Auf Wiedersehen and good riddance

The bizarre story of German politician Juergen Moellemann became even more strange this week. Moellemann was forced to resign his remaining party leadership posts over apparent campaign finance violations. He may also face criminal charges.

Rewind back to the week before the election when Moellemann sent out an anti-Semitic campaign flyer. The flyer apparently cost his own Free Democratic Party enough votes to hand the election to Schroeder and the Social Democratic / Green coalition. Moellemann's colleagues in the FDP were sufficiently fed-up that they forced him to resign as vice-chair of the federal party. They also scheduled a no-confidence vote to topple him as chariman of the local party in his home state of North-Rhine Westphalia.

On October 6, the day before the no-confidence vote, Moellemann went to the hospital with a cardiac arrhythmia and the no-confidence vote was postponed until sometime in November. But last week, while Moellemann was supposedly still convalescing, it was revealed that the controversial campaign flyer was paid for with illegal campaign contributions of unknown origin. Somehow 840,000 Euros (broken up into 145 separate donations of 8,000 - 10,000 Euros each) mysteriously appeared to pay for the flyer. This is in violation of the federal campaign finance laws, with penalties of up to 3 years in prison. Moellemann wouldn't say where the donations came from.

The party gave him an ultimatum to disclose the funding sources by Monday morning or face removal from office, regardless of his medical condition. He continued to withold the information and also fled to his palatial vacation home on Grand Canary Island. On Sunday evening European time, he sent a fax resigning both as chair of the state party, and also as leader of the party faction in the state parliament (for health reasons, and blaming his party colleagues for persecuting him). It does not appear that the letter served as a resignation from his seats in the state and federal legislatures.

This is not the first time he has hit the bottom. In the early 90s he was forced to resign as federal Commerce Minister for improperly promoting an in-law's business venture and was subsequently ousted as state party leader. It is impossible to imagine that he has any kind of a future in the FDP. Still, he wrote that he would decide about his political future after he recovers from his illness. The only German party that might welcome him would perhaps be the insignificant far right-wing Republicans (Do click on that link, it's worth it for the subtle message in the photograph of their leader). So he may start his own party. Then again, he is the president of the German-Arab Friendship Society and he apparently once attended a birthday party for Saddam Hussein, so maybe he will start the Düsseldorf branch of the Ba'ath Party.

In the meantime, the FDP continues to press for an explanation of the campaign contributions and the state prosecutor will want to have a word with him as well.

Herr Möllemann, ich wünsche Ihnen eine gute Besserung und einen neuen Beruf I wish you a full recovery and a new profession. And if it's license plates they make in prison over there, may you be the best license plate maker of them all.

Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at October 21, 2002 06:12 AM