Cyprus Presidential Elections, February 2013: A Systemic Approach

Abstract

In this article the author takes a systemic approach to analyzing the Cypriot presidential
election of February 2013 and understanding the post-1974 Cypriot party system in general.
His first part presentation is threefold: a. The events that preceded the election, starting with
an explanation on how the previous government’s poor performance affected the pre-election
configuration. b. The three main candidates, their political profiles, advantages and
disadvantages. c. The result of the first round and the run-off election.
In the second part he studies DISY and AKEL, the two poles of the Cypriot party system,
as two distinct but parallel success stories and analyzes the reasons of their political
predominance focusing on their systemic interdependence in the context of a bi-polar party
system of alternate domination. In conclusion the author integrates the findings of the two
parts and explains how the structure of the Cypriot party system affected the final result of
last February’s election.