Citizens of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) will head to the polls on Sunday for the first round of the presidential election.

The TRNC has 218,313 eligible voters who can cast their ballots for one of eight candidates.

Incumbent President Ersin Tatar is running as an independent candidate, while Tufan Erhurman, leader of the main opposition Republican Turkish Party (CTP), is contesting as his party’s candidate.

In the first round, Hüseyin Gürlek, Mehmet Hasgüler, Arif Salih Kırdağ, Ahmet Boran, and İbrahim Yazıcı are running as independent candidates, while Osman Zorba is representing the Cyprus Socialist Party.

A candidate will be elected president in the first round if they receive more than 50% of the vote (an absolute majority).

If no candidate achieves an absolute majority, the top two candidates receiving the most votes in the first round will advance to the second round, to be held within seven days.

The candidate receiving the highest number of votes in the second round will assume the presidential seat.

Candidates may continue their campaigns until the election ban begins at 6 pm local time (1500GMT) on Saturday.

Past presidential elections

The president of the TRNC is elected by popular vote every five years and has no term limits.

Rauf Raif Denktas, the country’s founding president, led the TRNC from 1985 to 2005, contesting as an independent candidate in all elections.

In 2000, he was re-elected president after Dervis Eroglu, the candidate of the National Unity Party (UBP), withdrew from the race, leaving Denktaş as the sole contender. Denktaş did not run in the 2005 presidential election.

In 2005, Mehmet Ali Talat, the candidate of the CTP, was elected president with 55.59% of the vote.

In 2010, Derviş Eroğlu of the UBP won the presidency with 50.35% of the vote.

In 2015, Mustafa Akıncı became the country’s fourth president, while incumbent President Ersin Tatar was elected the fifth president in 2020.

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