The broad acceptance of the candidacy of Ekaterini Sakellaropoulou for the highest office in the land vindicates the prime minister’s choice.

It also sends a strong message of consensus which the country needs at this critical juncture.

Beyond the obvious symbolism this decision should signal the start of a new era in Greek politics.

The country has been tried and tested and has paid very dearly for divisions, for sterile and useless skirmishes, for a toxic climate, for polarisation, and for extreme rhetoric that leads only to  an impasse.

There is a common conviction that many problems would have been transcended if there was even a basic cooperation between political parties.

The economic crisis that brought the country to the edge of the abyss would certainly have been milder and much shorter in duration if that were the case.

Politicians during the crisis were unable to do the self-evident – to have everyone table their proposals for the economy to transcend the impasse and find a path of recovery.

Due to political immaturity Greece was limited to a passive role of implementing programmes imposed by creditors.

A national strategy was never presented.

The consensus on the candidacy of the new president should be maintained and not become simply an exception to the rule of partisanship.

The search and achievement of conditions of broad consensus should become a basic quest if one is to leave behind the catastrophic dysfunctions of the past and definitively turn a page.

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