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Former East German pastor could upset Merkel's future

A former East German dissident and Lutheran pastor who is standing as the candidate of German opposition parties in the country's forthcoming presidential election is seen as threatening Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government, reports Ecumenical News International.

"Unfortunately what is at stake is not the issue of who is the best man for this post. What is at stake are power, revenge and the fate of Angela Merkel," the weekly news magazine Der Spiegel commented on 28 June.

Seventy-year-old Joachim Gauck, who led protests in the northern city of Rostock against East Germany's then communist rulers in 1989, is the presidential candidate nominee of the Social Democratic Party and the Green party.

Gauck is also known as the first head of the authority that deals with the files of the Stasi, the former East German security service, following the unification of Germany.

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TAGS: Germany presidential election Chancellor Angela Merkel Joachim Gauck

[06/30/2010]

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