How we’ve voted down the decades

By George Psyllides

By all indications, Sunday’s presidential election is not expected to spring any surprises, unless of course the polls got it all wrong, which wouldn’t be the first time.

A glance at the tables of past elections printed below show that previous elections tended to produce far more excitement. In 2008, for instance, incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos didn’t even make it to the second round. The late president did, however, beat his opponents in 2003 without needing one. Before that, the last time a candidate had won the election without a runoff was Spyros Kyprianou in 1983 when he won in the first round with the help of Akel.

In the 1970s there were no presidential elections. In 1973 President Makarios had run uncontested, as, in the end, did Kyprianou in 1978. The 1978 election was a controversial affair as Kyprianou’s opponent, Glafcos Clerides, decided to withdraw following the kidnapping of Kyprianou’s son, Achilleas. Kyprianou had also been appointed the acting president after Makarios’ death in 1977.

The presidential elections in 1968 might as well have been uncontested too as Makarios sailed to victory with 96 per cent of the vote amid reports of intimidation and bullying against his opponent Takis Evdokas and his supporters.

But surely the most exciting election ever was in 1993 when Clerides unexpectedly beat incumbent Giorgos Vassiliou by the narrowest of margins.

In the first round Vassiliou garnered 44.1 per cent to Clerides’ 37.1 per cent. All then seemed set for a Vassiliou win in the second round. It was not to be. In the dramatic runoff, the veteran politician finally won his first term in office when he pipped Vassiliou to the post with 50.31 per cent to Vassiliou’s 49.69 per cent.

ELECTIONS SINCE 1968