The German president, Horst Köhler, has been re-elected for a second five-year term. The 66-year-old Köhler, a former director of the International Monetary Fund, obtained 613 of the 1,223 ballots cast by the Federal Assembly (the parliamentary body that elects the German head of state), which is the minimum required for re-election. The Financial Times called the re-election a symbolic victory for chancellor Angela Merkel, since she is to launch her own re-election bid in only four months.

The election is, however, not without a certain aftertaste: In the German Parliament, an inquiry has been intitiated in regard to the so-called “Twitter-affair” in which several members of parliament leaked the result of last Saturday’s presidential election via the micro-blogging service Twitter almost fifteen minutes before the result was officially announced. The involved MPs have reacted differently with one resigning from her office as the Parliament’s recording clerk, while another argues that the Parliament’s views are technologically old-fashioned.