German lawmakers elect new president

Joachim Gauck claimed 991 votes out of 1,232 from a special assembly of MPs and other dignitaries on Sunday.

Gauck, 72, who is not a member of a political party, earned the respect of the reunited German nation for running the archives on the East German secret police, Stasi, after the Berlin Wall came down.

Chancellor Angela Merkel lent her backing to Gauck in February after Christian Wulff, 52, resigned as Germany’s president amid allegations about receiving loans on favorable terms when he was state governor of Lower Saxony.

Wulff is the first German president to face a formal criminal investigation.

Gauck was the presidential candidate of the Social Democrats and Greens in 2010 against Wulff, a former Christian Democrat state premier and Merkel’s hand-picked choice for the largely ceremonial, but influential role.

The new president describes himself as a “liberal left conservative”, and has expressed support for both Social-Democrat and Christian-Democrat coalition governments on a non-partisan basis.

PG/JR/IS

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