At the age of 49, Nikos Christodoulidis is elected President of the Republic of Cyprus.

Nikos Christodoulides has won and is now the 8th president of the Republic of Cyprus. The independent candidate received over 51.91% of the votes over the AKEL-backed independent candidate Andreas Mavroyiannis.  Mavroyiannis, however, did win a respectable number of votes at just over 48.09%, proving he has a strong show of support from the public.  Out of 561,273 registered voters, 406,626 (72.45%) voted in this election.  A strong turnout at 72.2%.

Former foreign minister Nikos Christodoulides, 49, faced 66-year-old fellow diplomat Andreas Mavroyiannis after last Sunday’s inconclusive first round. Christodoulides, who defected from the conservative ruling DISY party to run as an independent, scored 32.04 percent a week ago, against 29.59 percent for Mavroyiannis, who is backed by the communist AKEL party.

He holds a BA in Political Science, Economics, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies from the City University of New York, Queens College, with MA in Political Science from New York University. He holds a PhD from the Department of Political Sciences and Public Administration of the University of Athens. 

He was a career diplomat from 1999 until 2018. During this time he served, among others, as Consul General at the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus in the United Kingdom, Deputy Head of Mission of the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Athens and Press Representative of the Cyprus Presidency of Council of the EU at the Permanent Representation of the Republic of Cyprus in Brussels.

He was also Director of the Diplomatic Office of the President of the Republic (2013-2018) and as Government Representative (2014-2018). On March 1, 2018, he was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs, a position he held until his resignation on January 11, 2022.