One third of new voters registered for the elections in the north on October 19 have obtained citizenship through a decision of the north’s ‘council of ministers’, Turkish Cypriot media reported on Tuesday.

According to Turkish Cypriot news outlet Yeni Duzen, a total of 1,445 new voters have been registered in the last 35 days – 386 of whom had become Turkish Cypriot nationals via “exceptional naturalisations”.

This takes the number of registered voters up from 215,611 on June 26 to 217,056 on July 31.

In the five years since the last elections for Turkish Cypriot leader in October 2020, a total of 2,431 people have been naturalised, with the number of voters increasing by 18,198 during that same period, Yeni Duzen wrote.

Turkish Cypriot supreme court chief justice Bertan Ozerdag had previously said there were currently 70,162 voters registered in the Nicosia district, 53,874 in the Famagusta district, 49,042 in the Kyrenia district, 21,585 in the Trikomo district, 15,272 in the Morphou district, and 7,121 in the Lefka district.