The results of the October 1991 by-election did not solve the problems caused by the refusal of the opposition to recognize the outcome of the May 1990 election, on the grounds that interference in the electoral process by Turkey altered the result; the allied opposition parties, which at first sight had the majority, received only 44.5% of the vote, with the National Unity party – UBP securing 54,65% and 34 of the 50 seats. The left-wing parties refused to participate in the 1991 by-election and UBP became an omnipotent force with 45 seats.
Apart from the rift between the governing UBP and the left-wing parties, where the latter were asking for new elections to take place because the composition of the parliament was not representative, a more serious row started between Rauf Denktaş, president of the self-proclaimed state and his prime minister Derviş Eroğlu. This led to a split of the National Unity Party – UBP, with dissidents forming in July 1992 the Democratic Party, headed by the speaker of the Parliament. Serdar Denktaş, son of Rauf, was among the dissidents. The opposition, including the left wing parties, Rauf Denktaş and Ankara too asked for fresh elections, but Eroğlu insisted to ignore them until August 1993, when, at a meeting with journalists he had invited from Turkey, he announced that a contest would take place in late November 1993. The decision could be attributed also to pressures from Ankara, which stopped the flow of financial aid causing problems to Eroğlu’s capacity to pay salaries and ensure the completion of projects or the start of new works.
Rauf Denktaş sided with the Democratic Party and announced that he could be on its ticket of candidates, but legal opinion said he could not do it unless resigning from his office.
In late September the Democratic Party left the Parliament, which remained exclusively in the hands of the UBP. Eroğlu tabled a bill to amend (again) the electoral law, in order to prime the top party with more seats in case its score was above 36%. Despite having refused to sign a previously voted similar law, this time, Rauf Denktaş signed it, and elections were held on 6 December 1993.
The political parties that participated in the election were the following:
The National Unity Party – UBP, a traditional right wing nationalistic political force with close relations with Turkey, headed by Derviş Eroğlu since December 1993. It dominated politics and given that it was already in power, its influence extended to all groups of the population including the Turkish nationals that had settled in Cyprus. The Republican Turkish Party – CTP, the oldest party, founded in 1970, headed by Özker Özgür, a traditional left wing party which in early 1990 had attempted to project a social democratic face. The Democratic Party, with splitters from the National Unity Party – UBP had in fact no significant ideological or other differences with UBP. It lacked, however, the organizational strength of the UBP, but could count on the influence of Rauf Denktaş over large parts of the population and the elites. The Social Democratic Party – Sosyal Demokrat Partisi (SDP), founded by Raif Denktaş, son of Rauf who had been killed in a road accident, and the Renaissance Party – Yeni Doğuş Partisi (YDP), the party of settlers from Turkey, which merged with the Democratic Party. The Communal Liberation Party – Toplumcu Kurtuluş Partisi (TKP) with Mustafa Akinci, three-time mayor of Nicosia, the New Cyprus Party – Yeni Kıbrıs Partisi with Alpay Durduran, who was initially leader of TKP, the National Struggle Party – Milli Mucadelle Partisi (MMP) and the Party of Unity Sovereignty (BEP) completed the list of contenders.
A striking feature of the 6 December 1993 election was the discrepancy between the number of registered voters and the number of those who voted; in 355 of the 455 polling centers the number of votes cast exceeds that of the voters recorded in the special census held in mid-September. The census results were published in daily Kıbrıs in November 1993 per polling center and the comparison leaves a total surplus reaching 2797 votes, almost 3% if registered voters. It is noted that press reports claimed that the authorities rushed to grant citizenship and the right to vote to nationals of Turkey in an effort to increase their vote share. The threat coming from the dissidents who formed the Democratic Party was one of the reasons for such a move.
The results had UBP and DP almost tied with the former’s share at 29.85%, leading by 0.65 percentage points. Participation reached 93% of registered voters, which was the highest recorded since 1976; this was also 1.4 percentage points higher than 1990, when the allied opposition forces confronted the UBP. Invalid votes stood at 5%, double that of 1990, one point higher than in 1985 (4%), but lower than in 1976 (7.9%) and 1981 (8.8%).
The higher abstention rate (8.12%) was recorded in communities where the origin of the voters is the southern part of the island (they had moved north after 1974-5), with a small part of settlers from Turkey. A closer look into the results reveals that the average was pushed upwards by the two biggest communities of the group, Kyrenia, where the abstention rate was 12.14% and Morfu, at 8.81% and a couple of communities around them. Nicosia and the communities with exclusive settler population followed with 7.6%. Famagusta and communities where settlers form a majority followed with a rate ranging from 7.20% to 7.37%. Interestingly, the lowest rate was in the traditional Turkish Cypriot communities, i.e. those that have always been inhabited by Turkish Cypriots and in communities with a population that moved to the north after 1974. The rate of invalid votes ranged from 4.04%, in communities with “southerners”, up to 5.68% in Famagusta town. Interestingly, a similar rate of invalid votes was recorded in communities with exclusively settler voters (4.42%) and the town of Nicosia (4.38%), an indication that voter education was evidently not a factor affecting invalidation of ballots.
In respect of party influence, the Democratic Party secured more than half the vote in communities with exclusively settler population (50.41%) followed by a significantly lower rate (36.69%) in the group with a majority of settlers and a significant part of “southerners”. DP also led UBP with three and four points in the towns of Nicosia (31.38%) and Famagusta (32.28%). Conversely, UBP was ahead in traditional Turkish Cypriot communities (32.85%) and in the groups where those that moved from the South were the sole or the majority of the inhabitants (27% – 34.12%). DP was from 2.5 to 10 points behind. The Republican Turkish Party – CTP led both parties in communities with a majority of “southerners” (30.40%) against 24.54% for DP and 26.96% for UBP. This was the effect of the vote in Morfu, where CTP had about 50% more votes than each of its opponents, and in Kyrenia, where it was slightly ahead of the DP and largely from the UBP. The above figures contribute to the lead of CTP in the respective group of communities. The votes secured by the leftist parties CTP and TKP among settlers were meagre, 10.54% and 5.84% in exclusively settler communities and 19.06% and 7.52% where they formed the majority. The two conservative parties along with the nationalist National Struggle Party – MMP secured more than 85% of the vote in settler communities.
The results left the door open for coalitions, either between UBP and DP or one of them with CTP. In the end the latter became for the first time in its history a governing partner, sharing power with DP, until August 1996. This marked also the start of reforms for the main left-wing party, the oldest organised political force of the Turkish Cypriot community.