Former Cyprus overseas minister Nikos Christodoulides elected President

Former Cyprus overseas minister Nikos Christodoulides was elected the President of the small EU member state.

Nicosia ,UPDATED: Feb 13, 2023 02:24 IST

Former overseas minister of Cyprus Nikos Christodoulides received the Cyprus presidential election on Sunday. (Photo: Twitter)

By Reuters:

Nikos Christodoulides received the Cyprus presidential election on Sunday after a second and last spherical of voting, promising a unity authorities tasked with breaking a impasse in peace talks with estranged Turkish Cypriots.

Official outcomes confirmed Christodoulides, 49, taking 51.9% of the vote, in contrast with runoff rival Andreas Mavroyiannis, 66, taking 48.1%.

Sunday’s vote pitted Christodoulides, a former overseas minister, in opposition to profession diplomat Mavroyiannis, a former chief negotiator within the peace talks with Turkish Cypriots and a former everlasting consultant of Cyprus to the United Nations.

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Christodoulides ran as an impartial with the backing of centrist and right-of-centre events.

But he broke ranks together with his personal get together, the right-wing DISY, inflicting fissures within the dominant Cypriot political grouping which had backed its chief who was eradicated within the first knock-out race final weekend.

“What is most important is that the day after the elections we are all united,” Christodoulides stated earlier as he solid his vote.

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Christodoulides has steadily been within the public eye prior to now decade, both as authorities spokesman or as overseas minister till early 2022, with the persona of a younger, energetic politician providing contemporary concepts.

Mavroyiannis conceded defeat and congratulated Christodoulides. “Tonight is the end of a long but nice journey … I want to thank from the bottom of my soul all those who travelled with me,” he stated.

The subsequent president faces issues starting from a impasse in reunification talks with Turkish Cypriots on the ethnically divided island, and labour disputes amid runaway inflation, to the fallout from corruption scandals and a spike in migration that has left authorities dealing with hundreds of asylum functions.

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Presidential elections are held as soon as each 5 years. Nicos Anastasiades, a conservative of the ruling DISY get together, has been in energy since 2013, having been re-elected in 2018. By legislation, he can’t search a 3rd time period.

Cyprus’s division for greater than half a century loomed massive over the marketing campaign. The island has been divided since a 1974 Turkish invasion, triggered by a coup instigated by Greece’s then-ruling navy junta, although the seeds of division have been sown earlier.

The final spherical of peace talks collapsed in disarray in mid 2017. Christodoulides says he desires to renew talks, however says a United Nations framework governing talks, issued in 2017, needs to be renegotiated.

Posted By:

Raajnandini Mukherjee

Published On:

Feb 13, 2023