In 2010 East Germans celebrated the 20th anniversary of a fully democratic representation. This anniversary gives reason to reflect the democratization process again. Democratization is a process that is ridden with prerequisites and is a game of confidence and acceptance. This confidence and acceptance in polity and politics was without doubt never contested by politicians with their political roots in the opposition groups. However, in the early 1990’s and even later on, there was still a considerable minority among East German MNPs and MSPs with a comparatively strong affiliation to the former communist system (but not necessarily member of SED’s successor parties), for example by evidence of biographic episodes as representatives of GDR’s assemblies (national, district or municipal level) or as executives of GDR’s administration, mirrored in the Central Cadre Data Base, recorded by GDR’s government in the 1980’s. The German Parliamentary Survey (first wave, 2003) contains data of 140 of those ‘survivors’ out of 635 MNPs, MSPs and MEPs with an East German background. In the presentation, first, important characteristics of these electees will be compared with the social profile of delegates of the People’s Chamber in the 1980’s and the social profile of other (but) current delegates of East German origin. Second, we will discuss former GDR represantatives’ adherence to democratic values, likewise mirrored in the German Parliamentary Survey, by asking delegates how they rate statements like: “Democracy persists only in the case of a strong leadership that is able to curtail partial interests.” and other.
