Mr Rau, the candidate of the centre-left SPD-Greens government, replaces conservative Roman Herzog.

He won on the second round of voting, reportedly because some opposition liberal Free Democrats voted for him

Mr Rau got an absolute majority of 690 votes, in comparison with the 657 he had in the first round.

The federal convention, which chose Mr Rau, sits every five years to elect a president.

It is made up of the delegates of the national parliament and representatives of the federal states, the L�nder.

On Sunday, it met for the first time in the renovated Reichstag parliament building in Berlin.

Earlier, the speaker of the Bundestag, the lower house, Wolfgang Thierse, celebrated the country's recent historic events in an opening speech.

He said the anniversary, the government's upcoming move to Berlin and the election of Germany's eighth post-war president were a sign that the reunited country's democratic consensus on peace, freedom, justice and human rights would not change.

The new president, Johannes Rau

Mr Rau was running for the mainly ceremonial post against two women, the relatively unknown Dagmar Schipanski, 55, an east German from the conservative opposition Christian Democratic parties and Uta Ranke-Heinemann, 71, a theologian put up by the leftist Party of Democratic Socialism.

Johannes Rau, 68, is seen by some as possibly too old to take on such a high-profile position.

But he has refuted suggestions that his health may not be robust enough for the job. And he is likely to be a popular choice.

For many years, Mr Rau was prime minister of the federal state of North-Rhine Westfalia, Germany's industrial heartland.

He is widely seen as a politician with the common touch.

He has said he will do everything to heal the rift between the east and the west of the country which still remains 10 years after unification.