ATHENS, Jan. 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Greek Prime Minister Costas Simitis on Wednesday announced that he was initiating procedures for the election of a new president for the ruling PASOK, who would lead the party to early legislative elections to be held on March 7.

    "I will start the necessary procedures for the election of a new president of PASOK (Panhellenic Socialist Movement). I will remain prime minister until the elections," Simitis said in a nationally broadcast statement after meeting with President Costis Stephanopoulos.

    The elections are called nearly two months earlier than planned.

    The prime minister said PASOK's Central Committee will meet on Thursday to decide the details of the succession process.

    He justified the decision to bring the elections forward to March 7 by citing developments in the Cyprus issue and efforts to ensure that Cyprus was united before it officially joined the European Union on May 1, saying this would require a government with a fresh mandate.

    Simitis' sudden decision to resign from the PASOK leadership came after weeks of rumors that he would try something to overturn the conservative New Democracy (ND) party's 7 percent lead in the latest opinion polls ahead of the legislative elections.

    Foreign Minister George Papandreou, who is the most popular in PASOK, is likely to take over as the third leader of the party his father founded in 1974. He had a two-hour close-door meeting with Simitis late Tuesday.

    "I think expectations are very great, hopes are very great," Papandreou said after their talks.

    However, ND spokesman Theodoris Roussopoulos said Tuesday night's "meeting between Mr. Simitis and Mr. Papandreou can only go down in history as one more station on the way to PASOK's defeat. PASOK will lose, not because it needed another wrapper, but because it failed to offer solutions to the country's real problems."

    PASOK has been ruling Greece since September 1996. Enditem