The European Parliament has elected center-right Antonio Tajani of Italy as its new President over fellow Italian Gianni Pittella, after a lengthy election process on Tuesday. 
Tajani's victory came after an unusually contested race to succeed current president Martin Schulz, who is leaving Brussels to return to German politics. 
The 63-year-old lawyer from Rome, who has been at the EU for 23 years, belongs to the center-right European People's Party (EPP), the largest political group. 
He won the presidency of the European Parliament after offering support to colleagues from all parliamentary fractions and vowing to defend democracy and the freedom of citizens in the European Union. 
In the fourth and final round of voting, Tajani got 351 votes, and thus the simple majority, beating Pittella, who received 282 votes. 
The two parliamentarians faced off in the last and decisive round of voting after none of the six candidates in the race was able to secure an absolute majority of the votes cast by the 751 members of parliament in the previous three rounds.

Source: QNA