Greek Lawmakers Unite to Back Tsipras on Head of State

by Eleni Chrepa & Antonis Galanopoulos

Bloomberg
February 18, 2015

Greek lawmakers elected Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras’s candidate Prokopis Pavlopoulos as the country’s president, supporting the premier’s call for consensus as Greece negotiates future financing with creditors.

A majority of 233 lawmakers in the country’s 300-seat chamber voted for Pavlopulos, member of the opposition New Democracy party, who succeeds outgoing President Karolos Papoulias, whose term expires next month. Pavlopoulos, 64, is a lawyer and professor of the Athens University Law School.

“Broader social, political consensus is a necessary prerequisite for tackling all difficulties,” Tsipras said in Athens Feb. 17 at the announcement of the candidacy of Pavlopoulos, former interior minister in Kostas Karamanlis’s government.

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