The former Foreign Minister of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, who emerged victorious in the first round of the presidential elections on February 5 with 32 percent of the vote, will have to face diplomat Andreas Mavroyiannis, who came in second with little less than 30 percent, in the second round that will be held on February 12. The winner will succeed outgoing conservative president Nicos Anastasiades, who has led the Mediterranean island for a decade.
The two candidates are independent. Christodoulides is running with the support of the right-wing Democratic Rally (DISY) party, until now in government, while Mavroyiannis is running with the support of the communist-rooted AKEL party. The campaign - marked by immigration and by the crisis resulting from inflation - has been dominated by Christodoulides, the leader in the polls who has established himself as the candidate who goes beyond ideological differences and who can unite a fractured electorate. “This is the first time that an independent candidate like Christodoulides has managed to unite the entire right,” says Umut Özkirimli, a researcher at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals and at the Barcelona Center for International Affairs. For his part, Mavroyiannis defied the polls by attracting the electorate dissatisfied with a decade of Anastasiades rule, especially AKEL supporters.
For his part, Mavroyiannis, who was the main negotiator in the peace talks with the Turkish Cypriots under the government of the outgoing Nicos Anastasiades, defied the polls - which placed him in third place - by attracting the electorate dissatisfied with a decade of Anastasiades government , especially AKEL supporters.
Who has been left out for the second round is the leader and candidate of DISY, Averof Neofytou. Neither his solid career as a veteran of Cypriot politics nor his supposed strong hand in dealing with economic instability were not enough to correct the mistakes of the outgoing administration, which has been compromised by allegations of corruption and the controversial "Golden Visa" program. , which granted a Cypriot -and European- passport to foreigners in exchange for an investment of one million euros. Thousands of foreigners - especially Russians - received Cypriot citizenship in this way, before the program was suspended in 2020, and many were involved in money laundering cases.
The direction that the easternmost country of the European Union takes for the next five years will depend on the candidate who wins the elections on Sunday. In addition to tackling mounting financial problems, the future president will have to lead Cyprus in an evolving geopolitical environment, manage rising migration and clean up a national image tarnished by corruption scandals. But above all, the possibility of resuming the island's reunification talks will depend on it, which have been at a standstill since the last attempt promoted by the UN in 2004, when a referendum was held under the so-called Annan Plan on the unification.
“The two candidates were somehow involved in the negotiations, but they clearly have different views on how to deal with the issue,” says Cypriot political scientist and analyst Andromachi Sophocleous. While Mavroyiannis, Anastasiades' mediator in the latest round of negotiations with the Turkish Cypriots, vowed to turn the page during the campaign and assured his intention to pick up negotiations where they left off in Crans Montana, Switzerland, Christodoulides is known for taking a stricter line. regarding the reunification talks. "Christodoulides rejects the proposal to make a bicommunal Federation, and wants to start negotiations from scratch."
The island of Cyprus has been divided between Turkish Cypriots in the north and Greek Cypriots in the south since 1974, when Turkish troops invaded the north of the island in response to a Greek-backed coup. Ankara does not recognize the Republic of Cyprus, which has been an EU member state since 2004 and internationally recognized as the sole sovereign authority over the entire island. Several attempts to find a compromise agreement over the years have failed. The last round of negotiations was held in 2017 in Crans-Montana and ended without agreements, despite the personal intervention of the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, due to disputes over thorny issues such as the withdrawal of Turkish troops from the Mediterranean island. .
"There will never be reunification," says Özkirimli, who argues that Erdogan would never allow himself to lose control of the north of the island. And he adds that, likewise, the Republic of Cyprus no longer has incentives to unify with its -poorer- neighbors to the south: "the EU made the mistake of offering Cyprus the opportunity to enter the EU without the condition of first reunifying the island," he declares. Sophocleous shares his reflection with a slightly more optimistic tone: “Reunification is objectively very difficult. A lot of political will is needed on the part of Turkey and the international community, but also on the part of the people of Cyprus, who have been divided because of political speeches”.
Immigration has also played an important role during the campaign, as Cyprus is the EU country with the second highest number of asylum seekers per capita: "Most migrants come from the north, which incites far-right rhetoric according to the which the Turkish Cypriots from the north would want to change the demographic structure of the island”, laments Sophocleous, who also warns of the normalization of the extreme right and its speeches during the electoral campaign.
Nicosia is today the only divided European capital. In the middle is the “buffer zone”, a demilitarized zone controlled by the United Nations. The elections on Sunday are going to be decisive for the future of Cyprus, but the international situation will also have to be taken into account, with the elections in Turkey on the horizon, to anticipate what direction the Mediterranean island will take.
