Cypriot presidential election, 2008
|
|||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
The Cypriot presidential election of 2008 was held on 17 February 2008, with the runoff held on 24 February 2008. The second-round winner, and thus the President of Cyprus for the next term, was Dimitris Christofias.
The first round, held on February 17, saw a close result between three leading candidates, Dimitris Christofias of AKEL, Ioannis Kasoulidis of Democratic Rally, and the incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos. Results showed Kasoulidis in first place with about 33.51%, Christofias in second with 33.29%, and Papadopoulos in third with 31.79%. Christophias and Kasoulidis therefore participated in a second round on February 24. The elimination of Papadopoulos in the first round was viewed as surprising.
In the second round, Christofias won with 53.37% against 46.63% for Kasoulides. He was sworn in as President on February 28.
According to the exit-polls, Papadopoulos was voted by 40% of "No" voters in the Annan referendum and 5% of the "Yes". Christofias by 35% of the "No" and 34% of the "Yes" voters and Kasoulidis by the 24% of the "No" and 62% of the "Yes" voters.
Papadopoulos (DIKO) announced in late July that he would run for re-election. In early July 2007, the ruling coalition (consisting of DIKO, AKEL and EDEK) fell apart due to a lack of consensus on a common candidate for the presidential elections; AKEL general secretary Dimitris Christofias was proposed as a common candidate by AKEL, but rejected by DIKO and EDEK (who both will support Papadopoulos' bid for reelection), which AKEL took as a reason to leave the ruling coalition. Thus both Papadopoulos and Christophias contested the election.
...
Wikipedia