President Tassos Papadopoulos was eliminated Sunday from Cyprus' presidential runoff in a major surprise after a cliffhanger election that saw three candidates neck-and-neck until the last minute, according to AP. The election, which will now be determined in a Feb. 24 second round, is seen as pivotal to the decades-old search for a deal to reunify the ethnically divided island _ a division that has proven a major stumbling block to Turkey's efforts to join the European Union. Communist party leader Demetris Christofias, 61, and 59-year-old former Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides of the right-wing DISY party will now vie for the five-year presidency in next Sunday's runoff. Papadopoulos, 74, had seen his slim lead in opinion polls eroded in recent weeks, but he had been widely expected to advance to the second round. The vote had been billed as a verdict on center-right Papadopoulos and his handling of the island's 34-year division. The president was instrumental in successfully urging Greek Cypriots to reject a U.N. reunification plan in 2004 which the Turkish Cypriots approved in referendums. With 99.7 percent of the vote counted, Papadopoulos had 31.74 percent, compared to 33.51 for Kasoulides and 33.33 for Christofias. Papadopoulos' concession came in a telephone call to Christofias to congratulate him, state-run CyBC television said.
