Pavlopoulos candidate for President

Pavlopoulos is professor of constitutional law and a member of the New Democracy party, having served as Minister of Interior in the government of Kostas Karamanlis.

The first parliamentary vote for Pavlopoulos will take place on Wednesday at 19.30. Areinforced majority of 180 MPs will be required for him to be elected, a figure which he will easily get as New Democracy has stated its intention to vote for him. 

The announcement, made during a meeting of SYRIZA’s parliamentary group took some by surprise as Dimitris Avramopoulos, also a former New Democracy minister, was being groomed to get the nomination.

Avramopoulos is the current EU Commissioner for Migration and Home Affairs. Should he have become president, Alexis Tsipras would have been in a position to name his replacement.

However it was reported that the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker and his European People’s Party were strongly opposed to the Home Affairs portfolio being transferred from Avramopoulos to a figure from the leftist SYRIZA party, with Juncker apparently threatening a major reshuffle of responsibilities were that to occur.

However the prime minister said that the ‘Left had never been arrogant in the face of history’ and said that the pressing need now was for the country to be unified.