National final Competing entries The
Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) confirmed its participation in the 1986 contest on 19 November 1985 and opened a submission period for entries until 11 January 1986, that was extended until 20 January 1986. By the end of the submission period, CyBC had received 64 entries. However, three entries were disqualified during the initial presentation of the songs when they were found to break the preselection rules.
Format On 6 February 1986, after the song submission period, CyBC held a meeting to discuss the selection procedure of its entry for the Eurovision Song Contest 1986. The national final was held on 19 February 1986 in the Hall of Nations in the Filoxenia hotel in
Nicosia. In the first stage, the submitted recordings of all 64 songs were presented, the invalid entries were removed from the competition, and each jury member chose their sixteen favourite songs, after which the votes were collected. The sixteen songs with the highest number of votes progressed to the second stage. In the second stage, the sixteen songs were presented again and were then whittled down to eight songs, which were then whittled down to four and then two songs. The winner was chosen out of the final two songs, where each juror gave one vote to their favourite song. }
Artist change Shortly after the national final, Peter Yianniki entered discussions on how to stage and perform "" at the Eurovision Song Contest with CyBC. Peter Yianniki proposed that the song be performed by a group of three boys and three girls, with Panikos Charalambous being the main singer. However, CyBC believed that the entry should be sung by a different singer, as they believed Panikos Charalambous' voice was more suited to folk songs, and started looking for famous Greek singers to represent Cyprus. On 19 March 1986, CyBC announced that a 3-member group had chosen Elpida to replace Panikos Charalambous as the singer of "" at the Eurovision Song Contest in Bergen. == At Eurovision ==