Tatar announces re-election bid

Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar on Wednesday announced his intention to seek re-election next year.

Speaking to Turkish television channel A Haber, he said, “having achieved all I have achieved, I want to be president again in the next term.”

He added that he will seek the support of “various political parties in Cyprus” and added that he is “in good health”.

“I have been in office for about four years, and I have achieved many things. Our contacts continue,” he said.

Tatar was elected as Turkish Cypriot leader in October 2020, defeating his predecessor Mustafa Akinci, winning 52 per cent of the vote in the election’s second round.

He was at the time a member of the north’s largest party the UBP, but Turkish Cypriot leaders are upon election required to relieve themselves of all party-political ties.

It remains overwhelmingly likely that the UBP will endorse him again, and he may also seek the endorsement of other parties.

Since Tatar’s election in 2020, the UBP’s two coalition parties, the DP and the YDP, have moved closer politically to the UBP. The coalition even jointly endorsed candidates during the north’s local elections in 2022, though all three parties then fielded separate candidates in last year’s ‘parliamentary’ by-election.

Both the DP and the YDP fielded their own candidates in the 2020 Turkish Cypriot leadership election before endorsing Tatar in the second round.

Whether or not he wins the endorsement of the DP and the YDP, it appears that Tatar may face a crowded field of competition at next year’s election.

The CTP, the north’s largest opposition party, has fielded a candidate in every Turkish Cypriot leadership election since 1990, and may do so again. Party leader Tufan Erhurman has remained on the fence over the matter thus far, though, according to pollster CMIRS, appears currently to be the election’s early frontrunner.

Turkish Cypriot Nicosia mayor Mehmet Harmanci also looks likely to run, having said in January “it is not possible for a politician who received 49 per cent of the votes to stay only with the Nicosia Turkish Municipality.”

“In the long run, seeing it this way is a very narrow view. One needs to evolve into other political spheres. I am aware of the responsibility society gave me with 49 per cent of the vote,” he said.

Serdar Denktash, son of late Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash, confirmed to the Cyprus Mail last year that he will run for election. He was the DP’s candidate in 2020 but has since left the party. His father is the only Turkish Cypriot leader since 1974 to win more than one term in office.

Other names mentioned by repondents the CMIRS poll include former chief negotiators for the Cyprus problem Kudret Ozersay and Ozdil Nami, who served under Dervish Eroglu and Mehmet Ali Talat respectively, as well as former ‘prime minister’ Sibel Siber and retired judge Emine Dizdarli.

Siber was the CTP’s candidate in 2015 and remains the only woman to have run for election as Turkish Cypriot leader.