Skip to content
Surf Wiki
Save to docs
politics

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

1967 East German general election

none


none

FieldValue
countryEast Germany
typelegislative
turnout98.82% ( 0.43pp)
previous_election1963 East German general election
previous_year1963
election_date
next_election1971 East German general election
next_year1971
seats_for_election434 out of 500 seats in the Volkskammer
image1Bundesarchiv Bild 183-J1231-1002-002 Walter Ulbricht, Neujahrsansprache (cropped colour).jpg
leader1Walter Ulbricht
party1Socialist Unity Party of Germany
alliance1National Front
seats1127
seat_change1
map_image[[File:1967 East German election.svg250px]]
map_captionResults of the election.
titleChairman of the Council of Ministers
before_electionWilli Stoph
before_partySocialist Unity Party of Germany
posttitleChairman of the Council of Ministers after election
after_electionWilli Stoph
after_partySocialist Unity Party of Germany

General elections were held in East Germany on 2 July 1967. 434 deputies were elected to the Volkskammer, with all of them being candidates of the single-list National Front, dominated by the communist Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). 583 Front candidates were put forward, with 434 being elected. The allocation of seats remained unchanged from the 1963 election.

These were the last elections held under the original constitution adopted in 1949. Two months before election day, SED leader Walter Ulbricht had called for a new constitution that reflected the larger goal of building a socialist society. In December 1967 a commission of the newly elected Volkskammer was tasked with recasting the constitution in accordance with the SED's stipulations. A year after the elections, a referendum approved a new constitution promulgated later that year. While the 1949 constitution was a superficially liberal democratic document, the 1968 constitution was a communist document. It defined East Germany as a socialist state under the leadership of the SED, codifying the actual state of affairs that had prevailed in the country since 1949.

Like all East German elections before the Peaceful Revolution, this election was neither free nor fair. Voters were only presented with a closed list of candidates (pre-approved by the SED Central Committee Secretariat) put forward by the National Front. The list predetermined an outcome whereby the SED had both the largest faction in the Volkskammer and a majority of its members, as almost all of the Volkskammer members elected for one of the mass organizations were also members of the SED (in this election, all but 4 out of the 165 mass organization Volkskammer members were SED members). While voters could reject the list, they would have to use the polling booth, the use of which was documented by Stasi informants located at every polling site, and had to cross out every name, as "Yes" and "No" boxes were removed after the 1950 election. Abstaining from voting was also seen as oppositional and punished. While legally permissible according to East German election laws, widespread election monitoring was not done out of fear for repression until the 1989 local elections.

Results

Berlin|seattype3=Total|seattype4=+/–

References

References

  1. *[http://www.ipu.org/parline-e/reports/arc/GERMAN_DEMOCRATIC_REPUBLIC_1967.PDF German Democratic Republic] Inter-Parliamentary Union
  2. Burant, Stephen R. [https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/master/frd/frdcstdy/ea/eastgermanycount00bura_0/eastgermanycount00bura_0.pdf East Germany: a country study] Library of Congress, p.166
  3. "Wahlen in der DDR". [[Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship]].
  4. Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung Brand. (2022-08-08). "MitBeStimmen: Wahlen in der DDR: So unterschiedlich sind Demokratie und Diktatur".
  5. MDR Investigativ. (2019-05-21). "Wahlfälschung bei der DDR-Kommunalwahl 1989 - Der Anfang vom Ende {{!}} FAKT".
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about 1967 East German general election — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report