Ioannis Clerides member of the Colony's Executive Council (under the British colonial government) but resigned in 1956, protesting the deportation of Archbishop Makarios III to the Seychelles. In 1959 he was a candidate for President in Cyprus' first presidential election in 1959, with the support of AKEL, but was defeated by Archbishop Makarios III. Notably, his own son, Glafcos Clerides, supported Makarios over his father. He was awarded the QC and CBE by the British government. Ioannis Clerides died in 1961, aged 74. Ioannis Clerides Ioannis Clerides or John Clerides (Greek: Ιωάννης Κληρίδης, 1887 - 1961) was a Greek Cypriot lawyer and
Makarios III Klerides visited Makarios in an unsuccessful attempt to promote a solution. On 15 July 1974 Ioannides took Makarios by surprise by organizing a coup d'état in Nicosia at 8.15 in the morning when Makarios' forces were off guard. Makarios fled Cyprus when the coupist forces took control of the whole of Cyprus and was replaced by Nikos Sampson, a Cypriot newspaper editor and politician. Speaking to the UN Security Council on 19 July 1974, Makarios denounced the coup as an "invasion", engineered by the Greek military junta, which "violated the internal peace of Cyprus". Five hours after Makarios' address to