Government candidate Prokopis Pavlopoulos, 64, has been <br />elected Greece’s new president in a parliamentary vote.<br /><br /> A conservative former interior minister, he was nominated by radical-left premier Alexis Tsipras who wanted a unity candidate. <br /><br /> Pavlopoulos got well over the 180 votes he needed, with his only rival for the largely ceremonial post far behind. <br /><br /> His election in the first round of voting was expected as the opposition New Democracy party had also declared its support for him.<br /><br /> Pavlopoulos served from 2004 to 2009 in a conservative New Democracy government.<br /><br /> It was Greece’s failed attempt to pick a president in December under ex-prime minister Antonis Samaras that led to the early parliamentary <br />poll that brought Tsipras and his anti-austerity Syriza party to power.<br /><br /> Pavlopoulos will replace 85-year-old Karolos Papoulias whose five-year term ends next month.
