President Clerides of Cyprus Elected for Second Term

When Glafcos Clerides became president of this island nation five years ago, he said his priority would be to try to do away with the barbed wire that has sliced it in two for more than two decades.

He did not manage it in his first term, but at the age of 78 he fought tooth and nail for a second mandate to finish what he started--by keeping the Cyprus problem firmly in the international spotlight.

His warnings that the problem could be pushed down on the international agenda, should his challenger be elected, helped him to victory.

Sailing home with 50.8% of the vote, Clerides won a second five-year term Sunday, leaving challenger George Iakovou trailing with 49.2%.

Now, as Cypriots plunge into a year of intense political bargaining on resolving the partition logjam, and on the brink of entry talks with the European Union, they want Clerides to make good on his promise.

“We have to work, and shall work, all of us, for a just and viable solution to our problem. I think we must all look to the future and not to the past,” he said in a solemn message to Turkish Cypriots as he cast his vote Sunday.

They won’t have to wait long. In March, international mediators are expected to mount their most forceful initiative yet to relaunch stalled talks on resolving Cyprus’ division.

The success of the United Nations-sponsored initiative may depend on whether the Greek Cypriots can coax their reluctant Turkish Cypriot compatriots into joining them to negotiate European Union membership for Cyprus--itself seen as a stimulus to a settlement.

Seen as a moderate rightist, Clerides is worshiped by his supporters. For leftists, he is the man they love to hate.

Leftists will never forgive him for harboring right-wingers in his party whom they accuse of involvement in the Greek-led coup that provoked the Turkish invasion of the northern third of the island in 1974.

Ethnic Greeks now live in the south and Turks in the north, with a U.N. peacekeeping force of 1,200 wedged in between.