NICOSIA, Dec. 29 Xinhua) -- Nine candidates registered to contest Presidential elections in Cyprus scheduled for January, an electoral official said on Friday.
Demetris Demetriou, chief electoral officer, said all nine candidacies became final and official after no objections were lodged against any of the candidates, six hours after the end of the registration deadline.
Pollsters agree that outgoing center-right President Nicos Anastasiades will win a second term either against left wing AKEL party candidate Stavros Malas or center of the road candidate Nicolas Papadopoulos, who is supported by his own Democratic Party and three other smaller parties.
Papadopoulos, a 44-year old economist, and Stavros Malas, a geneticist aged 50, are running neck-to-neck, according to all polls, for second place in the first round of the election on Jan. 28, to face Anastasiades in a run-off election on February 4.
The outcome of the election will decide whether negotiations for the reunification of the partitioned eastern Mediterranean island stand a chance to resume after they collapsed in July.
Most political analysts say that an electoral win by Nicolas Papadopoulos would lead to a prolonged inactivity as he is advocating a hard line stance against demands by Turkish Cypriots for an effective participation in the administration of a federal state.
Both Anastasiades and Malas, despite representing diametrically opposed political ideologies, look eye-to-eye on a Cyprus solution.
They both favor a settlement that would provide for a power sharing between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, and will do away with Turkey's intervention rights and the stationing of Turkish troops on Cyprus.
Cyprus was divided in 1974 when Turkey occupied its northern part in reaction to a coup by the Greek Cypriot nationalists in an attempt to incorporate Cyprus into Greece.
