Ex-IMF Chief Koehler Wins Presidential Ballot

Former IMF head Horst Koehler was elected Germany’s ninth postwar president by a special federal assembly. Koehler, who quit the International Monetary Fund in March to run for the largely ceremonial office, won narrowly with 604 votes from the 1,204-member assembly. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s candidate, Gesine Schwan, got 589 votes, at least seven of them from Koehler’s side. But Koehler quickly dampened hopes that Schwan’s defeat foreshadowed the ouster of the Social Democrat-Greens government in a 2006 general election. He told German television that he would suspend his conservative party membership.