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Cyprus Rauf Denktas and Turkish Cypriot Politics
As Makarios was the dominant figure in Greek Cypriot
politics
for nearly two decades after independence, so Rauf Denkta
overshadowed all other political forces in Turkish Cypriot
politics. Born in Paphos in 1924, Denktas was trained as a
lawyer.
He was politically active from a young age and was exiled
to Turkey
during the preindependence period. He was from a prominent
family
that lived in close proximity to Greek Cypriots, and his
biographers have chronicled many grievances and
humiliations that
he suffered as a youth from intolerant Greek Cypriots. His
activity
in Turkish Cypriot politics has been continuous; he
emerged as a
protégé of Vice President Küçük, became intercommunal
negotiator in
1968, and was vice president of the republic at the time
of 1974
crisis. He was elected president of the "TSFC" in 1975,
was
reelected in 1981, became president of the "TRNC" in 1985,
and
successfully stood for election in that year and again in
1990.
Under Denktas, constitutional changes have occurred
that made
the parliament stronger and the president weaker,
theoretically,
than their counterparts in the republic in the south. Yet
Denkta
remained a more powerful figure on the Turkish Cypriot
scene than
his legal role would suggest. He retained considerable
influence
over the governing political party by playing
personalities off
against one another and preventing independent leadership
of the
party, despite his formal claims to being above politics.
He used
the force of his personal appeals to national security and
national
interest whenever opposition parties appeared to be
gaining in
electoral strength.
From one perspective, Denktas presided over an entity
in which
the consensus over the core issue--the settlement with
Greek
Cypriots--remained remarkably strong, and his powerful
presence
successfully reflected and symbolized national unity. But
from
another perspective, Turkish Cypriot political culture,
with its
proclivity toward factiousness and frequent questioning of
the
rules of the game, seemed to push for more rational and
competitive
democracy, and there were signs of continued resentment
and
resistance, in certain quarters, to a domineering father
figure.
The three elections of 1990--presidential in
April,
parliamentary in May, and municipal in June--suggested
some new
political dynamics in the "TRNC." Denktas was challenged
by two
veteran politicians, Alpay Durduran and Ismail Bozkurt.
The
opposition parties, after considerable debate over
strategy, backed
Bozkurt's candidacy. Denktas's two-thirds approval rating
thus
worked to the disfavor of the opposition parties facing
parliamentary elections. In what many considered an
alliance of
convenience, the TKP and CTP joined with the settler
party--the
YDP--to form the electoral alliance DMP. The alliance was
formed
mainly in opposition to UBP domination of the parliament
and
political patronage. To a lesser degree, its members were
united in
the view that Denktas's control of the political system
had
inhibited democratic competition. The main goal of the
alliance was
to reduce UBP control of political power; its candidates
pledged,
if elected, to revise the electoral law and go to new
elections
within a few months. The alliance did not differ with the
ruling
establishment on the settlement question and emphasized
domestic
issues, such as the alleged corruption of the UBP and what
it
viewed as ineffective economic policies. The parties had
worked out
a power-sharing arrangement among themselves should they
win,
including a pledge by the leftist CTP to decline a major
post, such
as the premiership or speaker of the parliament.
The outcome of the presidential elections hampered the
DMP's
strategy, and there were reports that many settlers
abandoned the
YDP, casting their parliamentary votes for Denktas's
party. The
alliance's failure at the polls (it won sixteen out of
fifty seats)
caused considerable internal strain, and the alliance
collapsed.
The two major opposition parties, the TKP and the CTP,
continued to
work together after the May vote; they challenged the
outcome of
the elections and charged Turkish mainland interference
and other
improprieties. They also continued to complain that the
electoral
law greatly favored the ruling party. Four of the DMP's
fourteen
deputies broke from the alliance and joined the
parliament; two
were from the YDP and two, including Ismet Kotak, had run
on the
TKP ticket.
Data as of January 1991
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