According to the findings of a survey, the rather predictable presidential race of Cyprus could get completely shaken-up by the possible candidacy of Constantinos Christofides, the rector of the University of Cyprus.
Commissioned by Stockwatch, an online business portal, the survey asked voters to choose and state their preference among all the candidates for the presidential election in 2018, in addition to asking them regarding their opinions on the expected run-off between the two candidates that will prevail in the first round. Quite unsurprisingly, for every tested scenarios tested, the incumbent President Nicos Anastasiades won against both Akel-backed former Health Minister Stavros Malas, and Diko leader Nicolas Papadopoulos.
For the first round, Anastasiades won 27 percent votes, followed by Papadopoulos (16 percent), Malas (13 percent), and Yiorgos Lillikas (3 percent). Interestingly, 1 in 5 remained undecided, while 14 per cent of the population stated that they do not intend to vote.
With Christofides in the first-round mix, however, the dynamics changed completely, with both Papadopoulos and Anastasiades seeing their shares drop in favor of the latest candidate, despite having maintained their position otherwise. According to the voters’ preferences in this scenario, Anastasiades ended up with 23 percent votes, followed by Papadopoulos (14 percent), Malas (12 percent), Christofides (with an impressive 9 percent) and Lillikas (2 percent). The undecided population, however, remained as 1 in 5.
The poll results clearly shows that Christofides drew most his votes from Anastasiades and Papadopoulos’ pool, and from the pool of voters who had previously said that they did not intend to vote.
As of now, Christofides is yet to announce his candidacy for the Presidential elections in 2018.
The survey in questions was commissioned by Stockwatch from Cymar Market Research Ltd, and was conducted during a 7-day-period (from September 21 to 27). The survey comprised 1,006 telephone interviews that were conducted with voting-age individuals.
