23 Facts About Demetris Christofias

Demetris Christofias was a Cypriot politician, who served President of Cyprus from 2008 to 2013.

Demetris Christofias was previously President of the House of Representatives from 2001 to 2008 and General Secretary of the Progressive Party of Working People from 1988 to 2009.

Demetris Christofias remains the only communist head of state in the history of both Cyprus and the European Union.

Demetris Christofias was born on 29 August 1946 in Kato Dikomo, British Cyprus, to a Greek Cypriot family.

Demetris Christofias had a sister who once donated her kidney to him for a life-saving kidney transplant.

Demetris Christofias received his high school education at Nicosia Commercial Lyceum, from which he graduated in 1964.

Demetris Christofias spent five years in Moscow, where he earned a PhD in history from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

At the age of 14, Christofias joined PEOM, a progressive high school student organisation.

In 1974 Demetris Christofias was elected to the post of the Central Organising Secretary of EDON and in 1977 to the post of General Secretary.

In July 1986, Demetris Christofias was elected as an alternate member of the Political Bureau of AKEL.

Demetris Christofias was elected as a Member of the House of Representatives for the first time in 1991 and was re-elected in the subsequent parliamentary elections of 1996 and 2001.

Demetris Christofias was re-elected as President of the House of Representatives in 2006.

Demetris Christofias was ex-officio chairman of the House Standing Committee on Selection and chairman of the ad hoc House Standing Committee on Rules of Procedure and of the Special House Standing Committee on Declaration and Examination of Property.

Demetris Christofias was president of the executive committees of the Cyprus group to the Inter-Parliamentary Union and of the Cyprus branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

Demetris Christofias was sworn in as president at a ceremony in the House of Representatives on 28 February 2008, vowing that "the solution of the Cyprus problem will be the top priority of [his] government".

Demetris Christofias's first government was a coalition between his own party AKEL, Marios Garoyian's Democratic Party and Yiannakis Omirou's Movement for Social Democracy.

Demetris Christofias started talks with Mehmet Ali Talat on the reunification of Cyprus as a bizonal federal state, but his hopes for Greek Cypriot approval of such a plan were soon scotched by the nationalists' victory in Northern Cyprus' 2009 parliamentary elections.

Demetris Christofias rejected the results of the investigation and denied any personal responsibility for the tragedy.

Demetris Christofias found himself confronted in parliament, where his party held only one third of seats, with the majority of other politicians refusing his proposal to increase taxes on the banks responsible for the crisis.

Demetris Christofias announced on 14 May 2012 he would not seek re-election for a second term in the next year, citing a deadlock in talks on the island's reunification.

Demetris Christofias left office on 28 February 2013, following the presidential elections, and remains the only Cypriot president not to seek re-election.

Demetris Christofias met Elsie Chiratou while studying in Moscow, and they returned to Cyprus together before marrying in 1972.

Demetris Christofias described himself as an atheist, which was unprecedented by a Cypriot political leader due to the island's overwhelmingly Greek Orthodox outlook.