SYRIZA MP Zoi Konstantopoulou, who was officially nominated yesterday by her party for Parliament speaker, broke the record for most votes ever received by a candidate for the specific post in Friday’s vote.

Besides SYRIZA’s Parliamentary Group (149 MPs), several other parties had expressed their intent to support the leftist MP, including New Democracy (76 MPs), PASOK (13 MPs), the Independent Greeks (13 MPs) and Potami (17 MPs). Based on these figures, Konstantopoulou could have garnered up to 268 votes, 45 more that the 223 Vangelis Meimarakis had received in June 2012, but ended up with 235.

Defence Minister Panos Kammenos sat in the ministers’ gallery for the first time, whereas on Thursday he preferred seating among his party’s backbenchers. A

PASOK president Evangelos Venizelos has a “relaxed” handshake with Konstantopoulou, and Antonis Samaras with Prime Minister Tsipras.

The vote began shortly after 11am today (EET) and lasted for a little over an hour. The voting of seven deputies of Parliament will take place at 6pm this afternoon.

The Parliament president is elected in a secret ballot. MPs are given one ballot with Konstantopoulou’s name, and a blank one.