Former Foreign Minister Nicos Christodoulides maintains a significant lead over all other candidates for the presidential elections in the South, according to all polls to date. Christodoulides, who was forced to resign from Anastasiades’ government last January following pressure from the leader of the ruling DISY party and his current rival for the Presidency in the South, Averof Neophytou, finally ran as an independent candidate, remaining at the same time a member of DISY.
Despite accusations of apostasy by the DISY leadership and strong rumours that the party would proceed to expel him last week, Averof Neophytou finally announced that the party would not take any action against Christodoulides. The latter has already secured the support of the Democratic Party (DIKO) of Nicolas Papadopoulos and the Socialist Party EDEK under Marinos Sizopoulos, while support from the Democratic Party (DIPA) of former Speaker of the Greek Cypriot Parliament, Marios Karoyan, is also considered very likely.
Supporters of Christodoulides, include the Orthodox Church, with Christodoulides maintaining strong relations with the highest clergy and Archbishop Chrysostomos II stating recently that the former Foreign Minister is “the first politician since Makarios to have a popular base”. Christodoulides’ opponents attribute intransigence on the Cyprus Issue to him, something he rejects. He maintains being clearly in favour of the Bizonal Bicommunal Federation, something on which, however, he does not emphasise much after gaining support from DIKO and EDEK. It should be noted that EDEK, has an official position rejecting the Bizonal Bicommunal Federation.
Another factor of concern to many is that Christodoulides’ dynamic wife, Philippa Christodoulides – Karsera, a high-ranking diplomat and former head of the General Secretariat for European Affairs who also served in Nicos Anastasiades’ Diplomatic Office in the Presidential Palace and who is known for her hard line on the Cyprus issue, will also exert influence over Nicos Christodoulides if elected.
Many believe that Christodoulides’ popularity is largely due to a very moderate profile that he has cultivated over the years since the former university professor and diplomat served as a government spokesman before becoming foreign minister.
Polls show him at 36-38% with Averof Neophytou, his party’s president, at just 14-16%. The polls show that DISY is practically split with half of it supporting Averof Neophytou and the rest supporting Nikos Christodoulides. In third place by a small margin is the independent candidate, former negotiator for the Greek Cypriot side also under Anastasiades,
Andreas Mavroyiannis. Mavroyiannis, who also declares himself a supporter of a Bizonal Bicommunal Federation solution, had recently put AKEL in a very difficult position when a few days after securing his support from the Left he said that during the failed negotiations in Crans Montana he had “fought more than anyone” for zero Turkish guarantees and zero Turkish troops in Cyprus after the solution.
The fear of solution supporters in the South is that with the Elections being held between the current Anastasiades’ party leader, his former foreign minister and his former negotiator in the Cyprus talks, none of the main candidates truly supports a bizonal bicommunal federation solution despite what they publicly claim.
The first round of Elections is set for 5 February 2023.
