BY YUSUF KANLI
HURRIYET DAILY NEWS- In these final days of campaigning for Sunday's Turkish Cypriot presidential elections, swords have been drawn, with the two leading candidates in the field, incumbent President Mehmet Ali Talat and Prime Minister Dervis Eroglu, stepping up their attacks on each other.
Talat is accusing Eroglu of having a limited understanding of the Cyprus problem, lacking negotiation experience, supporting a Cyprus settlement 'utopia' that is not only incompatible with the parameters laid down by the UN for a settlement on the island but also risks causing a collapse of the process and condemning Turkish Cypriots 'to the darkness of yesterday,' while painting himself as representing the hope for a settlement and 'integration with the world.'
Eroglu, on the other hand, is accusing Talat of making 'grave mistakes' in settlement talks with his Greek Cypriot counterpart Dimitris Christofias, making unilateral and dangerous compromises such as 'cross-voting' or 'weighted votes' - which would give a 20 percent say to each of the two communities in the outcome of the presidential election of the other - or by agreeing in principle that the future federation will have a 'single citizenship, single international identity and single sovereignty.'
According to one of the TRNC's top pollsters, the percentage of undecided voters has dropped to 8 percent, from a high of 15 percent just two weeks ago. As has been widely expected for several months, the poll showed Eroglu with a clear lead, and he might become president with as much as 55 percent of the vote, with Talat getting only 41 percent.
Does all this mean Eroglu will be the next Turkish Cypriot president? Probably, but there could be surprises, as this presidential election could turn into a kind of referendum on hopes for peace. Probably regardless of their political preferences and what they tell pollsters, people may only make up their minds once they're in the voting booth.