More than one million ruling PASOK members and friends participated in a vote on Sunday to elect the new president of the party. Foreign Minister George Papandreou, son of late premier and founder of the party, Andreas Papandreou, stood as the sole candidate for the post.

  The vote was the culmination of a three-day national congress which began on Friday. 
  With the results of only a handful of polling stations remaining to be announced, at press time out of 1,013,533 votes casted by members and friends of the ruling party only 1,675 votes were found blank. Papandreou gathered 1,011,858 votes.

  Papandreou said Sunday's results constituted ''a new mandate for him to proceed on the road of change and overturning.''
  He said that ''a new page is turning today, a different sun is rising,'' adding that ''an experiment of democracy has succeeded.''

  Speaking late Sunday after the announcement of the results, Papandreou said from the historic town of Kileler in central Greece, ''we sign a new contract of unity which will serve institutions and values. We are creating a new national unity with national consensus. We are proceeding to confront the difficult tomorrow, making breakthroughs in the state and creating a social state. And in this new state we want the voice of everyone.''

  The new PASOK party president said ''today is a great day for the democratic party but also for Greece,'' adding that the citizen today ''gives a mandate for us to change our party, to change Greece.''
  He concluded by saying that ''we will win on March 7 and we will proceed together.''

Source: Athens News Agency

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