Local elections in the GDR in 1989

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State coat of arms of the German Democratic Republic

The local elections in the GDR in 1989 took place on May 7, 1989. The people's representatives were elected in communities, towns and districts . It was the last election in the GDR , which took place according to the unit lists of the National Front . After the election, the government was able to prove election fraud .

Before the election

Even before the election, local grievances were denounced in “popular debates” with the candidates, and there were expressions of displeasure about the undemocratic election process, especially after the Soviet Union had the opportunity to choose between different candidates during the election for the People's Deputies Congress. Various opposition groups agreed to meet after the last people 's chamber elections had faked allegations to observe the counting of votes.

Electoral system

Foreigners cast their votes in Karl-Marx-Stadt .

Only the list of the National Front was available.

To vote yes, you simply had to fold the ballot paper and put it in the ballot box . Even the deletion of individual names did not change the rating as a yes vote. For a no vote, every single candidate listed had to be crossed out horizontally.

In March 1989 it was decided that foreigners living in the GDR should have the right to vote and stand as one in local elections.

Official result

The official result was announced on GDR television late in the evening of May 7th by Egon Krenz , who was chairman of the election commission .

absolutely in percent
Eligible voters 12,488,742 100.00
Votes cast 12,335,487 98.77
Invalid votes 11,136 0.09
Valid votes 12,324,351 99.91
Valid votes for the nomination 12.182.050 98.85
Valid votes against the nomination 142,301 1.15

Even according to the official election results, this was the worst in the history of the GDR. In the Volkskammer elections there was usually over 99 percent approval.

Counterfeit

Front page of the information sheet of the ÖAG Halle / Saale (June 1989)

For the first time after the closing of the polling stations in these citizens gathered to watch the counting of the votes. They were often prevented from doing so, although according to Section 37 (1) of the GDR Election Act, the vote count was public. In almost all constituencies, observers recorded significantly more no votes than were officially announced.

Evidence of the falsified counting of votes was also discussed for the first time in writings on "internal church use". The "information sheet of the ecological working group at the evangelical church district Halle / Saale " reported in a full-page article on the verifiable falsification of the vote count, since "reports from many cities in the GDR have become known". The issue was distributed from July 6th to 9th, 1989 in an edition of 1000 at the Evangelical Church Congress in Leipzig. In a leaflet distributed at the same time in Halle, it was reported that around 20 percent of the counting results could be documented within the church and that 95 percent of the officially stated no-votes for Halle had already occurred.

Absolute proof of the forgery was obtained for the Berlin-Weissensee district . Civil rights activists were able to show that the number of no-votes documented in the polling stations during the counting was overall greater than the final result officially stated for the city district. Such information about vote counts compiled within the church circulated on leaflets throughout the GDR.

consequences

The election fraud, which was proven for the first time, strengthened the opposition movement in the GDR . On the 7th of each month there were demonstrations against the electoral fraud in (East) Berlin in front of churches and on Alexanderplatz , although the Stasi tried hard to stop the growing criticism. After the turning point and the peaceful revolution , free local elections were held in the GDR on May 6, 1990 .

Legal processing

A legal treatment did not begin until after the turn of the autumn of 1989 and did not take place in the GDR more complete (although there were convictions), but well after reunification, starting in 1990.

From autumn 1989 onwards, several mayors and members of SED leaderships had to answer for election fraud, which was also a criminal offense under Section 211 of the GDR Criminal Code . In their study from 2000, the professors of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Klaus Marxen and Gerhard Werle, documented 20 cases of court proceedings for election fraud from 1989 that led to convictions, although the actual number is likely to be higher (the authors include in their publication is complete).

Among the convicts including the former belonged Dresden Mayor Wolfgang Berghofer (one year imprisonment on probation and a fine of 36,000 DM ), the Dresden SED City boss Werner Moke (one year suspended prison sentence and a fine of 3,600 DM) and Hans Modrow as At that time first secretary of the district leadership of the SED in Dresden (nine months imprisonment on probation).

On November 26, 1997, however , the Berlin Regional Court closed the proceedings against Egon Krenz and Günter Schabowski . This was justified with the expected penalty. Compared to the already pronounced convictions of several years' imprisonment because of the order to shoot at the GDR borders, this would not (additionally) be of any consequence ( Section 154 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (StPO)).

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information sheet of the ecological working group at the evangelical church district Halle / Saale. Inner church printed matter 245-16 / 1-700, June 1989, p. 41.
  2. ^ "Action plan of the Minister for State Security to reject and prevent activities of opposition forces May 19, 1989" on Stasi-Mediathek.de , a website of the Stasi records authority .
  3. ↑ Marxen, Werle, pp. XXV f.
  4. ^ The incomprehensible electoral fraud on mdr.de from May 2, 2011. Accessed on November 10, 2016. The report speaks of between 1992 and 1994 and of a number of people.
  5. ^ Marxen, Werle, p. XVIII. Seven cases from the time of the GDR were documented (pp. 3–92)
  6. ^ Judgment: Wolfgang Berghofer . Online at spiegel.de from February 10, 1992. Accessed November 11, 2016.
  7. ^ Heiko Wingenfeld: The public debate about the criminal proceedings because of GDR injustice. Dealing with the past in the German public of the 90s. Berlin legal university publications. Criminal Law, Volume 27, Berliner Wissenschaftsverlag 2006, p. 69
  8. ↑ Rearview mirror: 15 years ago the proceedings for election fraud against Krenz and Schabowski were discontinued . Online at sempria-search.de from November 26, 2012. Accessed November 11, 2016.