CYPRUS:DEMETRIS CHRISTOFIAS yesterday became the first communist to be elected president of Cyprus and the EU's only communist head of state and government.
Mr Christofias, the first secretary general of the communist Akel party to stand for the presidency, won 53.4 per cent of the vote against 44.6 per cent cast for former foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides, the candidate of the right-wing Democratic Rally party.
The race was not a straight left-right contest. Mr Christofias had the backing of 60 per cent of voters who in last Sunday's first round cast their ballots for incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos, the defeated candidate of the centrist Democratic Party.
The electorate in the Greek Cypriot majority republic has traditionally split evenly between left, right and centre, with the left generally backing centrist or independent candidates.
Mr Christofias is expected to award the Democratic Party major portfolios in his cabinet.
During the hard-fought campaign, Mr Christofias pledged to relaunch reunification negotiations with Turkish Cypriots in the breakaway Turkish occupied north of the island. He argued that Akel was well placed to promote fruitful contacts with Turkish Cypriots because of the party's links to their trade unions.
Negotiations were suspended in 2004 after Greek Cypriots turned down a UN plan for reunification in a referendum. Mr Papadopoulos, who contended that the plan gave Turkey its demands at the expense of Greek Cypriots, was blamed for its rejection.
Mr Christofias says he will pursue a well-prepared and structured approach to negotiations.
Although Akel remains a Marxist-Leninist party and has adopted a cautious approach to Europe, Mr Christofias has also promised not to interfere with the island's free-market economy or with the republic's fulfilment of EU requirements.
As a goodwill gesture towards the bloc, Marios Kyprianou, the European commissioner for health and consumer protection, is likely to be appointed foreign minister.
Mr Christofias was born in 1946 in the Kyrenia district of Cyprus. He became involved in leftist politics as a youth and took a history degree at the Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow. He rose through Akel's ranks, was elected to parliament four times and served as its speaker from 2006.