THE upward trend of voter abstention in recent years was much in evidence during Sunday’s first-round when 16.86 per cent of the public chose not to bother contributing to the process of electing a new head of state.
Almost one-fifth of registered voters did not bother to visit a polling station, more or less confirming previous analyses according to political analyst Christoforos Christoforou.
“Before the elections my estimate was that there would be between 15 and 20 per cent abstention,” he said. Christoforou believes the number was neither positive nor negative. “I would say the amount of people abstaining was logical if we consider the trends over the last few years, taking into consideration that during the last presidential elections we saw around 10 per cent of people staying away from polling stations,” he added.
Although voting is mandatory for all citizens, Christoforou said that since 2001 when the law was relaxed, the number of people who have chosen not to exercise their democratic right has increased as they have gradually become disillusioned by the various politicians. “People have begun to realise that politicians and political powers don’t really keep their promises,” he said. “They haven’t succeeded in solving the Cyprus problem nor has Cyprus’ accession to the EU meant that the standard of living or quality of life improved,” he added. “Generally, people have grown tired of politicians baseless promises and decided to show that by not even showing up to vote,” he explained.
Compared to other countries, Christoforou believes Cyprus has a good turnout of voters, only falling behind Belgium and Luxembourg, which also has a mandatory voting law. “With over 80 per cent of people turning up to vote for elections where the three main candidates were perceived to be of a negative nature, the number shows that people on the island do still care who will lead them,” he said.
Christoforou revealed, although it appeared on Sunday that ruling party AKEL had not lost much of their vote despite being blamed for the Mari Naval Base explosion and the collapse of the economy, their candidate, Stavros Malas received around 40,000 less votes than the party’s previous candidate, President Demetris Christofias in 2008. “If you take into consideration that there are currently 30,000 new registered voters since the 2008 elections and the decrease in numbers from five years ago for Malas then it would appear quite a few people have grown tired of the current government,” he said. “According to exit polls, five per cent of people who voted for Christofias five years ago voted for DISY candidate Nicos Anastasiades,” he added.
Official data on the final turnout put the total at 82.84 per cent, compared to 89.62 per cent in the last presidential elections in 2008.
The turnout during the 2011 parliamentary elections was 78.70 per cent.
In Nicosia, the turnout was 81.82 per cent, compared to 88.80 per cent in the 2008 elections. Limassol had an 83.24 per cent turnout, the Famagusta district 83.86 per cent, Larnaca 84.01 per cent and Paphos 84.00 per cent.
The abstention rate for the 2011 parliamentary elections was 21.3 per cent, a figure almost double that of the previous elections.
December 2011’s municipal elections saw an abstention rate of over 30 per cent but Christoforou felt the reason the number was so high for those elections was that people perceive them as being of less importance than presidential elections. “Municipal elections are generally seen as being based more on the common interests of those seeking power, with most people voting for people they know,” he concluded.
Despite the abstentions, the voting rate in Cyprus is still higher than many other countries (Christos Theodorides)