To what degree is Northern Cypriot politics a reflection of Turkish politics? Is the NUP an Islamist outfit like the AKP? Is the RTP a local version of the CHP?
Not really. There are two types of parties:
- Leftist parties in favour of a united Cyprus (and therefore not interested in integration with Turkey):
Republican Turkish Party (SocDem)
Communal Democracy Party (moderate Democratic Socialists and/or left wing SD)
United Cyprus Party (small more radical Democratic Socialist/True Leftism option - no seats)
- Conservative and Turkish nationalist parties created by the Denktas dynasty as their own political tools.
National Unity Party was created by Father of the Nation Rauf Denktas in 1975 and the Democratic Party by his son Serdar in 1992 as a slightly more moderate version of NUP (UBH in Turkish). NUP is a typical party of power attracting the 3 Cs: careerists, cronies and clients. DP might be a bit better, but probably not much.
There was an attempt by moderates from DP and UBH to form a "Liberal" party (the Freedom and Reform Party), and it got a few seats in 2009, but did not run last time. It was more pro-Turkish than UBH and accused of having ties to AKP (but whether that was a reality is hard to say). They wanted Northern Cyprus not to disturb Turkeys relations to EU by blocking cooperation with the Greek Cypriots. Despite their quarrels with UBH most of their members (re)joined UBH after the party became defunct.
There are some ethnic things as well: Only half of the population are Turk Cypriots, the rest are mainland "Turks", Greek Cypriots and Maronites. The Christians vote on the left wing. Both the Conservative parties are controlled by Turk Cypriots and there is some animosity towards "mainlanders", many of whom are not actually ethnic Turks but Laz (Black Sea region), Kurds or Arabs. The Conservative parties use mainlanders as vote banks, but they do not let them get to the top. Mainlanders vote Conservative even if they were leftist back home. So clientilism at work.
Along with not knowing how to grow a garden and putting plastic carpets on the floor, using headscarfs and veils are some of the things Turk Cypriots see as signs of the backwardness of mainlanders, so Islamism is not a selling point among them. Mainlanders seems too divided to form their own party.