SURPRISE, SURPRISE: INCUMBENT PAPADOPOULOS THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 NICOSIA 000116

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/17/2023
TAGS: PGOV PREL UNFICYP CY TU
SUBJECT: SURPRISE, SURPRISE: INCUMBENT PAPADOPOULOS THE
FIRST-ROUND LOSER

REF: A. NICOSIA 114

B. 07 NICOSIA 1006

Classified By: Ambassador Ronald Schlicher, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: Incumbent Republic of Cyprus President
Tassos Papadopoulos failed February 17 to advance to the
second round; instead, challengers Ioannis Kasoulides (DISY,
center-right) and Dimitris Christofias (AKEL, left) will do
battle February 24. News of Papadopoulos's defeat left
Cyprus in mild shock, as nearly every pre-election opinion
poll showed him leading the race. Reasons for the surprise
outcome include the unreliability of Cypriot polling, the
larger parties' superior cohesion and mobilization,
Papadopoulos's overconfidence and inability to deliver a
knockout blow in the debates, a larger-than-expected overseas
vote, chinks in the President's control over media, and even
local reaction to the impending Kosovo independence
declaration. The Papadopoulos camp already is feeling offers
for its still-significant vote haul, and likely will demand
plum positions in the government in exchange for second round
support. The Embassy will comment Septel on the impact of
the hard-line President's departure on Cyprus Problem
negotiations. END SUMMARY.

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A Fait (Pas) Accompli
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2. (U) Of fifty-odd opinion polls published since the
Cypriot presidential race hit full swing in late 2007,
Papadopoulos led in all but one, a January 11 "Politis"
(opposition) newspaper survey that gave Kasoulides a 0.2
percent advantage. Electoral law prohibited the publishing
of polling data after February 10; the final tranche of
surveys gave the President an advantage of between 0.5 and
2.4 percent over his nearest challenger; significant, but
still within the margin of error. Most experts predicted an
even closer race, since overseas Cypriot voters, amounting to
perhaps four percent of the electorate and untallied in
opinion polls, figured to favor Kasoulides or Christofias. A
massive (9,300 voters surveyed) Cyprus Broadcasting
Corporation exit poll gave Christofias the lead, albeit by a
scant single point.


3. (SBU) Despite inclement weather -- a rarity these days in
drought-stricken Cyprus -- voter turnout reached historical
norms at nearly 90 percent. There were no reports of verbal
or physical clashes at polling stations, and results were
tallied, transmitted, and announced in the capital Nicosia in
record time. The outcome varied widely from most pollsters'
predictions. Right-wing challenger Ioannis Kasoulides, whom
most experts had dismissed as hopelessly mismatched last
summer, scored a surprising first-round win with 33.5
percent. Christofias, at 33.3 percent, trailed by just 900
votes. Stunningly, incumbent Papadopoulos, whose campaign
team had oozed such confidence that they refused to discuss
losing, was sent home early with only 31.8 percent of the
votes. Both winners trod the high ground in victory speeches
to their faithful, praising Papadopoulos's service to Cyprus
and promising to welcome his supporters into their ranks.

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Reasons for the Loss? Not One, But Many
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4. (C) Like pathologists carving a cadaver, Cypriot
commentators and Embassy contacts rushed to conduct the
Papadopoulos post-mortem. All agreed that a combination of
factors underpinned the incumbent's surprising defeat. They
included:

-- The Unreliability of Cypriot Polls: Anecdotally, we'd
argue that few countries are as over-polled as Cyprus.
Voters since January saw multiple surveys every week; to meet
demand from TV stations, newspapers, and the candidates
themselves, pollsters seemingly cut corners, such as
restricting sampling to easy-to-contact groups like the
elderly ( who strongly favored Papadopoulos). Marketing
company contacts also revealed that campaign staffs sometimes
cooked the results to present better pictures of their
respective candidate's electoral prospects (Ref B). Other
Embassy interlocutors asserted that public servant and
parastatal corporation employees' responses were unreliable,
since many of them, fearing their responses could be
compromised, instead voiced insincere support for the
incumbent.


NICOSIA 00000116 002 OF 003


-- High Turnout, High Cohesion Favors Challengers:
Kasoulides's DISY and Christofias's AKEL are Cyprus's largest
parties, typically garnering over 30 percent each in
parliamentary elections. Papadopoulos's hopes depended on
breaking their "syspeirosy," or cohesion, while maintaining
that of his DIKO party and its allies EDEK, EUROKO, and the
Greens. The alarm bells that sounded in both DISY and AKEL
in January/February -- which showed Papadopoulos stealing
over ten percent from each -- seem to have woken up local
officials and the rank-and-file. DISY and AKEL contacts
claimed the parties had worked day and night to rein in the
turncoats. Unofficial election night results put AKEL
cohesion at 90 percent, with DISY only slightly behind (but
ahead of DIKO's 84). EDEK and EUROKO tallied only 70 and 67
points, however, far fewer that Papadopoulos required.

