WEST GERMAN PRESIDENCY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28936, 2 July 1959, Page 11

WEST GERMAN PRESIDENCY

Election Today In Berlin

(Bee. 11 p.m.) BERLIN. July 1. Wert Germany's Presidential

1038 electors meet in Federal convention in Berlin today to choose the republic’s second President. Parliamentary observers believe there will be more than one ballot and that by this afternoon the convention will have chosen. the successor to Professor Theodor Hems, whose second term expires in September. The candidate of the ruling Christian Democratic Party is Dr Heinrich Luebke, Minister of Agriculture, who was chosen after Dr. Adenauer, the 83-year-qld Chancellor, decided to stay in that post instead of standing tor President His nvals are Professor Carlo Schmid, popular vice-chairman of the Bundestag, for the Social Democrats, the main Opposition Party, and Dr. Max Becker, for the Free Democrats, a minor Libera] Opposition group. The electors—half Bundestag deputies and half the choices of provincial Parliaments—meet in the East Prussia Hall m West Berlin's exhibition grounds. It is the only hall in the city big enough to hold the electors, 250 specially invited diplomats and 1200 other guests and Journalists. East Germany joined the Soviet Union last night in handing to the Western Powers Notes protesting against the holding of the election in West Berlin.