I know what many of you are thinking.  What do these two things have in common?  Well, we like to eat To Psi To, our favorite Cypriot take-out joint, every Sunday after church.  It’s starting to become our routine, as Piano Man has pointed out to us. 

(Prof picked out fish to try something new.) 

Sunday, February 17th was Cyprus’ presidential election.  If you remember my last post about Cyprus’ election process (voting is compulsory and the presidential election has to be won with a 51% majority of the votes), then you should know that one of the presidential candidates’ office (also the front runner in the race) is located right next to To Psi To. 

It was a serious mad house at To Psi To, and people double-parked behind us to get their food too. ( I wished I had brought my camera yesterday, but alas, I forgot.) 

(Here is a photo of the winning candidate’s office in the first round.  Photo taken a few months ago.) 

And by the time the evening news rolled around, one could see all the political pundits giving their perspective on the election.  People said the front-runner was a shoe in to win, but he only won 45%+ of the votes.  He’s now got to face off in a run-off election against the second place winner.  An online new source titled in the article about Anastasiades as the winner, but must face a run-off election. 

I had to laugh at the title.  If you are in a run-off election, uh excuse me, but you didn’t win the election yet.  But I did wonder how many previous elections is a run-off election common in Cyprus?  Well, it seems that almost every single presidential election since 1988 has had a run-off election, except during the 2003 election when there was dispute over the Annan Plan of Cyprus. 

The Annan Plan for Cyprus was a U.N. proposal to resolve the ongoing dispute between the Republic of Cyprus and the occupied area in the north.  The plan was to help unite the two communities as a “United Republic of Cyprus” but as two separated federated states “joined together by a federal government apparatus.” 
A referendum vote was held in 2004, which Greek-Cypriots overwhelming voted no, while a majority of Turkish-Cypriots voted yes on the referendum.  Interestingly, the presidential candidate who won in 2003 was for the referendum, while the candidate who lost wasn’t ready to agree to all the terms in the Annan Plan. 

But back to the story of the 2013 Presidential election in Cyprus.  We’ll have to wait until February 24th to see who will be the next President of Cyprus, serving the next five years.