Parliament yesterday elected Karolos Papoulias, a former Socialist minister, as the next President of the Hellenic Republic with a record 279 votes in his favor.

Papoulias, 75, will succeed outgoing President Costis Stephanopoulos, who has served the maximum two five-year terms allowed by the constitution, on March 12.

Stephanopoulos had received 269 votes in his favor when re-elected in 2000.

Papoulias’s candidacy, proposed in December by Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis, was backed by both major parties. All present deputies of New Democracy and the opposition Panhellenic Social Movement (PASOK) voted in favor. The two present independent deputies, Stelios Papathemelis, a former PASOK minister elected with ND, and Stephanos Manos, a former ND minister elected with PASOK, also voted in favor.

Of the four absent deputies, two — ND’s Ilhan Ahmet and PASOK’s Costas Tsimas — wrote that they would have voted for Papoulias had they been present. A third, Andreas Andrianopoulos, like Manos a former ND minister elected with PASOK, gave no explanation but had publicly criticized Papoulias’s candidacy and his alleged “pro-third world” views when he was minister. The fourth was Communist Party deputy Antonis Skyllakos, whose party, along with the Left Coalition, a total of 17 deputies, replied “present” when their names were called.

After the vote, Parliament Speaker Anna Psarouda-Benaki and the five deputy speakers went to Papoulias’s apartment on Asklipiou Street to notify him of the result.

Both Karamanlis and PASOK’s George Papandreou praised Papoulias and the wide consensus, although Papandreou said government talk of consensus was “hypocritical.”