Cyprus election: Voters proceed to polls to desire president

Nicosia, Republic of Cyprus – Greek Cypriots are voting to grasp a president after an election advertising campaign targeted on the economy and the divided island’s suspended peace process.

Polling stations opened at 7am (05:00 GMT) on Sunday and ought to level-headed terminate at 6pm (sixteen:00 GMT), with a 60-minute damage at noon.

Results are expected by 830pm (18:30 GMT).

Some 550,000 americans just like the most attention-grabbing to vote in the ballot, which is contested by an all-male line-up of 9 presidential hopefuls in quest of a mounted 5-year timeframe in office. 

If, as expected, no candidate wins extra than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff shall be held between the demolish two challengers per week from Sunday.

Bustle for presidency

Incumbent President Nicos Anastasiades, of the most attention-grabbing-cruise Democratic Rally celebration, is projected to make a decision on the predominant round, after main all knowing polls in the breeze-up to the vote.

His closest challengers are Stavros Malas, an fair candidate backed by the communist celebration AKEL, and centrist Nicolas Papadopoulos, chairman of the Democratic Occasion.

The two opposition leaders are expected to strive against neck-to-neck for the second set of dwelling, that will stable one amongst them a role in the February Four runoff.

Christos Christou, of ELAM, a miles-correct celebration described as a copy-cat version of Greece’s Golden Morning time that won two seats in Cyprus’s Fifty six-member parliament in a 2016 election, is tipped to compete for the fourth set of dwelling with Giorgos Lillikas, who scored a surprise Zero.33 set of dwelling in the closing presidential vote 5 years previously.

Anastasiades speaks at a pre-election rally in Cyprus’s capital, Nicosia [Dimitris Sideridis/Al Jazeera]

The key points

Whereas there is minute of the stress of the 2013, when European Union member command Cyprus change into at the brink of a monetary meltdown, Sunday’s vote is a lot from a low-key contest.

The elections are the predominant since the country’s successful exit from a bailout programme in 2016 after the crumple of the foundations of its economy – largely its overblown banking sector, which change into carefully uncovered to debt-encumbered Greece.

They moreover approach correct about a months after the most modern United Nations-mediated effort to reunify the island broke down in acrimony at a peace convention in the Swiss resort of Crans Montana.

Cyprus has been divided alongside ethnic lines since 1974 when Turkish troops seized its northern Zero.33 in response to an Athens-impressed Greek Cypriot coup geared toward uniting the diminutive jap Mediterranean island with Greece.

Unsurprisingly, each and every the protracted Cyprus field and the command of the economy dominated voters’ concerns, as successfully as candidates’ campaigns, all around the pre-election length. 

The set candidates stand

Anastasiades, seventy one, ran his advertising campaign emphasising the recovery of Cyprus’s economy from terminate to crumple in the predominant days of his presidency 5 years previously. Help then, he clinched a take care of international collectors for a 10bn euro ($12.4bn) bailout, contingent upon shutting Laiki, the republic’s second-biggest monetary institution, and imposing losses on depositors to recapitalise top lender Bank of Cyprus.

The measures left deep scars on the society but many Greek Cypriots set the blame on the one that change into president for the old 5 years: Demetris Christofias, chief of AKEL.

On the Cyprus field, Anastasiades, a supporter of an answer based completely on the foundations of a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation (BBF), change into fiercely criticised by his opponents over the going thru of the failed Crans Montana talks. He has promised that, if elected, he’ll discover about to restart negotiations from the level at which they stopped.

Malas (R), Papadopoulos (C) and Anastasiades are seen because the demolish three candidates [Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]

For his portion, Malas, 50, a geneticist who change into beaten by Anastasiades in the 2013 presidential elections, moreover backs an answer to the Cyprus field on the foundation of BFF. He has accused Anastasiades of missing an « historic different » to determine a reunification deal and acknowledged he’ll meet the Turkish-Cypriot leadership quickly after the ballotto kick-open negotiations.

A old health minister, Malas has confronted criticism over his affiliation with Christofias’ executive. He has moreover approach below fire for being faraway from the central political scene for the majority of the past 5 years.

Papadopoulos, 44, the son of leisurely president Tassos Papadopoulos, who in 2004 rejected a UN Cyprus reunification blueprint, has adopted an rigid stance or reunification and allied with forces rejecting BFF.

The Cyprus field has been the predominant level of curiosity of his opposition to Anastasiades, whom he accused of granting « bad concessions » to the Turkish Cypriot aspect.

‘Powers of a monarch’

The presidency is the republic’s most highly effective political office – a legacy, in a technique, of the island’s prolonged-working political stalemate.

In step with the 1960 structure, Cyprus’s two predominant communities were to damage up vitality, with the govt. branch to be governed by a Greek Cypriot President and a Turkish Cypriot Vice President, who change into granted the most attention-grabbing of veto on foremost prison guidelines.  

The VP’s situation, nonetheless, has been vacant since 1963, when the Turkish-Cypriot neighborhood withdrew from the manager.

« Because the crumple of that system, the Greek Cypriots took in their hands the full powers, » says political analyst Christophoros Christophorou.

« This left important vitality to the president and the command of affairs because it’s at the present time provides the president powers [that resemble those of] a monarch, » he adds, noting that the president can appoint and hearth ministers, but does now not desire a vote of self assurance in parliament and can’t be impeached by MPs.