NICOSIA – Present Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades is beginning with a first round on Jan. 28, 2018 while general elections will also be held in the northern third occupied by Turkey since an unlawful 1974 invasion.
Anastasiades, despite reneging on 2013 campaign promises not to allow confiscation of bank accounts to get an international bailout, and failing to help bring unity after walking away from talks with Turkish-Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci at the Swiss resort of Crans-Montana in July will the people still support him.
In 2015 Akinci and his elevation to the Presidency as a moderate brought hope that the island could come together again but that was dashed when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who refuses to recognize Cyprus and bars its ships and planes, said he would never remove an army on the island and wanted the remain to militarily intervene.
Turkey wants to join the EU to which the legitimate government on Cyprus belongs while the occupied territory is recognized in the world by only Turkey. Turkish-Cypriots are eager to get the benefit of EU membership.
Apart from the Presidency, Turkish-Cypriots vote for other offices on Jan. 7 after the date was moved up seven months to get ahead of the Cypriot elections.
Since its last general elections back in January 2013, the occupied territory has had three different coalition governments under three separate prime ministers.
Nicholas Papadopoulos of the center-right DIKO party and Stavros Malas, backed by the Communist-linked AKEL party, are the main opponents for Anastasiades of the ruling center-right DISY party. A second round will take place on Feb. 4, if needed.
If Anastasiades wins there are hopes he will then reach out to Akinci for yet another try at negotiations, a decades-long frustration that has seen a long line of diplomats, United Nations envoys and politicians fail to bring the two sides together.Turkey said part of the fault belongs to the EU for bringing in Cyprus in 2004 as a divided country.