Greece's Ex-Interior Minister Elected Parliament Speaker

Greece's former Interior Minister Nikos Voutsis was elected Sunday as the country's speaker of parliament that emerged from the Sept. 20 elections.
The 64-year-old civil engineer was elected with 181 votes in the 300-member strong parliament with the support of the left-wing radical SYRIZA, the junior party in the current ruling coalition, the right-wing Independent Greeks (ANEL) party, as well as opposition parties.
The ANEL and SYRIZA parties control 155 seats in the parliament.
Voutsis succeeds Zoe Konstantopoulou, who became the country's youngest ever parliament speaker with record votes in February.
The 38-year-old former SYRIZA parliament member, who ran in the Sept. 20 elections with the anti-bailout Popular Unity party that was formed after a SYRIZA party split over Greece's third bailout program, failed to enter the parliament.
Konstantopoulou was heavily criticized during her term even by SYRIZA legislators over her chairmanship style.
Meanwhile, Voutsis, a soft-spoken leftist, has won the respect of political opponents in his previous terms as the interior minister from January to August in 2015 and as a legislator. He was first elected to the parliament in the May 2012 elections.
He is married, a father of three children and can speak German.
After the election of its speaker, the parliament will elect other leaders of the parliament later on Sunday before Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras will deliver the government's policy statement on Monday.
A confidence vote on the new government will be held on Wednesday, the first crucial test for the new cabinet headed by Tsipras.
The first SYRIZA-ANEL government formed after January's polls had been teetering on the brink of collapse after the SYRIZA party split over the agreement on the new bailout in August, when Tsipras called the Sept. 20 elections. (Cihan/Xinhua)