IT MAY be a tactical setback for Chancellor Angela Merkel but the choice of Joachim Gauck as Germany’s next president will be welcomed by most Germans as the belated elevation of one of the country’s most powerful moral voices to its highest office. A former East German civil rights campaigner and Lutheran pastor, Mr Gauck was the popular choice for president when the opposition Social Democrats and Greens nominated him two years ago but Dr Merkel used her coalition’s majority in the electoral college to block him.
Instead, she engineered a victory for Christian Wulff, a rising star in her party and one of her most dangerous internal rivals. Mr Wulff resigned last week in the wake of allegations of corruption and evidence that he received a private loan of €500,000 from the wife of a businessman while prime minister of Lower Saxony.
Dr Merkel initially sought to block Mr Gauck again this time, fearful that endorsing him would be seen as an admission that she made the wrong call three years ago. But her unpopular coalition partners in the liberal Free Democrats, facing the prospect of extinction at the next election and weary of being outmanoeuvred by the chancellor, risked the break-up of the coalition by siding with the opposition and supporting Mr Gauck. Always the pragmatist, Dr Merkel pivoted swiftly and backed her fellow easterner for the presidency.
In fact, Mr Gauck has more in common with the chancellor than their shared experience of growing up under a Stalinist dictatorship. A cultural, social and economic conservative, Mr Gauck has offended some on the left by criticising the Occupy movement as “silly”. He is, however, an independent thinker who faced down opposition from powerful conservatives to open up the records of the Stasi, the East German security service. One of the finest orators in German public life, Mr Gauck has used his eloquence to promote the importance of personal freedom and individual human dignity.
Three years ago, Mr Gauck outlined the approach he would take to the largely ceremonial post of president, which has similar powers to its Irish equivalent. “I think I can help to improve communication between the governing and the governed,” he said. “At various stages in my life, I have been able to use words to persuade people to have faith in their own strength and to free themselves from fear. I’d like to bring that capacity to the office.” Germany’s European neighbours should wish him well.