Elections in Cyprus

At the national level, the Republic of Cyprus holds elections for its head of state, the President of Cyprus, and for its legislature, the House of Representatives.

Voters

Citizens aged 18 or older may vote in Presidential, legislative, local, and European Parliamentary elections. European Union citizens may also vote in local and European Parliamentary elections. In order to vote in legislative elections citizens must have lived in Cyprus for six months. In order to vote in local elections citizens or European Union citizens must reside in a municipality or community. In order to vote in European Parliamentary elections citizens or European Citizens must have resided in Cyprus or any other European Union country for six months. Voting by proxy is not allowed.

Formerly, the island's two communities, the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots voted in separate elections for the House of Representatives, where they elected different seats each requiring separate majorities for laws to pass, and Presidential elections where the Greek-Cypriot community elected the President and the Turkish Cypriot community elected the vice-president. In 1964 the Turkish Cypriots withdrew from participation in the country's government. Following the court case Aziz v. Cyprus in the European Court of Human Rights in 2004 Turkish Cypriots residing in the government-controlled areas of the island may register to vote.

Electoral system

Elections are managed by the Central Elections Office which is part of the Ministry of Interior. The Permanent Secretary of the MoI serves as the General Returning Officer (GRO). At the district level, the permanent chief district officers act as District Returning Officers.

Presidential elections

Presidential elections are held every five years, with by elections held in case of a vacancy in the office to elect a president within a period of 45 days after the vacancy occurs until the next Presidential elections. In 2019 the constitution was amended to add a two consecutive terms limit.

Candidates for President must be citizens of the Republic of Cyprus over the age of 35 years who have not been accused of crimes relating to moral turpitude, who have not had their right to stand removed by a court prior to the elections and who are not mentally incapable of performing the duties of President.

The two-round system is used to elect the president. The candidate who receives a majority of valid votes is elected. If no candidate receives the required number of votes a runoff round is held in the corresponding day of the following week between the two candidates who received the largest number of votes where the candidate who receives the most votes is elected.

Legislative elections

Elections for the House of Representatives are held every five years. The age of candidacy was lowered from 25 to 21 through a constitutional amendment adopted unanimously in 2019.

Originally, the constitution provided there were 50 seats to the House of Representatives, with 35 (70%) allocated to the Greek Cypriot community and 15 (30%) allocated to the Turkish Cypriot community. In 1985 for the smooth running of the House a law was adopted raising the number of seats to 80, with the Greek Cypriots electing 56 and the Turkish Cypriots electing 24 (which remain vacant). The Maronite, Armenian, and Latin communities also elect three observer members.

Open list Proportional Representation is used to elect the House's members. Cyprus is split into six constituencies corresponding exactly to the six districts. The constituency of Nicosia elects 20 members, Limassol elects 12, Famagusta elects 11, Larnaca elects six, Paphos elects four and Kyrenia elects three. Voters vote for a list, which is either a party, coalition of parties, coalition of independents or a single independent candidate. They also have the option of casting preferential votes for candidates on the chosen list where they have one preferential vote for every four seats in their constituency, excluding decimals, or one preferential vote for constituencies with less than four seats. The candidates are ordered based on preferential votes with the exception of party leaders or leaders of parties in coalitions who are always ranked first and do not receive preferential votes. The first candidates ordered in this way corresponding to the number of seats awarded to their list in each respective constituency are declared elected.

Seats are allocated to lists in three distributions. In the first distribution, an electoral quota is calculated in each constituency by dividing the number of valid votes by the number of seats in that constituency, excluding decimals. Each list's votes are divided by the electoral quota to calculate how many seats the list receives, excluding decimals. A second distribution occurs when there are seats which have not been filled by the first allocation. For the purposes of the second distribution all of Cyprus is treated as a single constituency. Only parties receiving more than 3.6% of the vote, coalitions of two parties receiving more than 10% of the vote and coalitions of more than two parties receiving 20% of the vote may receive seats in the second distribution. Each list's "unused votes" (excluding those which did not reach the threshold) are calculated from each constituency by subtracting the list's seats multiplied by the electoral quota from the list's votes. The electoral quota for the second distribution is the total of each list's unused votes divided by the seats which were not allocated in the first allocation. Each list's unused votes are divided by the threshold to calculate how many seats the list receives from the second allocation. If any seats remain unallocated after the second distribution they are allocated to the lists with the most unused votes after the second distribution, excluding parties with less than 7.2% of the vote.

Seats allocated in the second and third allocation are distributed to lists in constituencies by ranking the parties based on their total votes and giving the lists a seat in the constituency where it had the most unused votes in the first allocation, assuming that constituency did not have all its seats filled previously, and this is repeated until every list's seats from the second and third allocations are allocated to constituencies. The only referendum to take place in Cyprus post-independence was a referendum on the Annan Plan which was held both in the Republic of Cyprus and the breakaway Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on 24 April 2004. In 1950, before Cypriot independence, a referendum was held on Enosis (union with Greece), which was unofficial and held in Greek Orthodox churches.

Notes

References

External links

Cyprus Elections by KyproEkloges.com
Cyprus Elections & Politics
Adam Carr's Election Archive
Adam Carr's Election Archive (North Cyprus)