March 18 in History
1990 - East Germany holds its first and only free parliamentary elections
General elections were held in East Germany on this day in 1990, the first and only free elections held in the state before German reunification. The Alliance for Germany, led by the new East German branch of the right-wing Christian Democratic Union (CDU), won 192 seats and emerged as the largest bloc in the 400-seat Volkskammer, having run on a platform of speedy reunification with West Germany. The East German branch of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), which had been dissolved in 1946 and re-founded only six months before the elections, finished second with 88 seats despite being widely expected to win. The former Socialist Unity Party of Germany, restyled as the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), finished third with 66 seats the first free election in which it participated.
The Alliance fell slightly short of the 201 seats needed to govern alone. Lothar de Maizière of the CDU invited the SPD to join his Alliance partners – the German Social Union (DSU) and Democratic Awakening (DA) – in a grand coalition. The SPD was initially cold to de Maizière’s offer, in part because of the presence of the right-wing populist DSU in de Maizière’s grouping; the SPD had originally been willing to govern alongside all parties other than the PDS and DSU. However, they ultimately agreed, and the four parties formed the government. The government, which was able to amend the constitution thanks to its two-thirds supermajority of seats in the Volkskammer, subsequently organized and ratified the reunification of Germany, resulting in the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic into the Federal Republic of Germany on October 3, 1990.
-Wikipedia
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.