I wrote an article titled “After the Party Convention” on October 21, 2012. In it, I said: “The UBP leader to be elected tomorrow will, in my view, be the person who takes the country to an early election... I can almost hear those of you asking, ‘Will an election solve anything?’… I’m asking myself the same question… But how much attention can a party with a non-functioning Parliament and MPs who are at odds with one another give to this country’s problems? Can laws that barely make it through Parliament really be approved by the Presidency in one go? After everything we’ve been through, no one should expect us to believe that party affairs and personal relationships are separate from governing the country…
In any case, I wish the UBP leader to be elected tomorrow every success in the election campaign…
And to the opposition, I would remind them of the saying: the early bird catches the worm…”
I hope we all remember very well the party convention and court proceedings held at that time. The court proceedings merely dragged things out, and the situation we have reached speaks for itself...
On another note, you may remember that Prime Minister İrsen Küçük was constantly talking about the “big UBP project.” I wrote about this in an article titled “Here Is the Big UBP,” published on February 16, 2103. In that article, I said the following: “For some time now, I’ve found the Prime Minister’s boast, ‘I’ve grown the UBP from 24 MPs to 30,’ very strange… It’s a bit like hiring only people related to delegates, or someone over the age of 50, and saying, ‘If giving our young people jobs is a crime, then yes, we are proud to commit that crime’… Anyway…
Most recently, UBP Girne MP Necdet Numan made this remark at one of those now-famous dinners where UBP members gathered the other evening. Numan said they would continue to stand by and trust Prime Minister İrsen Küçük, who had taken over the UBP with 24 MPs and increased its ranks to 30. The Prime Minister then said his goal was a big UBP. After that, the Prime Minister’s birthday was celebrated with a cake… Many happy returns…
Now I’m wondering: is this increase in numbers something to respect or boast about, or something to pretend never happened? In my view, if the UBP had gone into an election with 24 MPs and won it with 30, it could have boasted about that until the end of time… But there was no election… And the number went up… So how? Through defections… Who defected or joined the UBP? Three MPs who ran for and won seats with the DP, two who ran for and won seats with the ÖRP, and one MP who was expelled from the UBP, formed a party, and then shut it down… If we leave out the last one, five MPs who received votes and won despite not running as UBP candidates are now UBP members… That must be what the big UBP is…”
The number has now fallen to 22, but never mind; now, at last, the Prime Minister has a real opportunity. Surely Mr. İrsen Küçük will seize this opportunity and show us the big UBP at the election. Let’s see how much higher Mr. Küçük can take the UBP, which he took over at 44%, thanks to the big UBP project.
I’m waiting with keen interest...