E. Germans pick chief ‘who’s clean’
NZPA-Reuter East Berlin
East Germany’s crisisstricken Communist Party turned to a human rights lawyer, Gregor Gysi, at the week-end to pull the party out of its political tailspin and gear up for free elections in May. Mr Gysi, aged 41, best known for defending dissidents, immediately promised to bring in Soviet-style reforms to help stamp out the party’s Stalinist traditions. “We want to make an effective contribution to perestroika in our country,” he told the 2753 delegates at the end of their 17-hour emergency congress in a sports hall. “We need democracy and glasnost to achieve this,” the new leader said. The congress, which also decided to change the party’s name at a second session next week-end, was a life-or-death gathering for the party after its monolithic authority collapsed under the pressure of pro-democracy demonstrations. On Saturday, the public prosecutor announced that a long-time, former leader, Erich Honecker, and five other disgraced hardliners had been charged with abuse of power and self-enrichment. Four
were arrested while Mr Honecker, aged 77, was too ill to be jailed and another was in Moscow. Noting the party agreed with opposition groups at historic “round table” talks on Friday to hold free elections on May 6, a Western diplomat commented: “The Communists are looking for someone who’s clean and Gysi is definitely clean. “He doesn’t fit the party’s image as the party of the working people. But he’s perfect for a coalition with the opposition. He knows all of them, they’re all friends.” The party’s crisis was so deep that many expected it might even split up at this meeting. Mr Gysi and other leaders argued forcefully that it had to stay in there fighting. At a closed session of the meeting, the Prime Minister, Hans Modrow, told delegates that the Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, had urged him to avoid a split at all costs. “Those remarks pulled the rudder around in the debate,” said one of the few delegates who voted to disband the party. Mr Gysi was the sole candidate for party chairman
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Press, 11 December 1989, Page 8
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347E. Germans pick chief ‘who’s clean’ Press, 11 December 1989, Page 8
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