Utopos candidacy rejected on grounds of sanity

FOR the first time in 18 years, Costas Kyriakou, aka Utopos (the Utopian), will not be running in the May 22 parliamentary elections, as his candidacy was rejected by the chief elections officer , it was announced on Friday.

Utopos become a household name in Cyprus when he first ran for the presidential elections in 1998 promising to bring utopia, love and happiness if elected.

He has taken part in all subsequent presidential and parliamentary elections as an independent, but has never been successful, tallying no more than a few hundred votes, mostly from disgruntled voters.

After he submitted his candidacy earlier this week, an objection was raised by members of the public  which has been evaluated by the state legal services.

The objection questioned the grounds on whether he fulfilled all criteria to run for parliament – specifically, if he was of sound mind.

Evidence to the contrary was submitted and upon examination, it was decided that he will not be able to run for the elections. His deposit of 500 euros will be returned.

Utopos is a farmer from Paphos and apart from his ideas on how to make the world a better place, he claims that ‘the powers that be’ are trying to stop him from fighting the corrupt regime.

He has cited the CIA and Mossad agents for interfering in the ‘system’ and claimed that in the presidential elections held in 2013, he actually reaped 73.8 per cent of the votes.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.