TRNC citizens will go to the polls tomorrow to elect 50 MPs for a five-year term in a general election taking place six months earlier than scheduled. ANIL IŞIK and KEREM HASAN set out the options on offer.
ELECTION BOARD CHIEF ŞEFIK WARNS VOTERS: MARK YOUR CHOICES ‘CAREFULLY’
THE electorate will have three ways to cast their vote in tomorrow’s national poll — with the country’s top election official urging citizens to mark their choices “carefully”.
The simplest option for voters involves stamping “Evet” (Yes) in a box under the name and logo of their preferred political party, with one vote automatically allocated to each of the chosen party’s candidates.
The second option is to put the stamp against a political party and indicate preferences among that party’s candidates by placing crosses against their names.
The third and most complex option, known as “mixed” voting, allows people to give votes to between 24 and 50 candidates from different political parties and to independents, and Supreme Election Board (YSK) chief Narin Ferdi Şefik this week urged those planning to use this option to check their ballot paper carefully before casting their vote.
Mrs Şefik said campaigning for the election would end at 6pm today and warned that “legal action” would be taken against those who violate the rule.
Party political broadcasts or publications are banned after this time, she added, and a ban on news about the elections will be in force until 7pm tomorrow, an hour after the official end of polling.
Mrs Şefik said voters arriving at polling stations at 6pm would still be allowed to vote and that ballot boxes would not be sealed until they had done so.
She went on to say that only news about the elections issued by the YSK could be disseminated between 7pm and 9pm tomorrow and urged the media to “abide by the restriction”, which she said also applied to social media.
Counting of votes and announcement of results is expected to take longer than at previous elections, with first unofficial results only released on Monday morning and final results not confirmed until Tuesday.
Mrs Şefik said the outcome would be announced via a Near East University website and would also be displayed on screens at the YSK.