DK Developers Cyprus Properties and Homes - DEMETRIS CHRISTOFIAS President

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DEMETRIS CHRISTOFIAS President

DEMETRIS CHRISTOFIAS

He was born on 29 August 1946 in the village of Dhikomo, Kyrenia. Christofias became involved in leftist politics early in his youth and held several positions with the youth movement of AKEL (the Progressive Party of the Working People of Cyprus). His father, who died in 1987, was a progressive builder, member of the Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO).
He had his secondary-school education at Nicosia Commercial Lyceum, from where he graduated in 1964.
At the age of 14, he joined the progressive secondary-school students’ organisation PEOM and at the age of 18 he joined EDON (AKEL's United Democratic Youth Organisation), PEO Trade Unions and AKEL. In 1969, at the 5th Congress of EDON, he was elected member of the Central Council.
Dimitris Christofias studied at the Institute of Social Sciences and the Academy of Social Sciences in Moscow from 1969 to 1974 from which he graduated with the Diploma and degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History (Ph.D.History). In Moscow he met his wife, Elsie Chiratou, and later returned to Cyprus and political life.

Demetris Christofias, the leader of the communist AKEL party, was sworn in as president of the Republic of Cyprus on February 28th, 2008, four days after defeating conservative former foreign minister Ioannis Kasoulides in a runoff vote for the post. He replaced Tassos Papadopoulos of the centre-right DIKO party as the Mediterranean island's sixth president since it was granted independence in 1960. Christofias was born on August 29th, 1946, in the village of Dhikomo, in the Kyrenia District in Cyprus's now Turkish-run north. The son of a builder, he completed his studies in history at the Institute of Social Sciences in Moscow in 1974 and holds a doctorate in history from the Academy of Social Sciences of the Soviet Union. Christofias entered politics at the age of 14, when he joined AKEL's youth organisation. In 1964, he became a member of AKEL, of the Pancyprian Federation of Labour (PEO) and of the United Democratic Youth Organisation (EDON), which he led from 1977 till 1987. Christofias rose gradually through AKEL's ranks before he was elected Secretary General of the party on April 22nd, 1988, following the death of Ezekias Papaioannou earlier that month. He has won four re-elections to the post since then, the latest in 2005. A proponent of Che Guevara, he is known for his penchant for wearing T-shirts featuring the Argentine-born Marxist-Leninist revolutionary. Christofias was first elected member of the House of Representatives in 1991 and won re-election in the subsequent parliamentary polls in 1996, 2001 and 2006. He was elected president of the House of Representatives in 2001 and then again in 2006. He left the administration in 2007. Christofias is fluent in Russian and English. He is married and has two daughters and a son.