Greek Cypriots choose their president

NICOSIA – Agence France-Presse

Right-wing opposition leader and presidential candidate Nicos Anastasiades. AP photo

Greek Cypriots went to the polls Feb. 17 to choose a new president after a heated election campaign focused on rescuing the recession-hit E.U. member state from bankruptcy.

Nicos Anastasiades, 66, of the rightwing main opposition Disy party, is tipped to win the first round in which 550,000 Cypriots are eligible to vote, perhaps managing to cross the 50-percent threshold that would avoid a run-off a week later.

Asked after voting in the southern town of Limassol what the stakes were in the election, Anastasiades said it was about “survival of the country and nothing else.”

His closest challenger for is former health minister Stavros Malas, 45, an independent backed by the currently ruling communist AKEL party. “This is a day for the most important chapter in the history of the Cypriot people to be written,” Malas said after voting in the capital.