Tassos leads Cyprus TV poll for presidential race

Incumbent president Tassos Papadopoulos had a marginal lead over his former coalition partner Demetris Christofias in the first poll conducted by state broadcaster CyBC and shown on Wednesday night.

New contender Ioannis Cassdoulides came in third with four percentage points behind the leader.

President Papadopoulos, who is now relying on the votes of his own Democratic Party (DIKO) and the social democrat EDEK, as well as the smaller European Party (Evroko), mustered 30% of the potential votes in the first of at least three similar polls that CyBC has planned until the end of the year.

This has reinforced his campaign, led by former AKEL Foreign Minister Yiorgos Lillykas, that feared losing votes after the coalition with the communist party fell apart when House President Christofias said he would run for office in the February 2008 elections.

The communist AKEL leader got 29% I the CyBC poll, suggesting that the party has some serious internal issues and that some members have abandoned the party and moved to the Papadopoulos camp.

Euro MP Ioannis Cassoulides, a former Foreign Minister during the Clerides administration of 1993-2003, came in a disappointing third with just 26% in the CyBC poll, with members of the opposition DISY party crying foul.

The party’s mouthpiece, Alithia, criticized the public broadcaster of the way it handled the poll with DISY president Nicos Anastassiades talking of “fake” surveys.

On the other hand, the communist organ Haravgi found a different angle to the CyBC poll to conclude that its own candidate, Christofias, was “the most popular” and nearer to the public’s concerns.

Outsider Costas Themistocleous, a former agriculture minister in the Clerides administration and one-time challenger for the leadership of the small European Democrats (EDY) party, got 1%.