Chief Returning Officer Costas Constantinou announced on Sunday evening the official final results of the first round of the 2023 Presidential Elections, once the counting of votes in all polling stations in Cyprus and abroad was completed. He also gave instructions to start printing the ballots for the repeat election next Sunday.
“I have already asked the Director of the Government Printing Office to start printing the ballots for the repeat election,” said Constantinou.
According to the official results, of the 561,273 registered voters, a total of 404,403 or 72.05% cast their vote. Abstention reached 27.95% (156,870). Valid ballots were 397,387 or 98.27%, invalid ballots were 5,346 or 1.32% and blank were 1,670 or 0.41%.
Therefore, valid ballots totaled 397,317 or 98.27%. In the first round of the 2018 Presidential Elections, the participation rate was 71.88% and therefore a 0.16 percentage points increase was observed this time.
Independent candidate and former Foreign Minister Nikos Christodoulides finished first in the first round of the presidential elections that took place on Sunday in Cyprus receiving 32.04% of votes (127,305 votes). Christodoulides is backed mainly by center parties DIKO, EDEK and DEPA.
Christodoulides will face next Sunday at a repeat election the independent candidate, former Greek Cypriot negotiator in the Cyprus talks and diplomat, Andreas Mavroyiannis, who us backed mainly by left wing AKEL party, received 29.60% (117,627) of votes.
Democratic Rally President and candidate Averof Neofytou came in third place with 26.11% (103,755). Far right wing ELAM President Christos Christou received 6.04% (24,002) followed by lawyer Achilleas Demetriades 2.04% (8,124), leader of New Wave Movement Constantinos Christofides with 1.59% (6,321), lawyer George Colocassides 1.33% (5,284), Alexios Savvides 0.60% (2,393), Charalambos Aristotelous 0.22% (866), Celestina De Petro 0.14% (574), Andronikos Zervides 0.09% (341), Ioulia Hovrina Komninos 0.08% (331), Andreas Efstratiou 0.08% (299) and Loukas Stavrou 0.04% (165).
Source: Cyprus News Agency