Demetris Christofias

Mr. Demetris Christofias was born in Dhikomo, Kyrenia District, now in the area occupied by Turkish troops, on 29 August 1946. He studied at the Institute of Social Sciences in Moscow and has a doctorate in history science from the Academy of Social Sciences of the Soviet Union. At the age of fourteen he joined the Pancyprian United Students Organisation and in 1964 he became a member of AKEL, of the Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO) and of the United Democratic Youth Organisation (EDON). In 1969, at the 5th Congress of EDON, he was elected member of its Central Council. In 1974, following the completion of his studies in Moscow, he returned to Cyprus and was employed by EDON, where he was elected to the post of Central Organisational Secretary and, in 1977, to the post of General Secretary. He served at this post until 1987. In 1976 he was elected member of the Nicosia-Kyrenia District Committee of AKEL. In 1982 he was elected member of the Central Committee, in 1986 member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee and in 1987 member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the party. Following the death of Ezekias Papaioannou, AKEL’s General Secretary, on 10 April 1988, he was appointed Acting General Secretary by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the party. On 22 April 1988 the plenum of the Central Committee elected him to the post of general secretary of the party’s Central Committee, a post to which he was re-elected four more times (1990, 1995, 2000 and 2005). In 2004 the Department of International and European Economic and Social Studies of the University of Macedonia awarded him an honorary doctorate. At the parliamentary elections of 19 May 1991 he was elected Member of the House of Representatives standing as an AKEL-Left-New Forces candidate in Kyrenia and was re-elected at the parliamentary elections of 26 May 1996, 27 May 2001 and 21 May 2006. He was elected President of the House of Representatives for the Eighth Term of Office of the House (2001-2006). On 1 June 2006 he was re-elected President of the House for the Ninth Term of Office. He was ex officio chairman of the Committee of Selection and chairman of the Ad Hoc House Committee on Rules of Procedure and of the Special House Committee on Declaration and Examination of Financial Interests. He was also president of the Executive Committee of the Cyprus Branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and of the Executive Committee of the Cyprus Group to the Inter-Parliamentary Union. He is married to Elsi Chiratou and has two daughters and a son. He was elected President of the Republic of Cyprus during the Presidential Elections of February 2008.