Anastasiades, Malas go to runoff in Cyprus election
THE race for president in Cyprus will go to a runoff vote after incumbent conservative Nicos Anastasiades won the first round but failed to muster an outright majority in a poll overshadowed by high abstention.
With all of the votes counted, Anastasiades on Sunday secured 35.5 per cent, ahead of his closest rival Stavros Malas, an independent candidate backed by the left-wing AKEL party, on 30.2 per cent.
Centrist Nicos Papadopoulos came third with 25.7 per cent.
Ahead of the vote, opinion polls had suggested a tight race between Malas and Papadopoulos.
Anastasiades and Malas will now contest the runoff vote on Sunday, February 4, in a repeat of the last presidential elections in 2013.
At Anastasiades’s campaign headquarters in central Nicosia, supporters draped in Cypriot, Greek and party flags chanted slogans as their leader arrived.
But spirits were even higher a few kilometres further south, at Malas’s campaign headquarters, where hundreds of people of all ages couldn’t hide their enthusiasm.
“The people have spoken,” Malas, 50, told the cheering supporters waving Cypriot flags. “A new social majority is now expressing its will for a real, creative and hopeful change.”
Andros Ioannou, a 45year-old psychologist, joined in the jubilation. “It’s a triumph,” he told Al Jazeera. “Malas, an independent candidate of the left, had five parties against him,” he added.
“If the right political moves are now made in order to convince the rest of the population, then he will be the next president.”
Yet enthusiasm was less palpable outside the venues packed with party faithful.
Yesterday’s vote was marked by a record low turnout: 28.1 per cent, up 12 per centage points compared with the 2013 poll.
In all, nine male candidates were standing in the presidential race for the five-year presidency.
The top two contenders are now expected to enter frantic discussions to win over the candidates who were knocked out in round one.
A small Mediterranean island, Cyprus has been divided along ethnic lines since 1974, when Turkish troops seized its northern third in response to an
Both Anastasiades and Malas openly support a solution based on the principles of a bizonal, bicommunal federation (BBF). Another major issue topping voters’ concerns has been the state of the economy.
In March 2013, Cyprus reached a deal to secure an emergency international rescue package to shore up its ailing banking sector and avert financial meltdown.
It successfully concluded its multi-billion-dollar bailout programme three years later.
Malas has been criticised for being part of the AKEL 2008-2013 government, which is blamed by many Cypriots for the economic malaise of recent years.