All eyes on exit polls when voting ends at 6pm

There’s a lot of excitement ahead of the exit polls which are due immediately after voting ends at 6pm.

They’re to be taken with a pinch of salt, however, as nothing is final until every vote is counted – with those results expected by 9:30-10:00pm.

But the exit polls are likely to give a strong indication of where things are headed.

Every single poll has shown party-backed Nikos Christodoulides to be in the lead, but that lead has steadily narrowed.

Will the exit polls show that trend as having continued, or will there be an upset?

The first poll sent shockwaves throughout the political scene, the significance of which is hard to overstate. Sigma set the stage when it’s May 19 poll found that 37 per cent of respondents would have voted for Christodoulides if elections were held on that day. Neophytou trailed at 19 per cent and Mavroyiannis at 14 per cent.

The narrowest gap between the first and second candidates in the polls came just over a week prior to the elections at four per cent. That came from CyBC’s final poll on January 27. It polled Christodoulides at 26.5 per cent, followed by Neophytou at 22.5 per cent and Mavroyiannis at 21 per cent.