NICOSIA, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Nicos Anastasiades, leader of the right wing Democratic Rally (DISY) party, won Sunday's presidential election in Cyprus, the Cypriot electoral commission announced.
Anastasiades gained 57.48 percent, or 236,965 votes of the polling in a second round runoff against 42.52 percent for communist-backed Stavros Malas, media reports said, adding that he would make a statement at 1900 GMT.
The second round of presidential elections was made necessary because no candidate had won over 50 percent of the vote in the first round last Sunday.
Officials at Malas' electoral headquarters conceded defeat and congratulated Anastasiades on his electoral success.
Thousands of Anastasiades' supporters gathered outside his Democratic Rally party headquarters for celebrations.
Many more were expected to pack the premises of a basketball field where he will be officially declared as president-elect later in the evening.
His press spokesman said the president-elect will extend an invitation to all political forces to come forth and take part in a national salvation government.
Anastasiades was slated to officially take office on March 1.
He will be burdened with the nightmarish task of running an almost broken government, following mismanagement of the economy by the outgoing government of President Demetris Christofias.
The island's situation was further worsened because of heavy losses by the main banks' holding of large amounts of devalued Greek bonds.
Anastasiades is in favor of quickly concluding a bailout deal provisionally agreed between Christofias's government and the troika-the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
However, a provisional bailout sum of up to 17.5 billion euros (23.08 billion U.S. dollars), which is equivalent to the island's GDP, would make the sovereign debt unmanageable.
Anastasiades has said that he had made arrangements to obtain what he called a bridge loan from unspecified sources, to give him a breathing space of up to two months so he can negotiate a more favorable deal with international lenders.
A final bailout deal was held up by objections from German politicians, who were locked in an election campaign for a vote to be held in the autumn. They have demanded more concessions by Cyprus, including increasing a 10 percent corporate tax and submitting to a survey of its anti-money laundering practices.
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