Bookie’s odds place Christodoulides as favourite to win presidential race

Nikos Christodoulides is by far the bookmakers’ favourite to win the February presidential elections with his odds at 1.45/1.

That means a bet of five euros on the former foreign minister would return €7.25, should he indeed win.

At almost double the odds is Disy leader Averof Neophytou with 3/1, while Andreas Mavroyiannis is at 10/1 – according to the popular betting site Stoiximan.

Achilleas Demetriades is next up with his odds at 25/1, followed by Elam’s Christos Christou at 50/1 along with former University of Cyprus rector Constantinos Christofides also at 50/1.

Just this week Dipa announced that it will support Christodoulides’ bid, pending final confirmation from the party’s upper echelons on Saturday. He has also received backing from Edek, Diko and the hunters’ party.

Opinion polls across multiple networks have consistently shown Christodoulides to be the clear favourite in the upcoming elections.

The latest poll was published by Sigma earlier this month – but the 1,018 people were interviewed in late September – and found Christodoulides to be solidly in the lead with 31 per cent of the prospective vote.

The poll showed Neophytou securing second place with 19.3 per cent, followed by Mavroyiannis’ 16.5 per cent. Outside of the three main candidates, Demetriades scored best at 4.2 per cent.

The data collected were in response to how people would vote in the first round if the elections were held right now.

Those results were largely in line with previous polls, with some analysts stating that they do not see much ground shifting by the time ballots are cast – with 83 per cent of those polled stating that they are absolutely or probably certain of their vote.