The second day of ‘parliamentary’ deadlock in the north on Tuesday ended with no progress being made and its lame duck ‘speaker’ Zorlu Tore being taken to hospital.

Tore was hospitalised with an elevated blood pressure following a meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar and ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel at Tatar’s official residence.

Tatar had cut a trip to Ankara short to attend the meeting and to be physically in Cyprus to relieve Tore of the duties of ‘acting president’, which the north’s ‘parliament speaker’ undertakes when the Turkish Cypriot leader of the day is not on the island, to be able to return to ‘parliament’ and thus allow ‘parliamentary’ procedures to go ahead.

Under normal circumstances, ‘parliamentary’ procedures would be overseen by ‘deputy speaker’ Fazilet Ozdenefe. However, she and her party the CTP had refused to facilitate proceedings given the extraordinary set of circumstances which had befallen the north’s ‘parliament’ on Monday.

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The north’s largest party the UBP had re-nominated Tore as ‘speaker’ four times, with ‘parliament’ rejecting him on all four occasions. Voting is secret, so all that is known of the votes is that five ruling coalition ‘MPs’ voted against him.

After the fourth round of voting, Unal Ustel instead nominated Kutlu Evren, who most recently served as ‘interior minister’ between 2020 and 2022. Evren then lost his vote by an even greater margin on Monday night.

The next steps were then plunged into uncertainty and the regulations which govern the inner workings of the north’s ‘parliament’ being stretched to their limit.

The issue lies in the fact that the north’s ‘parliament’s’ regulations appear to only allow for five votes to be held for a ‘speaker’ to be elected, and at the same time appear to not allow a nominee to be re-nominated after 26 or more ‘MPs’ vote against them.

Given that the vote on Evren was the fifth of the day and that 26 ‘MPs’ voted against his nomination, it is now unclear what will happen next.

Evren told the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday afternoon it was “too early to tell” what will happen next, adding, “right now we do not know what will happen, but we will have to wait and see.”

He was accompanied by ‘foreign minister’ Tahsin Ertugruloglu, who, while not an ‘MP’, holds considerable power within the north’s largest political party the UBP. Ertugruloglu told the Cyprus Mail, “we have a long road ahead of us.”

Despite Monday’s voting results, Evren remained the ‘government’s’ preferred nominee, but with Ozdenefe refusing to play ball and with Tore then being hospitalised when his chance to act came, nothing actually happened all day inside the north’s ‘parliament’.

The initial plan had been for Tore to call the ‘parliament’s’ advisory board, the body which decides on procedural matters based on the ‘parliament’s’ internal regulations, to convene on Tuesday and decide on a way forward.

With Tore initially unable to do so, it had been suggested that Fazilet Ozdenefe could step in and even that the CTP could offer the UBP’s nominee the votes required to get them over the line.

However, the CTP rubbished this idea at various points throughout the day, with party secretary-general Asim Akansoy telling the north’s public broadcaster BRT he had heard Ustel speaking of a possible election in December, and that his party would also be making moves in that direction.

Fellow CTP ‘MP’ Erkut Sahali echoed these sentiments while speaking to the Cyprus Mail on Tuesday night, saying, “we have made our position clear, that we will not take part in these games some are trying to play.

“They wanted us to open parliament for them and then they wanted us to vote for their nominee. We are here as the opposition and we told them clearly, ‘it is not our business’.”

He added, “this is a matter of democracy, now,” hinting at his party’s call for elections to be held and referencing other CTP members who throughout the day have raised questions regarding the legitimacy of planned processes to install a new ‘speaker’, given the laws which seem to rule out any such possibility.

Retired former ‘auditor-general’ Emine Dizdarli reaffirmed her position on the matter to television channel Kanal Sim on Tuesday, saying, “in this case, where [Evren] received 26 ‘no’ votes, it would not be possible to put his name forward for a vote again.”

Additionally, she said, “the regulation and the statute does not foresee more than five rounds of voting … No one would accept a working which violates its own internal laws. There is already unrest in society, that is why they must be careful.

“However, what is being attempted right now is to hold a vote against parliament’s internal regulations and elect a speaker against parliament’s regulations.”