Demetris Christofias

President, Republic of Cyprus

(BBC, DPA - 28/02/08; The Guardian, Independent - 25/02/08; AFP, CNN, Reuters, DPA, Bloomberg, CNA - 24/02/08; Official Website of the Presidency of the Republic of Cyprus)

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Demetris Christofias, the leader of the communist AKEL party, was sworn in as president of the Republic of Cyprus on February 28th, 2008, four days after defeating conservative former foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides in a runoff vote for the post. He replaced Tassos Papadopoulos of the centre-right DIKO party as the Mediterranean island's sixth president since it was granted independence in 1960.

Christofias was born on August 29th, 1946, in the village of Dhikomo, in the Kyrenia District in Cyprus's now Turkish-run north. The son of a builder, he completed his studies in history at the Institute of Social Sciences in Moscow in 1974 and holds a doctorate in history from the Academy of Social Sciences of the Soviet Union.

Christofias entered politics at the age of 14, when he joined AKEL's youth organisation. In 1964, he became a member of AKEL, of the Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO) and of the United Democratic Youth Organisation (EDON), which he led from 1977 till 1987.

Christofias rose gradually through AKEL's ranks before he was elected Secretary General of the party on April 22nd, 1988, following the death of Ezekias Papaioannou earlier that month. He has won four re-elections to the post since then, the latest in 2005. A proponent of Che Guevara, he is known for his penchant for wearing T-shirts featuring the Argentine-born Marxist-Leninist revolutionary.

Christofias was first elected member of the House of Representatives in 1991 and won re-election in the subsequent parliamentary polls in 1996, 2001 and 2006. He was elected president of the House of Representatives in 2001 and then again in 2006. He left the administration in 2007.

Papadopoulos, who was vying for re-election, dropped from the race following the first round of the vote on February 17th, when he came in third after Kasoulides and Christofias, who both vowed to push for the revival of talks on ending the island's 34-year-old division.

Christofias supported Papadopoulos in his first bid for the presidency in 2003 and then in his campaign against a UN-sponsored plan to reunify the island in 2004. The proposed settlement was overwhelmingly rejected by Greek Cypriot voters in a referendum in April that year. Although the majority of Turkish Cypriots voted in favour of the plan, eventually only the internationally recognised Greek Cypriot part of the island joined the EU on May 1st, 2004, representing the whole country.

With the support of the DIKO and the socialist EDEK parties, Christofias won the February 24th presidential runoff with an almost 7% lead over Kasoulides, who was 0.2% ahead of the AKEL leader in the first round of the vote. Addressing supporters, the president-elect promised to work for the renewal of the stalled peace process.

Once the results of the election became clear, Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat called the AKEL leader to congratulate him on his victory and the two agreed to meet in the near future to renew reunification efforts.

"I extend a hand of friendship to the Turkish Cypriot people and their leadership," Christofias said in his first post-election address before thousands of cheering supporters at the Eleftheria stadium, in Nicosia. He also voiced hope that the Turkish Cypriot leaders would show "substantive co-operation to the benefit of both communities, above all a just, viable and functional settlement of the Cyprus problem".

As he began his five-year mandate on February 28th, 2008, Christofias named achieving a solution to the Cyprus problem as the top priority of his government.

"The principal concern and duty of our presidency is the solution of the Cyprus problem," he said at the swear-in ceremony in parliament. "A solution, which will reunite the territory, the people, the institutions and the economy of our country in the framework of a bizonal, bicommunal federation... The federal, bizonal, bicommunal Republic of Cyprus must have a single sovereignty and international personality and a single citizenship. The solution must be based on the UN resolutions on Cyprus and be compatible with international and EU law as well as with international conventions on human rights."

Christofias is fluent in Russian and English.

He is married and has two daughters and a son.