Germany and Poland were seeking for new presidents. Both elections became necessary because of special circumstances. So, the fact that the Polish citizens and the German population got a new president in these days is equal. Beside this there are some remarkable differences in the election process and in the power of the presidents.
The Polish president Lech Kaczyński – in power since 2005 – died in an air crash on the 10th April 2010 together with 96 people on his way to Smolensk. The president and his delegation wanted to take part in the memorial event in Katyn where Soviets had done a massacre on polish soldiers in 1940.
The German president Horst Köhler resigned – as first president in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany – from office with immediate effect on 31st May 2010. Köhler was on his second presidential term and was re-elected for this in May 2009. Köhler explained his resignation with criticism of his statements about the need for German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr) missions.
The Polish head of state is the president, elected by universal suffrage for a term of five years. In Poland every polish citizen above 18 years is called upon to elect the president. Bronisław Komorowski won the election and will from August on hold this position. He was the governing Civic Platform party’s candidate in the resulting 2010 presidential election. The twin brother of Lech Kaczyński, Jarosław, was defeated in the second round of voting on 4th July 2010. Jarosław Kaczyński was the candidate from “Prawo i Sprawiedliwość” (Law and Justice) a national conservative Polish political party. Unlike in recent years, head of state and head of government now belong to the same political camp, which posed difficulties in the last years when president Kaczyński made use of his constitutional veto right and blocked legislation.
According to the German constitution (Grundgesetz) was it necessary to find a new president within 30 days. Not every citizen is asked to vote for the president, but the so called “Bundesversammlung” which consists of the Members of Parliament and the same number of delegates who are sent by the regional parliaments according to the parliamentary group strength.
On Tuesday, the 30th June Christian Wulff (CDU) was elected and became the 10th federal president of Germany. Wulff – up to this day minister-president of the German federal state of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) – was the candidate of the liberal-conservative coalition. With over nine hours, the longest presidential election took three rounds of voting and not all the voters within the ruling coalition voted for him. Joachim Gauck (independent) was the candidate of the social democrats and the green party. The left party send Lukrezia Jochimsen (Die Linke) to field. Christian Wulff is the youngest president in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Nadja Kemper, Germany, July 2010
Photo: On Monday, 13th July 2009, Federal President Horst Koehler on recent visit to Poland, met with Lech Kaczynski.
Copyright: Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, Licence: Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 only as published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
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