Cypriots guarded in vote runup
A few days before they vote in their country’s first parliamentary elections since joining the European Union, 61 percent of Cypriots say there is no way a deal to reunify the island will be reached in the next few months, according to a poll published yesterday. Cypriots are due to vote on Sunday and the AKEL party of President Tassos Papadopoulos was ahead by 2 percent in a poll published in the Simerini newspaper yesterday. However, according to a VPRC poll on behalf of Sunday’s Kathimerini only 52 percent of Cypriots believe the country has benefited from joining the EU in 2004. Papadopoulos took Cyprus into the EU after the majority of Greek-Cypriots rejected the reunification blueprint sponsored by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. According to the VPRC poll, 58 percent of Cypriots think any new effort to reunify the island should be based on a radically different plan. Nevertheless, 57 percent of Cypriots say they would prefer to live together with Turkish Cypriots rather than be separated.
