If the age of the Member was decisive, then the one who would speak of the start of the New Budestag work on March 25th would be the 84 -year -old AFD’s Alexander Gaulland. At the first Budestag meeting he first spoke as a senior politician who has been a member of the German Federal Parliament for the longest period. And this is Gregor Gui, who has completed 31 years on the Budestag seats.

It is essentially an honorary position awarded on the basis of parliamentary practice to the older German MP to mark the start of the work of the new House. In this case in the new House, Julia Klekner will be the president of the Christian Democrats.

MP from the reunion of Germany

Gregor Giji, the 77 -year -old leftist politician (Die Linke), is a member – with a short break – since October 3, 1990, from the day of German reunification. Lawyer Guzi made his first steps in politics during the “peaceful revolution” in the German Democratic Republic, where he was born and raised, thus following the path his father, Klaus Giji, who had been at the post of Minister of Culture.

When the powerful Single Socialist Party (SED) was found one step ahead of the breakup after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the then 41 -year -old Gregor Guzi was the one who took over the party’s presidency by achieving something that no one was imagining.

From the SED to PDS

As a symbol of a new beginning, the SED has been renamed the German-German Socialist Party-a Democratic Socialism Party (SED-PDS). And a few months later came the final rupture with the SED’s past, when the party decided to maintain only PDS in its name. In the latest and unique LDG free elections, PDS garnered 16.4% of the vote.

From the post of president, Gizi led the party that succeeded the SED in the first elections after Germany’s reunion in Bundestag, which was then in Bonn. However, the MPs of his party were not accepted with… open arms. “When I entered Budestag in 1990, I was not respectful of me, partly they hated me,” Gui said in an interview.

Guzi won the respect and recognition

Gui had to work hard in the coming decades to win the respect of the rest of the politicians. But even though most of West Germany MPs were rather biased against him, today things are different: “I believe that the majority of Budestag recognizes at least my political work.”

The more hostile the climate was in the early years of reunification, the more Gui was the most important expressor of East German interests. Millions of citizens of the former GRGs had lost their jobs because people’s ownership operations (VEB) were unable to cope with the competition of the capitalist economic system – and as a result, many began to feel as second -class citizens.

Left is common in ups and downs

This was something that Giji sought to change throughout his career political – but managed to do so only in part. Initially, the new left -wing political force in East Germany was more than 20%. Gradually, however, many people, frustrated by social developments, have been removed from politics and itself from the Left – which made the success of the Left even sweeter in the recent federal elections, where the party has almost doubled its previous percentage.

But the huge success of AfD, which reached about 21%, is a very sad development for Gui. Hence, in his speech as the elder president of Bundestag, the leftist politician wanted to refer, inter alia, extensively to the prevailing social conditions in Germany.

Categories to cooperate with Stasi

Giji, however, does not happen to excellent applause – which is partly due to the charges against him being a Stasi informant, which emerged after publication of relevant registrations by the Ministry of State Security of the GDP (in the mid -1990s.

However, it was never ascertained whether these categories were in force. According to the Budestag Committee’s finding on Stasi’s activities, Giji seems to have been an unofficial partner of the intelligence. However, the lawyer, who had often represented the interests of the regime in the GDG, has repeatedly demonstrated his innocence before justice.

Today, 35 years after Germany’s reunification, Gizi speaks the first word to New Bundestag. A speechless speech based on a customary, in which he emphasized on the one hand the criticality and difficulty of the times we are going through in the midst of wars and on the other the need to respect the different view.

Curated by: George Passas