A second political party in the north, ruling coalition party the YDP, on Friday endorsed incumbent Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar to be re-elected to the role when elections are held in October.

The decision to endorse Tatar was ratified by the party’s congress at a meeting on Friday evening, with the largest party in the north’s three-party ruling coalition, the UBP, having already endorsed Tatar’s campaign in April.

The YDP’s leader Erhan Arikli had run for election himself in 2020, finishing in fifth place and winning just shy of 5.4 per cent of the vote, before endorsing Tatar’s campaign in the second round. This time, he has endorsed Tatar’s campaign from the outset.

Tatar had been a member of the UBP until his election in October 2020, with the ‘TRNC’s’ constitution requiring that elected Turkish Cypriot leaders relieve themselves of party political ties upon entering office. As such, he will officially run in October as an independent.

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He had said after winning the UBP’s endorsement last month that his heart “is always with the UBP”, and added that during his term in office so far, “we have been successful in bringing this onto the world’s agenda”.

Tatar has for much of the year so far been trading the lead in polling for the election with opposition political party CTP leader and former ‘prime minister’ Tufan Erhurman.

Erhurman was announced as the CTP’s candidate during the party’s conference last month. This October’s election will also be his second run for the office, with him having finished third in 2020, winning just shy of 21.7 per cent of the vote, and endorsing then incumbent Mustafa Akinci in the second round.

Tatar and Erhurman have been trading the lead in election polling, with the most recent poll, conducted by Turkish research company Genar and published last month, seeing Tatar lead the way, polling at 37.9 per cent, while Erhurman remains close behind on 36 per cent of the vote.

Arikli, who with Friday’s announcement is effectively ruled out of the contest, was in third place in that poll, on 7.1 per cent.

Were Tatar to win re-election, he would be the first Turkish Cypriot leader to do so since Rauf Denktash won by default in 2000 after his second-round opponent Dervish Eroglu withdrew his candidacy.

Since then, Denktash did not stand for re-election and was replaced by Mehmet Ali Talat in 2005, Talat was beaten by Eroglu in 2010, Eroglu was beaten by Mustafa Akinci in 2015, and Akinci was beaten by Tatar in 2020.