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February 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Replacing Mr Wulff, the second German president to step down amid controversy
during Ms Merkel’s time in office, will pose a new challenge to her
authority ahead of Federal elections next year.
In a bid to sidestep a political crisis, the German Chancellor will approach
opposition MPs to choose a consensus candidate, something she was criticised
for not doing before.
”We want to hold talks with the aim of being able to propose a joint candidate
for the next president of the Federal Republic of Germany,” she said in a
sombre two-minute statement.
Prosecutors in Hanover demanded yesterday that MPs in Germany’s Bundestag lift
President Wulff’s immunity to allow an investigation into allegations he
abused his position by accepting favours when he was premier of the regional
state of Lower Saxony.
The prosecutor also announced an “initial suspicion” against David Groenewold
, Mr Wulff’s film producer friend, who allegedly picked up the bills for a
hotel and an upgrade during two holidays. Mr Wulff’s lawyers have said he
repaid the money in cash for one of the stays.
Mr Wulff, 52, has a largely ceremonial role but carries important weight as a
moral arbiter above politics and it is the first time in Germany’s history
that the parliament has been asked to consider lifting the president’s
immunity.
In choosing Mr Wulff in 2010, Ms Merkel had hoped that by handpicking the
inoffensive candidate she could shore up support for her government which
has been rocked by a strong backlash against Germany’s contribution of £175
billion in bailouts for the Greek and wider eurozone debt crisis.
But the president’s courtship of celebrities, the wealthy and powerful in the
business and media proved to be his undoing.
He left his long time wife Christiane in 2006 for public relations executive
Bettina Koerner, 14 years his junior, and launched a charm offensive to
mollify his Christian Democrat political base after the divorce.
They married in 2008 and have a small son, in addition to a teenage daughter
from Mr Wulff’s previous marriage, and he cultivated media contacts to
enlist the powerful mass market Bild daily to help to restore his image as a
wholesome family man.
But scandals erupted after it emerged businessmen had subsidised holidays and
offered a helping hand at crucial moments, including a 2008 home loan from
the wife of a tycoon friend that touched off the affair that has brought him
down.
His cosy relations with the newspaper publishing group, Springer ,soured when
he reportedly threatened journalists on two separate occasions over their
reporting of scandals.
Last year, he courted controversy and broke a political taboo by criticising
the European Central Bank, whose independence is seen as sacrosanct in
Germany.
He said it was “asking for trouble” by buying up sovereign bonds to help
tackle the debt crisis, comments that were not helpful for the chancellor as
she battled to convince her Christian Democrat party that Germany should
support the eurozone.
His appointment and election in June 2010 came close to bringing down the
Merkel administration after he stumbled over the finish line after a
damaging result that took three rounds of voting.
Only two of 13 German presidential elections since 1949 have gone to a third
round, the last time in 1994 with the election of Roman Herzog as a unified
Germany’s first president since Adolf Hitler.
Ms Merkel’s choice came close to being unseated by Joachim Gauck, 72, a
Protestant pastor and anti-Communist activist under East Germany’s former
dictatorship, who was nominated by the opposition and became a popular
challenger.
Mr Gauck, who is expected to run again, is not affiliated to any party and his
past as a civil rights activist has resonated with millions of Germans.
The presidential vote was triggered after Horst Koehler, another Christian
Democrat, stood down in May 2010 in a surprise resignation that itself
rocked Ms Merkel’s government.
Mr Koehler resigned after sparking an outcry following his comments that
Germans could no longer avoid involvement in military missions which helped
“protect our interests, for example, free trade routes, or to prevent
regional instability, which might certainly have a negative effect on our
trade, jobs and income”.
A new German president to replace Mr Wulff will be chosen, probably in March,
by a Federal Convention or Bundesversammlung of the German Parliament and
delegates form regional states, known as the Lander.
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