ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the research note aiming to offer some hints on the electoral history of Cyprus and of the nature of sources of pertinent data that might be of interest to students of political change and political behaviour. Considered in a comparative framework this entirely unexplored material appears quite promising as a source for the study of political mobilization and political cleavages in the context of a changing society. In this regard the municipal elections of 1943, 1946 and 1949 are of particular interest for the study of political change. The experience of modern electoral politics introduced in Cyprus by the institutions of colonial government was not the only form of the popular exercise of the suffrage in the history of the island. The operation of electoral politics in the republic was seriously obstructed by the constitutional crisis of 1963 and the ensuing ethnic violence and communal segregation.
