Presidential elections were held in

Northern Cyprus Northern Cyprus ( tr, Kuzey Kıbrıs), officially the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC; tr, Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti, ''KKTC''), is a ''de facto'' state that comprises the northeastern portion of the Geography of Cyprus, isl ...

on Sunday 17 April 2005.A New President in Northern Cyprus
German Institute for International and Security Affairs They followed

parliamentary elections A general election is a political voting election where generally all or most members of a given political body are chosen. These are usually held for a nation, state, or territory's primary legislative body, and are different from by-elections ( ...

on 20 February, which had been won by the pro-unification

Republican Turkish Party The Republican Turkish Party ( tr, Cumhuriyetçi Türk Partisi, CTP) is a social democracy, social-democratic List of political parties in Northern Cyprus, political party in Northern Cyprus. The party was founded in 1970 by Ahmet Mithat Berberoğ ...

(CTP). The CTP nominated its leader,

Mehmet Ali Talat Mehmet Ali Talat (born 6 July 1952) is a Turkish Cypriot politician who served as the president of Northern Cyprus from 2005 to 2010. Talat was the leader of the social democratic Republican Turkish Party ( tr, Cumhuriyetçi Türk Partisi, CTP) ...

, who emerged as the clear winner with a 56% share of the vote. The notable absence in this election was the first and at that point only president of Northern Cyprus,

Rauf Denktaş Rauf Raif Denktaş (27 January 1924 – 13 January 2012) was a Turkish Cypriot politician, barrister and jurist who served as the founding president of Northern Cyprus. He occupied this position as the president of the Turkish Republic of North ...

. He had announced in mid-2004 that he would not be running again.

Electoral system

A candidate needed an

absolute majority A supermajority, supra-majority, qualified majority, or special majority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of more than one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority ru ...

of valid votes in order to win in the first round of voting. If no candidate secured the necessary majority, a second round of voting would have been held between the two top candidates.

Campaign

The election campaign began on 22 March and ended the day before the elections. Under rules set out by the High Electoral Committee, public opinion polls were not allowed be published or broadcast after 2 April.

Opinion polls

A poll had been conducted between 23 and 27 March 2005 by the ''Cyprus Social Research and Education Consultancy Centre'' (KADEM). It found that Mehmet Ali Talat would win an absolute majority in the first round. The poll of 1472 people across Northern Cyprus put the results as follows: * Mehmet Ali Talat - 54.9% * Derviş Eroğlu - 26.8% * Mustafa Arabacıoğlu - 8.9% * Hüseyin Angolemli - 2.5% * Nuri Çevikel - 1.2% * Zeki Beşiktepeli - 1.5% * Ayhan Kaymak - 0.6% * Arif Salih Kırdağ - 0.4% * Zehra Cengiz - 0.2% 54% of those polled said the election would be finalised in the first round, while 41% said a second round of voting would be required.

Results

The Turkish Cypriot electoral commission put the turnout at 69.58%, a lower figure than previous presidential elections, which have always been over 80%. It led UBP leader Derviş Eroğlu to question the legitimacy of the elections, pointing to the fact that so many voters had decided not to vote in protest.

References

{{Northern Cyprus elections

Presidential elections A presidential election is the election of any head of state whose official title is President. Elections by country Albania The president of Albania is elected by the Assembly of Albania who are elected by the Albanian public. Chile The pr ...

Presidential elections in Northern Cyprus 2005 in Northern Cyprus 2000s in Cypriot politics April 2005 events in Europe