Businessman John Christodoulou said on Tuesday he was considering standing in the 2028 presidential election after being approached by representatives of more than one political party, and would announce his final decision early next year.
In a statement responding to recent media reports and calls from journalists, Christodoulou said many people had asked him over the past few months whether he would run. He had not yet made up his mind, he said, and would not take the decision lightly.
“I am not a politician. I have never wanted to become one,” he said, adding that he had never planned a life in politics.
But he said he could not accept the state the country was in, and that political decisions could not keep being made solely to win more votes at the next election.
Christodoulou said the cost of living kept rising while wages fell further behind, something he had seen first-hand over the past ten years through the work of his charitable foundation. There were families who could not afford to fill their fridges, a few people sleeping on the streets, and people afraid to leave their homes because of violence in certain neighbourhoods, including his own area of Kaimakli, he said.
He also pointed to the Cyprus problem, which remains unresolved 52 years after the Turkish invasion. Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots still cannot return to the homes they were forced to leave, he said, while the old mentality of ‘them over there, and us over here’ continues.
Christodoulou said he believed he could make a real difference, particularly in security, the economy and social welfare.
He said he was also thinking carefully about what standing would mean for his family and his life at this stage, and often asked himself whether he wanted to take such a different path. He would take time to reflect and listen to people whose judgement he trusted before deciding, he said.
