837 Turkish Cypriots registered to vote in the Republic's May 2026 parliamentary election

837 Turkish Cypriots were registered to vote in the May 2026 parliamentary election, Interior Ministry Permanent Secretary Elikkos Elia confirmed on 7 February 2026 — an increase of three over the 834 registered for the 2024 European Parliament election.¹

The registration route exists because of Aziz v. Cyprus (no. 69949/01): on 22 June 2004 the European Court of Human Rights held that refusing to register a Turkish Cypriot resident of the government-controlled areas for parliamentary elections violated Article 3 of Protocol No 1 and Article 14 taken together with it, and the Republic of Cyprus legislated in 2006 to allow Turkish Cypriots to vote and to stand in elections.²

The remedy is conditioned on habitual residence in the government-controlled areas — a condition the Court held not disproportionate when it declared Erel and Damdelen v. Cyprus inadmissible on 14 December 2010. Turkish Cypriot commentators and some scholars argue that this leaves the majority of the community, resident in the north, without a vote for the legislature of the state of which they are citizens, and that the 837 figure is itself the measure of how narrow the remedy is; no court has ruled on whether Article 3 of Protocol No 1 requires the Republic to enfranchise, for parliamentary elections, citizens resident in territory it does not effectively control.³⁴