The Supreme Election Board (YSK) of Northern Cyprus has unanimously rejected an appeal by the Yeniden Doğuş Party (YDP) against the refusal of its candidacy applications for the Nicosia Municipal elections. The applications were submitted at 15:38 on Friday, 30 October 2026, eight minutes after the official deadline of 15:30.
In its appeal, the YDP argued that the delay resulted from a misunderstanding. A party official stated that a member of staff at the Nicosia District Election Board had casually remarked that they would be available for another five hours, leading party representatives to believe submissions could be made until 17:00. The party asked the Board to excuse the brief delay and allow its candidates to participate in the elections.
The YSK, in decision no. 118/2026, underlined that under Article 58 of Election and Referendum Law 5/1976, candidacy applications must be submitted by the end of working hours for government offices on the designated day. The Board noted that its own Announcement No. 11, published on 23 October 2026, had clearly communicated this requirement to all parties.
The YSK ruled that the deadline provisions of the electoral law are mandatory and that exceeding them results in the loss of candidacy rights in the relevant constituency. It concluded that the Nicosia District Election Board had acted correctly in refusing the late application. Separately, the YSK published provisional candidate lists for the parliamentary and local elections via Announcements 15 and 16, with objections to those lists accepted at district boards between 1 and 2 November from 08:00 to 17:00.
