Turkish Cypriot opposition political party CTP leader and former ‘prime minister’ Tufan Erhurman leads incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar by five per cent in the latest poll asking Turkish Cypriots who they plan to vote for in October’s leadership election.

The poll was carried out by polling firm Rudex and published on news website Star Kibris, and asked 1,014 people for their views on the upcoming elections.

Erhurman leads the way in the poll, with 33 per cent of voters saying they will vote for him, while Tatar stands on 28 per cent.

Like all the other polls to have been published so far this year, Rudex’s poll predicts that the election will be a two-horse race, with former Turkish Cypriot leader Dervish Eroglu’s chief negotiator Kudret Ozersay in a distant third place on 13 per cent.

Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci is in fourth place on nine per cent, late Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s son Serdar Denktash is in fifth place on five per cent, and ‘transport minister’ Erhan Arikli and the north’s first female ‘prime minister’ Sibel Siber are tied in sixth place on four per cent.

Siber was the CTP’s candidate in the 2015 election, finishing in third place and winning 22.5 per cent of the vote.

The predicted a two-horse race is set to see Turkish Cypriots faced with a binary choice between a leader who will advocate for a two-state solution to the Cyprus problem in Tatar, and one who will advocate for a federal solution in Erhurman.

Erhurman’s party the CTP unveiled a five-point plan for Cyprus problem negotiations in September, which stipulate that all convergences found at Crans Montana in 2017 must be adhered to and that there be no going back on the issues agreed on.

They also stipulate and that a solution be found on the basis of a bizonal, bicommunal federation with political equality, that the negotiation process be “results-oriented” and that no party leaves the negotiating table, that the negotiating process have “a timetable with a sense of urgency”, and that it be impossible to return to the status quo once negotiations begin.

Were Tatar to win re-election, he would be the first Turkish Cypriot leader to do so since Rauf Denktash won by default in 2000 after his second round opponent Dervish Eroglu withdrew his candidacy.

Since then, Denktash did not stand for re-election and was replaced by Mehmet Ali Talat in 2005, Talat was beaten by Eroglu in 2010, Eroglu was beaten by Mustafa Akinci in 2015, and Akinci was beaten by Tatar in 2020.