Communist in pole position as Cyprus votes for president

Cypriots were voting for a new president on Sunday with communist leader Demetris Christofias in pole position to become the strategic Mediterranean island's new head of state.

Christofias, 61, is running against conservative former foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides, who narrowly won the first round of the election last Sunday when voters dumped incumbent Tassos Papadopoulos.

The outcome of the election is expected to give a major boost to efforts to end the 34-year division of the island regardless of which candidate proved victorious.

"We have a vision, we have a history of struggle and contact with the people in our efforts to reunify our country without foreign troops," Christofias said after he and his wife, Elsie, cast their votes.

"At this time I want to send a message of friendship to ordinary Turkish Cypriots, a message of a common fight to reunite our homeland so we are in charge of our own affairs without foreign intervention," he added.

Kasoulides urged Cypriots to vote saying "they will decide whether we go forward in the heart of Europe using all the rights that a member state has to progress but also in efforts to free us from occupation and invasion."

Turnout after about three hours of voting was nearly 17 percent.

"Today, we have better prospects and hopes of securing a solution that we deserve. I hope the new president takes advantage of this," said Papadopoulos after voting.

Christofias, who was barely 1,000 votes behind Kasoulides in the first round, has since won the endorsement of three smaller parties that had backed Papadopoulos.

Police reported that offices belonging to the Socialist EDEK party -- which has endorsed Christofias -- had been vandalised, but overall polling was running smoothly for the around half-a-million Greek Cypriots eligible to vote.

MEP Kasoulides, 59, has the support of the island's influential Orthodox Church but is otherwise reliant on the backing of the island's main right-wing DISY party.

If Christofias wins he would become the European Union's only communist head of state and make the island the only European country with a communist president apart from ex-Soviet Moldova, just over 16 years after the Soviet Union's collapse.

Cyprus is host to two large British military bases that house a string of super-sensitive listening posts that provide Western powers with intelligence on the Middle East and the former Soviet Union.

Amidst the ideological rivalry of the Cold War the prospect of a communist president on the island could spark serious concern in Western capitals.

Even though in domestic terms he was no left-winger, Archbishop Makarios III, who led the island from independence from Britain in 1960 to his death in 1977, was dubbed the "Castro of the Mediterranean" for the non-aligned stance he took towards the then superpowers.

Polls opened at 0500 GMT and are due to close at 1500 GMT with the outcome expected to be clear by 1730 GMT even though the definitive result was not due before around 2000 GMT.

For the first time, some 400 Turkish Cypriots living in the government-run south of the island were eligible to vote. Turkish Cypriots in the breakaway state in the north, declared in 1983, were not eligible to vote.

Christofias and Kasoulides alike have vowed to accelerate negotiations with the Turkish Cypriots which went nowhere under the leadership of Papadopoulos.

The outgoing president led Greek Cypriots in voting down a UN reunification plan that was overwhelmingly endorsed by Turkish Cypriots in simultaneous referendums in 2004, with the result that a divided island joined the European Union the following month.

A UN peacekeeping force has been deployed on the island ever since communal disturbances first broke in 1963. The island has been divided along largely ethnic lines since Turkish troops invaded in 1974 in response to a Greek Cypriot coup aimed at union with Greece.

Cyprus has no post of prime minister and executive power rests essentially with the president who is elected for a five-year term.

But the intense horse-trading that led to Christofias's endorsement by the smaller parties during the week means that, if victorious, he will have to share power with them.

Greek Cypriot media reported that the communist leader had promised the centre-right DIKO party of Papadopoulos three ministries including the foreign affairs portfolio and the socialist EDEK party two.

The deal is likely to limit his freedom of manoeuvre on the Cyprus problem as the two centre parties historically take a far less flexible approach than either the communist AKEL party or the right-wing DISY.