NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cypriots will vote Sunday for a new president whom they hope will decisively lead the small island nation through shifting geopolitical arenas and uncertain economic times that have become people’s top concerns. , overshadowing stalled efforts to remedy the country’s ethnic situation. division.
The month-long campaign has been lackluster, mainly because the top three candidates are all close associates of outgoing President Nicos Anastasiades, so their battles have focused on trying to persuade voters that they’re not all cut from the same cloth. .
At the same time, they have been seeking votes from all ideological lines trying to evade the long shadow cast by the right-wing Anastasiades, whose critics have accused him of allowing corruption to fester during his two-term, 10-year tenure. tenure. Anastasiades has vehemently denied the allegations.
Out of a record field of 14 candidates, the leading candidates include Averof Neophytou, the leader of the centre-right, pro-business Democratic Rally Party (DISY), which Anastasiades previously led; and Nikos Christodoulides, former foreign minister and government spokesman in the Anastasiades administration. The third leading candidate is Andreas Mavroyiannis, a former diplomat and Anastasiades’ chief negotiator with dissident Turkish Cypriots in the peace talks.
Opinion polls indicate that none of the three will gather more than half of the votes, the limit for an outright victory in the first round. Instead, the top two will likely advance to a runoff a week later. Some 561,000 citizens have the right to vote.
Opinion polls have always given Christodoulides a lead of as much as 10 points over Neophytou and Mavroyiannis, meaning he is likely to take one place in the second round, while the others grapple for the other.
The ‘Anastasiades connection’ has been a central issue for voters, but also for the president himself, who in a recent interview with the prominent newspaper Phileleftheros bragged that he felt “somewhat vindicated” in his leadership by the fact that three of his associates are vying to succeed him.
Neophytou, 61, took the reins at DISY from Anastasiades a decade ago and has campaigned on his reputation as a skilled political operator who can get the job done and steer the economy through tough times. His campaign slogan, “Averof Can,” evoking former US President Barack Obama’s “Yes We Can” mantra, is based on that message.
But it’s that reputation that seems to have hurt him at the polls, as many voters perceive him as an overly manipulative insider tinged with the “sins” of Anastasiades’ decade in office, such as the now-defunct investment in citizenship program that gave rise to allegations of corruption. Neophytou has been desperately trying to consolidate the DISY vote behind his candidacy since polls showed up to a third of party members back Christodoulides, who began his political career through the party.
A career diplomat with a successful record, Mavroyiannis, 66, is running as an independent but is backed by the communist-rooted AKEL party. Although AKEL is the second largest party on the island, the ill-fated presidential term of its late leader Dimitris Christofias 15 years ago, which critics say brought the island to the brink of bankruptcy, remains a burden on the party and, even certain point, for Mavroyiannis himself.
Mavroyiannis is campaigning as the change agent who, unlike his competitors, was not involved in the “10 years that really hurt” the country.
Christodoulides is also a career diplomat. At 49, he has managed to carefully carve out his image as an effective and modern leader who can confidently rub shoulders with other European Union leaders thanks to his experience at the Foreign Ministry. His soft-spoken, youthful approach has endeared him to voters who don’t associate him with the ineffectual bombast of the older political generation. However, some DISY faithful see him as a “traitor” for running against the party boss and splitting his votes.
Whoever wins will have to deal, like many other EU leaders, with an economy battered by Russia’s war in Ukraine and its knock-on effect on the cost of living. Cyprus has registered economic growth, but opinion polls show widespread public unease over high inflation.
The new president will also need to address the continuing massive influx of migrants that has made Cyprus one of the top EU countries in terms of asylum claims per capita.
It is also likely to want to speed up development of major offshore natural gas deposits within Cyprus’ exclusive economic zone amid a renewed search for alternative energy sources sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
A quick political settlement that resolves the island’s nearly half-century ethnic divide would facilitate that, but the outlook looks bleak as the parties appear further apart now than at any time since the split occurred in 1974 when Turkey invaded after a blow destined for union. with Greece.
The demand by Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots to recognize a breakaway state before peace talks can begin is seen as a failure and condemned by the EU, US and others.
