Galery

1

With 233 votes "for" the Greek parliament has elected Prokopis Pavlopoulos of New Democracy president of Greece. He was nominated by the two ruling parties, SYRIZA and Independent Greeks, and supported by the MPs of New Democracy during the vote.

His opponent in the race for the highest post in the state was his colleague at the Law School of the University of Athens Nikos Alivizatos. He was supported by a total of 30 MPs, all of them being members of the parliamentary groups that had proposed his candidacy, namely Potami and PASOK.

MPs of Golden Dawn and the Communist Party of Greece voted for neither of the two candidates.

An hour before the vote parliamentary spokesman and former minister in the previous government Kyriakos Mitsotakis had stated on his Facebook profile that he would not participate in the vote, not to vote against Prokopis Pavlopoulos. He defended his decision by saying the following:

"I respect Prokopis Pavlopoulos as a professor and outstanding lawyer with deep scientific knowledge. His course in politics so far cannot convince me that he is the most appropriate for Greece’s president for the following three reasons:

He did not oppose the clientelist state, he failed to effectively deal with one of the major crises in our history, namely that in December 2008, and he does not express the position of Greece in united Europe in the way I would like him to."