Greek Socialists start work on Cabinet

ATHENS: Socialist PASOK leader George Papandreou started work putting together a Cabinet yesterday after winning a decisive mandate to battle corruption and lead Greece out of a worsening economic downturn.

Appointments to the key finance, foreign and economy ministry posts were expected as early as today, and Greek media were reporting Papandreou might take one of the first two jobs for himself to emphasize how seriously he took the crisis.

With 99 percent of Sunday's vote counted, results showed PASOK had thrashed the conservative New Democracy party, which suffered the worst showing in its history. PASOK won a comfortable majority of 160 seats in the 300-member parliament.