Horst Koehler won a second term as Germany's president on Saturday in a parliamentary vote that gave Chancellor Angela Merkel a symbolic victory months ahead of national elections, AP reported.
The 66-year-old former head of the International Monetary Fund, a member of Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, won just enough votes from a special parliamentary assembly for another five years in the largely ceremonial post.
"I would like to help preserve what is valuable and change what is necessary," Koehler said in a brief speech after the vote. "I am looking forward to the next five years and, dear compatriots, I promise you I will continue to do my best."
Koehler won 613 votes in Saturday's election by a special 1,224-member assembly made up of lower-house lawmakers and delegates nominated by Germany's 16 state legislatures.
That was just enough to avoid further rounds of balloting against challenger Gesine Schwan of the center-left Social Democrats, who won 503 votes.
The opposition Left Party's Peter Sodann was backed by 91 delegates and far-right candidate Frank Rennicke by four.
The presidency, which carries moral authority but little real power, is supposed to be above the political fray.
However, this year's contest comes four months before Merkel and Social Democrat Frank-Walter Steinmeier, her foreign minister, face off in a national election in which both hope to end their tense "grand coalition" of Germany's biggest parties.
Merkel, then Germany's opposition leader, installed Koehler in 2004 with the help of the pro-business Free Democrats, her preferred future coalition partner. The same parties backed Koehler's re-election.
A defeat for Koehler would have been a symbolic blow to Merkel before September's vote and a surprise success for the Social Democrats, who have been lagging in polls.
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