The Republican Turkish Party (Cumhuriyetçi Türk Partisi) is a political party in Northern Cyprus. The party was founded by Dr. Burhan Nalbantoğlu in 1970 as an opposition to the Turkish Cypriot leadership of Fazıl Küçük and Rauf Denktaş. In the 1980s, the CTP's political position shifted to the left, to a pro-Soviet stance, as a result of an influx of members who had been students politicised at universities in Turkey. Under Özker Özgür the party started participating in rapprochement meetings with the Greek Cypriot leftist party AKEL. From 1996 the party was lead by Mehmet ALi Talat until his election as the president in 2005 succeeding Rauf Raif Denktas. After the fall of the communism in eastern europe and USSR a natural process of change started. The party's leader today is Ferdi Sabit Soyer and the party is leaning towards the European social-democratic and liberal system. At the last legislative elections for the de facto House of Representatives of Northern Cyprus - 20 January 2005 - the CTP won 44.5 % of the popular vote and 24 out of 50 seats, thus making it the largest bloc in the assembly. Its candidate, Mehmet Ali Talat, won the de facto Northern Cyprus presidential elections of 17 April 2005 with 55.8 % of the votes, and was elected the second president of the unrecognized TRNC, succeeding Rauf Denktaş.
