Cyprus President Tassos Papadopoulos and eight others applied on Friday as candidates to run in the island’s Feb. 17 presidential election which could be key to reunification talks and Turkey’s hopes of joining the EU.
Papadopoulos, now leading opinion polls, is up against a popular Communist leader, a former foreign minister, a businessmen, a coroner and a candidate championing free love.
“I am sure we can make it,” Papadopoulos told reporters after submitting his candidacy.
Polls suggest it will be a dead heat, with Papadopoulos and another two candidates, Communist leader Demetris Christofias and right-wing backed Ioannis Kassoulides, unlikely to muster an absolute majority. A runoff could be held on Feb. 24.
The division of Cyprus into an internationally recognised Greek Cypriot south and a breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in its north remains a hurdle to Turkey’s bid to join the EU. The Greek Cypriots represent Cyprus in the bloc.
The EU has frozen membership negotiations in eight policy areas due to Ankara’s refusal to open its ports and airports to Greek Cypriot traffic.
Diplomats say after the election there could be a window of opportunity to re-engage in peace talks, effectively deadlocked since Papadopoulos led Greek Cypriot rejection of a U.N. reunification plan for Cyprus in 2004.
“We will continue to seek, without concessions, the solution we deserve,” Papadopoulos said.
Papadopoulos’s opponents say he is a hardliner who has isolated Cyprus with his tactics.
“We want to move forward, we don’t want to remain stuck in the deadlock of the past five years,” Kassoulides said, referring to Papadopoulos’s government.
Kassoulides and Christofias say they will attempt to build bridges with the Turkish Cypriot community. Papadopoulos has said he would be willing to re-engage in talks, and that he has prepared proposals on moving forward.
“There is a period of no elections which would allow people to focus on a finding a settlement. Clearly, there is also the issue of Turkey’s EU assessment coming up in 2009,” a Western diplomat in Nicosia said.
Candidates have chaffed over the form reunification should take. The principle of uniting Cyprus as a bi-zonal bi-communal federation is accepted by most but there are differing views on how it can take shape. (By Michele Kambas, Reuters)
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