel told Kibris on Monday that Tacoy had been one of the first people to congratulate him after the election results were announced, while Tacoy issued a statement of his own on social media.

“We emphasise once again that we will work for our homeland, our sovereign and equal state, in cooperation with our motherland, for all our UBP brothers and sisters, whether they support us or not, and only for the benefit of our people,” he said on Monday morning.

Attached to the post was a picture of himself sat with Yasemin Ozturk, Izlem Gurcag Altugra, Ali Pilli, and Hasan Kucuk, the four UBP ‘MPs’ who had openly thrown their support behind him.

On Saturday night, Tacoy had said the conference had been “suspicious”, that the election’s result “would not be healthy due to irregularities”.

The weekend was Tacoy’s fourth unsuccessful attempt to become his party’s leader, with him having previously been beaten by Irsen Kucuk in 2010 and by Faiz Sucuoglu in 2021 and having been in the final two candidates in the abandoned leadership election of 2020.