Poll shows Talat ahead, but election fatigue setting in

AN opinion poll claiming Mehmet Ali Talat’s Republican Turkish Party (CTP) would decisively win a general election marked the start of electioneering in the Turkish Cypriot north yesterday.

But while Talat might be heartened by the poll’s findings, it also suggests that Turkish Cypriots could be suffering from election fatigue with over 13 per cent saying they will stay away from the polls and over 20 per cent still undecided on who they will vote for.
The north is all but certain to go to the polls early in 2005 – the third time in just over a year – following Talat’s resignation last month sparked by his failure to form a majority ‘government’. Subsequent efforts by Eroglu to build a coalition have also failed.

The poll, carried out by market research company EKART Ltd and published in Talat’s media mouthpiece YeniDuzen, indicated the CTP would romp home with 29.3 per cent of the vote, leaving its nearest competitor Dervish Eroglu’s National Unity Party (UBP) trailing with just 14.3 per cent.

However, compared with last December’s election results EKART’s prediction represents a five per cent drop in the CTP’s overall share of the electorate.

By far the biggest losses, however, are predicted for the UBP, falling from just under 33 per cent to just over 14 per cent.

Losses are also predicted for the two smaller parties, Serdar Denktash’s Democrat Party (DP) and Mustafa Akinci’s Peace and Democracy Movement (BDH) falling from 12.9 per cent to 8.2 and 13.1per cent to 4.8 per cent respectively.

EKART say the survey was carried out between October 23 and 27 through face-to-face interviews with 601 people in all five districts of the north with samples taken from a broad cross-section of social, economic and professional groupings.

Participants were also asked to rank a number of “national problems”. Coming top of the list at 29 per cent was the Cyprus problem followed at 23 per cent by unemployment. Just over 12 per cent believed traffic accidents to be the biggest problem.

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