Parliament elects Sakellaropoulou as Greece’s first female President

In a rare display of political consensus, the Greek parliament approved judge Ekaterini Sakellaropoulou to be the next President of the Hellenic Republic. The first female president of the conservative country was voted with a broader majority on the first round reaching more approvals than the essential 200.

She was approved with 261 votes from New Democracy, SYRIZA and KINAL/PASOK. 33 lawmakers from KKE, MeRA25 and Elliniki Lysi, voted “present.” MPs cannot vote “no” in such the procedure to elect the President.

From the 300 lawmakers, 294 were present.

The new President will take the oath on March 13, when the incumbency of current President Prokopis Pavlopoulos officially ends.

During this period, 63-year-old Sakellaropoulou will refrain from her duties as president to the country’s top court, the Council of State.

She was the personal choice of prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, even though New Democracy voted against her, when SYRIZA proposed her for the Council of State in 2018.

Following the vote in Parliament, Mitsotakis said that Sakellaropoulou is a unifying figure who demonstrates that political parties can find consensus on major issues.

Aikaterini Sakellaropoulou

Sakellaropoulou was born in Thessaloniki and studied law at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. She completed her postgraduate studies at public law in Paris.

In the mid-1980s, she was admitted to the Council of State and she was promoted to councellor on 2000. On October 2015 she was appointed as the vice president of the Council of State, while on October 2018 she was unanimously elected to the post of the president of Council.

The judge broke the mould when she was elevated as the first woman to the helm of the country’s highest court in October 2018.

She is known for her sensitivity to civil liberties, ecological issues, minority and refugee’s rights.

She is a supported of Aris FC, likes travels, movies and cats.

she is divorced with one daughter.

Media describe the vote as “historic for the Greek democracy.”