-- Chinks in Tassos's Media Armor: In meetings with
challengers' staffs early in the campaign, all complained
that the President enjoyed near-total control over the media.
Not only could (and did) he influence substantive coverage
to benefit his re-election, but Papadopoulos could prevent
competitors from buying airtime, column inches, or even
billboard space. His TV domination seemed particularly
complete, with state broadcaster CyBC, Antenna, Mega, and
Sigma all supporting the incumbent. In mid-January, however,
we learned that media baron Costas Hadjicostis had broken
from Papadopoulos in a fit of pique, and had informed his
station, as well as newspaper Simerini and Radio Proto, "not
to touch Kasoulides and Christofias." Also, opposition
newspaper "Politis" turned up the heat on the incumbent the
last month, daily documenting the administration's failings
on the Cyprus Problem, worsening relations with Brussels, and
domestic scandals.

-- Overseas Voters Arrive in Droves: Pollsters never sampled
Cyprus's numerous overseas voters, the majority students
residing in Great Britain and Greece. Early estimates put
their numbers at 15,000, but that would rise to 22,000
shortly before the first round, comprising four-plus percent
of the electorate. As DISY and AKEL youth branches
historically had dominated student elections in those
countries, conventional wisdom held that Kasoulides and
Christofias would enjoy a huge advantage with the diaspora.
DIKO attempted to compensate by offering its supporters free
rides home (the other parties covered approximately 75
percent). Confident Papadopoulos confidantes even claimed
DIKO could win the overseas vote outright. Unofficial
polling, however, showed the bigger parties prevailing with
expats.

-- No Knockout Blow February 14: Despite an admirable
economic record as President -- sticking solid technocrats in
key government positions, turning a budget deficit into a
surplus, and securing Cyprus's Eurozone entry -- Papadopoulos
centered his re-election campaign on his effective
stewardship of the Cyprus Problem. Neither opponent could be
trusted withstand "suffocating pressure" from the
Anglo-Americans for an imposed settlement, he boasted. Most
pundits expected the President to score a big victory in the
February 14 debate that dealt solely with the national topic.
They got it wrong. While Papadopoulos avoided gaffes and
showed his typical command of CyProb historical minutiae, he
offered few way-forward specifics and failed to convince
fence-sitters that only he could manage Cyprus negotiations.

-- Reeking of Confidence...or Arrogance?: Creating an
impression of inevitability long featured high on the
Papadopoulos team's to-do list. For instance, campaign
manager George Lillikas, himself a professional pollster,
insisted that any survey published contained not only a "how
do you intend to vote" figure, but also a "who is likely to
win" one, the latter always showing the President far in the
lead. DIKO contacts, like party leader Marios Karoyian, so
confidently predicted they were second-round shoo-ins that
they refused even to speculate on how they might vote if they
failed to advance. Such bravado suggests they may have left
an electoral stone or two unturned -- lacking AKEL and DISY's
grass-roots strength and organizational acumen, we doubt the
party conducted similar door-to-door canvassing, for example.
Health problems also forced Papadopoulos to scale back
campaign appearances the last three weeks of the campaign
(his spokesman claimed he suffered only from the flu,
although opposition press alleged the president was suffering
kidney failure).

-- On Kosovo, No Love from Moscow: Russia had provided
Papadopoulos an electoral lifeline in December. Suffering a
long series of foreign policy black eyes, from Syria

NICOSIA 00000116 003 OF 003


initiating ferry service to "occupied" northern Cyprus, to
the German parliament passing a Turkish Cypriot-friendly
resolution, the President turned the tide when Russian
Foreign Sergei Lavrov visited Cyprus in December. Lavrov
seemingly read from Greek Cypriot talking points, and
Papadopoulos boasted how Russia was watching Cyprus's back.
It therefore stung sharply when Deputy PM Sergei Ivanov,
commenting February 10 on Kosovo's imminent independence,
asserted that, "if the EU (sic) recognizes Kosovo, it should
also recognize Northern Cyprus." Days later, Vladimir Putin
gave a similar rebuke to Europeans' alleged inconsistency
vis-a-vis Kosovo and the north, forcing Papadopoulos into a
lawyerly defense -- the Russian president actually was
supporting the Republic with his commentary, he
unconvincingly claimed. Regardless of Ivanov and Putin's
intent, the end result here was that certain opinion leaders
began questioning the solidity of Russia's support for
Nicosia.

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Willing to Listen to All Comers
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5. (C) With the second round a short week away, the victors
and the vanquished will engage in serious negotiations,
trading support for government positions (Ref A).
Pro-government daily "Phileleftheros" reported February 18
that Papadopoulos had informed Karoyian that the two must
jointly discuss DIKO's decision over whom to support.
Karoyian allegedly was leaning DISY's way, having approached
the right-wing party in the latter stages of the campaign
(this clearly contradicts what Karoyian told the Ambassador
February 14, when he claimed that pre-election contacts of
that sort were "inappropriate.") Others in DIKO wanted to
punish AKEL for dissolving the governing coalition in July
2007 and ushering in Papadopoulos's departure from office.
Socialist EDEK, too, will face a tough decision -- align with
ideologically similar AKEL and risk being absorbed into that
much-larger party, or support DISY, a party it has criticized
stridently since 2004.

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Comment:
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6. (C) Post will comment Septel regarding the likely effects
of Papadopoulos's departure on Cyprus Problem negotiations.
In general, pro-solution types on both sides of the Green
Line are jubilant that 67 percent of Greek Cypriots voted
"OXI" to Tassos Papadopoulos, turning the page on an ugly,
divisive period in their history and, they hope,
re-establishing their international reputation as a community
genuinely committed to reunification of the island.
SCHLICHER