North’s ruling coalition delays welfare debate after week of protests
Turkish Cypriot ‘prime minister’ Unal Ustel on Saturday announced that his ruling coalition’s planned changes to the payment of the cost-of-living allowance to public sector workers will not be debated in the Turkish Cypriot legislature in the coming week, following mass protests and a general strike in recent days.
He said the decision to postpone the debate had been taken in light of “global economic uncertainties and sensitivities in society”, and that the decision had been taken with the aim of “reducing social tension and creating a basis for consensus”.
Nonetheless, he insisted that the postponement had not come about “due to pressure”, and said that his coalition will “pursue long-term policies to protect economic stability, rather than populist steps”.
The most recent debate in the legislature over the planned changes had been called to a halt shortly after 4am on Thursday, after ‘MPs’ had worked through the night to discuss the plans.
‘Parliament speaker’ Ziya Ozturkler had called a halt to proceedings at the time, citing tiredness on the part of ‘MPs’, staff, and protesters alike, and saying that the legislature would reconvene on Monday morning.
However, shortly afterwards, the matter of whether the coalition could garner the requisite number of votes in the legislature to support the plans was called into question, after Serhat Akpinar, the secretary-general of junior coalition partner the DP, announced that he would not attend Monday’s proceedings.
The coalition commands the support of 29 of the 49 members of the legislature, and it is required that 26 members attend proceedings for a debate to go ahead.
Akpinar’s absence, combined with the likely absences of Izlem Gurcag Altugra, who belongs to Ustel’s party the UBP but has long expressed her disgust at his premiership, and Hasan Kucuk, also of the UBP, who was taken ill during Wednesday night’s debate, would make things more difficult for the coalition in this regard.
This issue was exacerbated on Friday evening, when fellow junior coalition partner YDP leader Erhan Arikli suggested that the YDP’s two members may not attend proceedings out of disgust that they were not invited to join Ozturkler’s working visit to Azerbaijan, which took place on Thursday and Friday,
On Saturday, further issues for Ustel arose when independent Hasan Tosunoglu, who caucuses with the coalition, said that he, too, would not attend Monday’s debate.
With no debate set to go ahead on Monday, it remains unclear whether trade unions will continue their planned protest and strike, with both having been suspended on Thursday and Friday after the debate in the legislature was halted.
The coalition had initially announced its intention to halt the payment of the cost-of-living allowance to all public sectors until next year, with thousands of people demonstrating against the plans at the legislature.
After failing to pass the plan through the legislature, the coalition had appeared to take a step back and appeared ready to negotiate with the trade unions.
The unions called their strike off in response, and the coalition then passed a decree stipulating the changes, bypassing the legislature entirely.
This decree was annulled by the judiciary last week, with the ‘TRNC’s’ constitutional court finding not only found that the cost-of-living allowance decree had been issued illegally, but that every decree which had not subsequently been voted on in the legislature within 90 days of its issuing was also illegal.
As such, more than 300 decrees issued by the coalition since Ustel came to power in 2022 were annulled.
Meanwhile, the coalition announced a watered down version of the plans, publishing a proposal under which public sector workers earning 75,000TL (€1,442) per month or less when the cost-of-living allowance is included will be paid the cost-of-living allowance in full, and that those earning more would be paid half of their allotted allowance, unless that cut would see their salary drop below 75,000TL.