Free Democrats Vote To Oust Troublemaker
December 3, 2002
Germany's business-friendly Free Democratic Party voted on Monday to bar former vice-chairman Jürgen Möllemann from party membership.
FDP leaders voted 35-28 in favor of beginning expulsion proceedings against Möllemann in Berlin. Möllemann has been accused of damaging the FDP's reputation and abusing the party's fundamental principles.
He "wanted to make his own politics, but not those of the FDP," party leader Guido Westerwelle said in Berlin after the vote.
Merely a scapegoat?
Germany's chancellor and Social Democratic leader, Gerhard Schröder, however, alleged that Möllemann is merely a scapegoat meant to distract attention from the FDP's role in the finance scandal that emerged in November. Further FDP politicians, including Wolfgang Gerhardt, currently head of the party's parliamentary group, have also been implicated.
Fifty-seven-year-old Möllemann, who served as the FDP's state party chairman in North Rhine-Westphalia, has been under fire since allegations surfaced in October that he maintained illegal party bank accounts to the tune of €1.5 million ($1.48 million).
Möllemann used the funds in part for an anti-Israeli campaign pamphlet in which he virulently attacked Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's actions and accused Michel Friedman, vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, of inciting anti-Semitism. The leaflet cost €8 million ($7.95 million) and was distributed to most households in North Rhine-Westphalia before the German general election days before the Sept. 22 election.
Party leaders have blamed the FDP's bad showing in the election, in which it only garnered 7.4 percent of the vote, on the bad press surrounding the leaflet.
Federal probe
Prosecutors opened a probe into Möllemann's affairs in November. The FDP has already had to pay an €873,500 fine to the federal parliament for violating party funding laws.
The local party headquarters in North Rhine-Westphalia has also called on Möllemann to resign from his mandate in the provincial parliament. Otherwise, it too will begin proceedings to expel him.
Möllemann has been an FDP member for 32 years and even served as a cabinet minister in former Chancellor Helmut Kohl's administration during better days.