Decision time in southern Cyprus

The presidential elections in Greek Cyprus are ever more interesting for various reasons. Three camps have already formed. One is the Democratic Rally Party (DISI) supporting the incumbent president (and its former leader), Nicos Anastasiades, the second is a grouping of three center-right parties having joined and expressed support for Democratic Party (DIKO) leader Nikolas Papadopoulos (yes, the son of former EOKA member and late former President Tassos Papadopoulos) and the traditional communist party of Cyprus, the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL), which is still trying to decide who to support in a debate that is becoming a veritable Rubik's Cube through a maze of agonizing options and probabilities of success and failure.

Anastasiades has already been campaigning for re-election for months using and even fabricating events and "progress" in the ongoing Cyprus talks by turning the Cyprus problem into his political weapon.

No wonder Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (KKTC) President Mustafa Akıncı has been furious with him for some time and has increasingly lost all faith in him.

Under the current political climate in southern Cyprus, due to a radical erosion of confidence in his capability to deliver any sort of remedy to any of the daunting tasks faced by Greek Cypriots, Anastasiades has very little prospect of re-election. Definitely, even if he scores a miraculous electoral success no one anticipates, he is definitely not the one who might solve the Cyprus problem. 

At 15 percent, DIKO's Papadopoulos has two positives in his favor with all else being negative: His last name and pockets deep enough to finance his campaign, which he has started already ahead of the pack. The Papadopoulos family, through its...