Opposition Turkish Cypriot leadership election candidate Tufan Erhurman holds a lead of just shy of 10 per cent over incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, according to a poll released by CMIRS on Thursday.
The poll quizzed 500 Turkish Cypriots on how they plan to vote on October 19, with 50.4 per cent of respondents saying they would vote for Erhurman and 40.6 per cent saying they would vote for Tatar, while six per cent remain undecided.
Of the minor candidates, 1.2 per cent of respondents said they would vote for Mehmet Hasguler, the former chairman of the north’s higher education accreditation authority (Yodak) who was arrested last year on suspicion of taking bribes, while 0.4 per cent said they would vote for cult figure and perpetual candidate Arif Salih Kirdag.
Additionally, 1.4 per cent of respondents said they will not vote.
Thursday’s poll will be one of the last to be published ahead of the election, with the north’s supreme election council having announced on Wednesday that the publication of polls will be banned on Saturday until after the election.
It is also the poll with by far the largest winning margin so far, with every other poll published since the start of the year having had less than a five-per-cent difference between Erhurman and Tatar.
The most recent poll published before Thursday, published by Turkish research company Genar, had Tatar in front by a margin of just 1.7 per cent, while CMIRS’ most recent prior poll, published last month, gave Erhurman a 4.6-per-cent lead.
Tatar is backed by all three parties in the north’s ruling coalition – the UBP, the YDP, and the DP – while Erhurman has won the support of his own party the CTP, as well as fellow opposition party the TDP.
Erhurman advocates for a return to negotiations based on a federal solution to the Cyprus problem, while Tatar has insisted on the continuation of his policy of pursuing a two-state solution.
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