By IRNA,
Berlin : The top German presidential contender of the radical leftist the Left (Linke) Party, Peter Sodann stressed his country is not a democracy.
“Germany is quite a bit away from being a democracy,” the 72-year old Sodann told Tuesday’s edition of the daily Ruhr Nachrichten.
The dignity of a human being has to be taken seriously in a democracy, however, this is not the case in Germany.
“Otherwise, we would not have had a massive rise in poor children and social welfare recipients,” added the actor-turned-politician who has no realistic chance to unseat Germany’s conservative incumbent Horst Koehler.
The Social Democrats have nominated the highly respected university professor Gesine Schwan to run against Koehler, though her chances seem to be also slim.
German presidents who hold a largely symbolic post, are elected by a federal assembly consisting of the Bundestag plus an equal number of delegates chosen by the legislatures of the 16 states.