A wide majority of German lawmakers has elected former East German pro-democracy activist Joachim Gauck as new president.
Parliament speaker Norbert Lammert said Sunday that Gauck, who enjoyed the backing of most major parties, received 991 of the 1,232 ballots cast.
The new head of state, a largely ceremonial post in Germany, was elected by a special parliamentary assembly, consisting mostly of lawmakers from Parliament and the state legislatures.
The 72—year—old Gauck is a former pastor who opposed East Germany’s then—communist regime and became head of a federal agency overseeing the files of the Communists’ ubiquitous domestic intelligence service after Germany’s reunification.
Keywords: Joachim Gauck, Germany presidential poll
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The popularity of Gauck is a media-made one; while the press in "my" country is afraid to post the naked facts about Gauck.
Iam also a journalist, and when I researched that Gauck is a lecturer in the "Veldenstein circle", where a prominent figure of the neonazi-party NPD is also included, then nobody was willing to come out with it. Gauck also
-supports the war in Afghanistan
-strongly supports the ongoing, massive social cuts in Germany
-he abused in public the many people who do demonstrate against social cut-offs or those from the "Occupy Wallstreet" movement.
And his nimbus as a freedom fighter? Till the end he was well arranged with the stalinist (not communist!) regime in the German Democratic Republic. An interview with the conservative westgerman mag "die Welt" from 1981 made this clear.
Gauck might become the 3rd one to step back before his time.
The all-party coalition for Gauck (except one leftwing party)does represent a further shift to the right by german politics.
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