The Comeback of the Right in Crisis-Ridden Cyprus: The 2013 Presidential Elections

Abstract

The Cyprus 2013 presidential elections marked right-wing Democratic Rally's return to power after ten years in isolation. The huge economic crisis sidelined discussions on the Cyprus problem – arguably for the first time in Cyprus' electoral history. The elections verified the prevailing trends already apparent in the rest of Southern Europe: incumbent punishment in the midst of an unprecedented economic (and political) crisis and the parting of politics from society as evident from the high abstention rates and declining partisan loyalties. The article aims to provide insight into the country-specific characteristics of this contest which explain these outcomes. It suggests that the electoral result might be explained by Cypriots' disappointment regarding the stalemate of the Cyprus problem, their unrealistic expectations of a change in government and their disappointment in European Union and national political institutions in dealing with the economic crisis.

Keywords::

• Cyprus
• Presidential Elections
• Economic Crisis
• AKEL
• DISY
• Anastasiades
• Malas
• Lillikas

Notes

^1. The Constitution provides for a Greek Cypriot president and a Turkish Cypriot vice-president.

^2. Labour force survey 2012, Statistical Service of Cyprus, 21 December 2012.

^3. Anastasiades' Facebook page numbered 19,178 friends on 24 February, Malas' 13,609 and Lillikas's 9,393. The respective numbers for their twitter followers were: Anastasiades 1,462, Malas 533 and Lillikas 545. The data were retrieved by the author on 24 February 2013.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yiannos Katsourides

Yiannos Katsourides is a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies of the University of London and teaches political science at the University of Cyprus. His book The History of the Communist Party in Cyprus: Colonialism, Class and the Cypriot Left will be published by I. B. Tauris in 2014. Current work includes a comparative study of changing patterns of political participation and trust in political institutions in South European countries as well as euroscepticism in Cyprus politics.