Father of the House the constitutive session, before the Speaker is elected. Until his death on 23 March 2015, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew was the longest serving Member of Parliament (Tanjong Pagar) and thus the Father of the House. , Emeritus Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong is Father of the House, as the longest serving MP (from the district named Marine Parade). In Sweden the Riksdagsordningen law states that the member of the Riksdag who has held his elected seat for the longest shall be the "Ålderspresident", which translates to "President by age". The Ålderspresident acts as speaker of the Riksdag after
President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, former Prime Minister of Poland and member of Solidarity Electoral Action, was elected as the first president from the central and eastern European countries which joined in the 2000s (more precisely, he is the first person from a country that joined the EU after 1986 to hold the post). The two major factions of the European Parliament, the EPP and the S&D, have reached a formal agreement to share the presidency under the 2009–2014 term. Under the agreement, Jerzy Buzek will be president in the first half of the term and a S&D member would be elected in