Communists win Cypriot poll

Voting in Cypriot is compulsory

NICOSIA, Cyprus -- The Cypriot Communist party AKEL has won the island's parliamentary elections with 34.7 percent of the vote.

According to final results on Monday, the pro-European AKEL party was only just ahead of the right-wing Democratic Rally party (Disy), the largest party in the outgoing parliament, which captured 34 percent.

Allocation of seats in the 56-member parliament has not yet been concluded, but AKEL was tipped to capture 20 seats, gaining one more deputy in the chamber than it held previously.

The centrist Democratic Party won 14.84 percent of the 467,000 votes cast. The Socialist KISOS party won 6.51 percent and four other smaller parties took 3.0 percent of the vote and under.

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The poll was the last before the Republic of Cyprus makes its attempt to join the European Union.

AKEL, which claimed victory even before half the votes were counted, and a smaller party, New Horizons, were the only two of the eight parties running that substantially increased their lead compared to the parliamentary vote of 1996.

"We will continue to strive for national unity to bring about the reunification of Cyprus on the basis of Security Council resolutions and for reconciliation with the Turkish Cypriot community," AKEL leader Dimitris Christofias told supporters.

The election was restricted to the southern Greek Cypriot government controlled part of the island. The north has been under Turkish occupation since 1974.

AKEL, the Greek acronym for the Reformist Party of the Working People, has been averaging a third of the vote in parliamentary elections since the island became independent from Britain in 1960.

A total of 453 candidates, 86 of them women, ran for 56 parliamentary seats.

Voting is compulsory for the 467,182 registered Greek Cypriot voters, including 60,000 new voters over the age of 18, who became eligible for the first time since the 1996 election.

A key responsibility of the 56-member parliament in coming months will be to get through a mountain of legislation needing ratification as Cyprus concludes its accession negotiations with the EU.

Both the communists and Disy are considered pro-European and have moderate views on how to resolve the long-running division of Cyprus between a Greek-Cypriot south, covering two-thirds of the island, and a Turkish-Cypriot north.

With AKEL a firm supporter of rapprochement with the Turkish Cypriots, its general-secretary Demetris Christofias made a point of referring to them as "compatriots" in his first address after declaring victory.

"This result increases our responsibilities in the struggle to reunite our country and our people, Greek and Turkish Cypriots," he said.

The parliamentary elections are widely seen as a test bed for the presidential election in 2003.

AKEL has never contested a presidential vote on its own and may seek alliances with others.