While much of the focus regarding polling ahead of the forthcoming parliamentary election has been centred on movements between the parties, one of the tallest blocks in any polling bar chart in recent months has also been one of the least talked about – the undecided voters.

With the election just two weeks ago, the number of voters declaring themselves to be undecided when asked by pollsters remains high, with a mammoth 26.3 per cent of those asked by Rai Consultants for television channel Alpha in the most recent poll saying they have not yet come to a decision.

This figure is almost as high as the number of voters who, according to the same poll, plan to vote for Cyprus’ “big two” political parties, Akel and Disy, combined. They sit on 15.3 per cent and 15 per cent of the vote respectively.

While Rai Consultants’ poll constitutes something of a high-water mark for undecideds, other polls have also suggested that large numbers of voters remain unsure regarding the destination of their own cross on May 24.

In April, Cymar had found in a poll conducted for television channel Ant1 that 17 per cent of voters were undecided, while newspaper Kathimerini’s most recent poll put the figure at nearly half that (8.1 per cent) but still higher than the number of respondents who said they are going to vote for Diko.

Notable, too, is the fact that Kathimerini’s most recent poll found more undecideds than its previous poll when only 5.8 per cent of voters had declared themselves undecided.

This trend has also been observed in polls conducted by Explorer for newspaper Phileleftheros, with the number of undecideds according to that pollster rising to 14 per cent in recent months.

Similarly high numbers of undecided voters were also recorded in polling prior to the 2024 European Parliament elections, with that election seeing pollsters miss the rise of social media influencer Fidias Panayiotou.

Panayiotou polled as low as 3.8 per cent two weeks prior to that election, and ended up taking 19.4 per cent of the vote, becoming the first independent Cypriot candidate to win a seat in the European Parliament in Cyprus since the country joined the European Union in 2004, and one of only five independents among the 720 MEPs elected across the continent in 2024.

This time around, pollsters are predicting Panayiotou’s Direct Democracy Cyprus party to win just shy of 10 per cent of the vote.

However, with no fewer than 19 parties fielding candidates this time around, it remains to be seen whether any of them will shock pollsters.

One thing which may serve to blunt the chances of a potential shock is the fact that turnout in parliamentary elections has historically been higher than in European Parliament elections.

At 58.9 per cent, turnout for the 2024 European Parliament elections was the highest for such an election in Cyprus since 2009 but were such a turnout to be repeated at these forthcoming elections, it would be the lowest turnout in Cypriot parliamentary electoral history.

The current lowest ever turnout for a Cypriot parliamentary election is 65.7 per cent, recorded at the most recent parliamentary election in 2021.