Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Tuesday announced that he will stand for re-election in the role in October’s Turkish Cypriot leadership elections.

“I am running for president. I have already made my decision. What is important is who will support me … The path in my mind is one. This is not because I am a witty man, after all, my name is Ersin Tatar. The work I have done in politics for all these years is obvious,” he told Kibris Postasi TV.

He added that he is now waiting for the UBP, the north’s largest party and the party he led until becoming Turkish Cypriot leader in 2020, to make a decision over who it will endorse.

“I want to be the UBP’s candidate, but there may be some constitutional problems. After all, the president is independent,” he said, referring to the fact that a Turkish Cypriot leader is not supposed to be attached to any political party after election.

He also defended his own record since being elected in 2020, saying, “even if you do not agree with me, I have taken politics much further since I became president”.

Tatar has for much of the year so far been trading the lead in polling for the election with opposition political party CTP leader and former ‘prime minister’ Tufan Erhurman.

In the most recent poll, carried out by polling firm Rudex and published last Thursday, Erhurman leads the way by five per cent, polling on 33 per cent compared to Tatar’s 28 per cent.

The Rudex poll is the latest among many to have predicted a two-horse race, which is set to see Turkish Cypriots faced with a 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.

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.