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Karolos Papoulias life and biography
Karolos Papouliaswas sworn in as President of Greece on 12 March , after having been elected by an unprecedented votes in the country's seat parliament.
A founding member of the opposition Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), the year-old Papoulias won support both from his own party and from the ruling center-right New Democracy party, which nominated him to succeed Kostis Stephanopoulos in the largely ceremonial post.
In the course of his long career, Papoulias has been a pole vault champion, an attorney, a political activist, a member of parliament, an official of the national volleyball team, and president of the National Athletics Association.
He was born in Ioannina in After legal studies in Athens and Milan, he obtained his PhD at Cologne University and went on to practice law from to He was in Germany at the time of the military coup in Greece.
During the next seven years, Papoulias helped found a student resistance organisation and broadcast regularly on Deutsche Welle's Greek service, denouncing the colonels.
In , Papoulias entered parliament for the first time, representing the Ioannina electoral district as an MP on the PASOK ticket.
He was re-elected eight times, serving a total of 27 years. A close associate of the late Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou, he has been a consistent influence in the foreign policy of successive PASOK governments, serving as deputy foreign minister from , as foreign minister from , and again as foreign minister from In , he was elected to the party's executive bureau and political secretariat.
Following the general elections, Papoulias became head of Greece's parliamentary representation to the OSCE.
In June , he was appointed a member of the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the International Olympic Truce Foundation.
Papoulias will serve a five-year term. He is married and has three daughters.
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