Petra Pau, Vice-President of the German Bundestag © DBT/Melde

Petra Pau (The Left Party) has served as a Vice-President of the German Bundestag since 7 April 2006. She was re-elected to the post by the Bundestag on 22 October 2013. Pau has been a Member of the Bundestag since 1998. In 2006 she was the second candidate nominated by her parliamentary group for the post of Vice-President and was elected by the Bundestag in the first ballot, after her parliamentary group’s original candidate, Professor Lothar Bisky, failed to receive the necessary number of votes in four ballots.

Deputy chairwoman of the parliamentary group

Petra Pau was born in Berlin on 9 August 1963. After completing general polytechnic school, she worked as head of a school Pioneer group and qualified to teach German and art. She joined the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in 1983, which was followed by the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in 1990 and later the Left Party PDS. She worked as a teacher and a Pioneer leader until 1985. Pau subsequently studied at the SED’s higher-education institute, graduating with a degree in social science in 1988.

She served as a Member of Berlin House of Representatives for the PDS from 1995 to 1998. In 1998 she was directly elected to the Bundestag to represent the Berlin-Mitte/Prenzlauer Berg constituency. Pau was deputy chairwoman of the PDS parliamentary group from 2000 to 2002. In the 2002-2005 electoral term, when the PDS did not have a parliamentary group in the Bundestag after failing to achieve the five per cent of the vote required for representation, she was directly elected in her constituency and took up her seat as an unattached Member of Parliament. Since October 2005 she has again served as deputy chairwoman of her parliamentary group, with responsibility for the areas of civil rights and democracy.

Re-appraisal of the GDR past

Re-appraising life in the GDR is important to Pau: "Of course my past is typical for someone who grew up in the GDR, I was a teacher and Pioneer leader in East Berlin. It is my past which drives me today in my commitment to a democratic society, and I reject any suggestion that this is not the case or even possible."

As Vice-President of the Bundestag, she will in particular seek to defend democracy and civil rights, Pau says, adding that, although she does not intend to be an apolitical Vice-President, she will strive to be impartial in her conduct of the Bundestag’s sittings.