A former head of the International Monetary Fund has been elected Germany's new president.
Horst Koehler, 61, who will enter office on July 1, immediately
announced that he would be campaigning for Germany's social and economic renewal.
He won 604 votes of a specially convened federal assembly
against 589 for Gesine Schwan.
Ms Schwan, an academic who had been hoping to become the country's first female head of state, was the choice of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's centre-left coalition.
Although the presidency is a largely ceremonial position, real
power lying at the chancellery, Koehler's backers in the opposition Christian Union said his election heralded a political wind of change.
