[NYC-L] new Greek PM

[Jeton Ademaj]

from todays nytimes, everything old is new again...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/09/international/europe/09greece.html?pagewanted=print&position=

Conservative Parliament Votes for a Socialist as Greece's President
By ANTHEE CARASSAVA

THENS, Feb. 8 - Greece's conservative-controlled Parliament on Tuesday voted 
in the longtime Socialist politician Karolos Papoulias as the country's 
president, heading off early national elections.

Mr. Papoulias, 75, a former foreign minister who was among the founders of 
the Pasok Socialist party, replaces Kostis Stephanopoulos, 78, the country's 
most revered politician.

Mr. Papoulias, who is thought of as an affable and moderate politician, 
garnered strong cross-party support, winning 279 of the 300 votes counted in 
the vote. He was the sole candidate for president, the top, though highly 
ceremonial, political post.

His election allows the conservative New Democracy government of Prime 
Minister Kostas Karamanlis to finish serving its full four-year term. It 
reflects a first step toward recovery for Pasok while its leader, George 
Papandreou, struggles to revive its flagging fortunes after a landslide 
defeat in nationwide elections last March.

According to the Greek Constitution, general elections are called if 
Parliament fails to elect a new head of state in three rounds of voting.

The nomination of Mr. Papoulias, a generally mild-mannered lawyer who 
entered politics 40 years ago, took many Greek pundits and politicians by 
surprise in December.

Mr. Karamanlis, however, justified his selection, saying Mr. Papoulias met 
all the requirements for the presidential job: consensus, moderation, 
prudence and disengagement from the daily grind of politics.

"Mr. Papoulias's election will benefit all of the Greek people," Mr. 
Karamanlis said before lawmakers voted.

First elected to Parliament in 1977, Mr. Papoulias retired from active 
politics four years ago. Nearly 80 percent of Greeks supported his 
nomination in a poll conducted by the Kappa Research agency in December.

Since then, leftist parties have condemned Mr. Papoulias's nomination, 
saying it was one of "political opportunism" by the country's two major 
parties.

His choice also presents a political paradox, according to a former 
conservative lawmaker who is now aligned with the Pasok opposition party.

"Mr. Papoulias is an affable, respectable person," the lawmaker, Andreas 
Andrianopoulos, said in an interview. "He personifies, however, the policies 
conservatives loathed and fought against for years."

Mr. Papoulias served a string of junior and ministerial posts at the Foreign 
Ministry since 1981, when Pasok - the acronym stands for Panhellenic 
Socialist Movement - soared to power on the strength of a promise to take 
Greece out of NATO and join the nonaligned movement.

In the 1990's and at the helm of the Foreign Ministry, he encouraged 
confidence-building measures with Turkey and strengthened Greece's 
traditional ties with Serbia, then ruled by Slobodan Milosevic.

His greatest diplomatic exploit came in 1995, when he successfully brokered 
the release of 257 United Nations workers held hostage by Bosnian Serb 
warlords in Pale.

Five years later, when he was the head of the Greek Senate's foreign affairs 
committee, Mr. Papoulias visited Serbia at the invitation of the Belgrade 
government to observe elections that led to Mr. Milosevic's precipitous 
fall.

Mr. Papoulias will be sworn in March 12, at the official expiration of Mr. 
Stephanopoulos's five-year term.