On Sunday, October 19, the leader of the Turkish nationalist party MHP, Devlet Bahçeli, said that the results of the elections for the leader of the Turkish Cypriots, in which Cypriot reunification supporter Tufan Erhurman won a landslide victory, are “unacceptable.”
The politician called for the immediate annexation of the northern part of the island to Turkey.
“The results of the elections held in the TRNC were achieved with a very low turnout. The fate of the Turkish Cypriots cannot be determined by this turnout,” Bahçeli said.
He added that even after the official announcement of the voting results by the Electoral Council, the parliament of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus “must urgently meet, recognize a return to federation negotiations as unacceptable and decide to join the Turkish Republic.”
Turnout in the elections was 64.8% - a figure higher than in the first round of elections in 2020, but lower than in the second. At the same time, Tufan Erhurman received almost 20,000 more votes than Ersin Tatar five years ago, and more than 37,000 votes more than his opponent in the current elections.
Bahçeli's party, MHP, is part of Turkey's People's Alliance, which brings together political forces supporting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan himself, unlike Bahçeli, congratulated Erhurman on his victory, saying that “the results of Sunday’s elections reflect the will of our Turkish Cypriot brothers and sisters.”
Source: cyprus-mail.com
