Nicosia, Cyprus. Petros Nacouzi was elected on Sunday as the Maronite Cypriot non-voting representative in parliament, winning 51 per cent of the vote.
He received 1,606 votes, while his only opponent, Marios Mavrides, won 1,519 votes.
Background
Nacouzi is 56 and works as an accountant. He co-founded the accountancy firm Forvis Mazars in 2007 and remains a managing partner there.
He replaces Yiannakis Moussas, who held the role from 2016 until last month. Earlier this month, Moussas told President Nikos Christodoulides during a meeting that conditions for the Maronite Cypriot community had improved in recent years.
He said the improvements included better infrastructure in the villages and a sharp increase in the number of Maronite Cypriots moving to traditionally Maronite villages in the north, supported by higher subsidies and incentives from the government.
He said: “You know very well that without our villages, we have no hope of surviving.”
Parliamentary representatives
Nacouzi will sit alongside the non-voting representatives of the Armenian Cypriot and Latin Cypriot communities, Vartkes Mahdessian and Antonella Mantovani, who were both elected unopposed earlier this month.