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Profile: New president of Greece Prokopis Pavlopoulos

Xinhua, February 19, 2015 Adjust font size:

Conservative former interior minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos was elected on Wednesday by the Greek assembly as the next President of the Hellenic Republic with the backing of the left-led government coalition and the main opposition New Democracy party.

Born in the city of Kalamata in the Peloponnese peninsula in 1950, Pavlopoulos went on to study at the Athens University Law School and pursued postgraduate studies at the Paris Pantheon-Assas University in 1975 under a French scholarship program.

Pavlopoulos received his doctorate in Public Law in 1977 with an honorable mention.

Upon his return to Greece and after completing his military service, he entered academia as a lecturer in 1981, before rising to the rank of professor of public law in 1989 at the Athens University Law School.

In 1986, he was named visiting professor at the Paris Pantheon-Assas University. He has published several books, papers and articles, the majority of which are in the legal field.

Due to his expertise as a constitutional lawyer, Pavlopoulos has consulted top Greek statesmen.

In 1974, he was secretary to former president Michail Stassinopoulos. The two developed a close relationship during the military junta in Greece (1967-1974) when the latter was under house arrest.

Pavlopoulos served as government spokesman in the right-led ruling coalition with the left from 1989 to 1990.

From 1990 to 1995, he served as head of the legal office to president Konstantinos Karamanlis, and political advisor to former chairman of New Democracy Miltiadis Evert.

In the general elections of 1996, he was elected as member of parliament for the first time with the New Democracy party. He was re-elected in all national polls ever since and has been a deputy until the dissolution of the previous parliament on new year's eve.

Pavlopoulos did not run for office in the Jan. 25 Greek general elections.

He served as Greek interior minister from 2004 to 2009.

He is a member of New Democracy's Central Committee and in 2004 was designated as a member of the party's Political Council.

Pavlopoulos is married to Vlassia Pavlopoulou-Peltsemi, and they have three children. Endit