THE FLYING GERMAN
Bernard Adamczewski, denied a vote for 65 years, writes of the joys of disenfranchisement
I AM A China-born German citizen of Polish descent, resident in England. I have lived in China, Japan, Britain, Germany, Austria, South Africa and Eire. I have pur- sued one of the most international of occupations, computer programming, in all the last five and also worked on assign- ments in Switzerland, Spain, the United States, Canada, Israel and the Lebanon. I have paid taxes in all the countries where I have worked but I have never, in all my 65 years, been entitled to vote in any election anywhere.
This privilege may now for the first time be granted to me no later than 31 Decem- ber 1993, by virtue of the Treaty of Maas- tricht; after which time, in some manner yet to be specified, I shall be entitled to vote and stand as a candidate for the European Parliament in Britain or wherev- er else in Europe I may reside.
After a lifetime of disenfranchisement I shall contain my excitement at this happy prospect until I actually see the privilege being afforded me. For I have stood before the portals of such promises before.
Anticipating European Union from early 1987, the German government grant- ed the vote to all its citizens, even if they lived abroad: they needed only to apply to a German embassy. I applied, leaving undecided whether I would exercise the newly promised power. As one would expect from government bureaucracy, all I got for my interest was an information sheet and an official questionnaire with a list of requirements.
Most of the requirements were easily met by documents in my possession. I had an original official certificate from 1940 confirming, with seals and signatures and swastika, that I was a German citizen. I could prove that I was born such with a birth certificate sworn before the German consul in Shanghai by my father, who, in spite of very Polish Christian names — Boleslaw Franciszek Maria — was a Prus- sian citizen and had served as a lieutenant of the reserve in Kaiser Wilhelm's army in the first world war, defending his Imperial Majesty's crown colony of Tsingtao in the Chinese coastal province of Shantung against the Japanese. I also still held the green Aliens Registration Certificate pass- book issued to me by the British Home Office when I first came to work in Eng- land in 1961, apparently proving that I had not in the meantime acquired British nationality. But then I hit the snag.
In Germany, half the seats in parliament are filled by the winners of a constituency- based, first-past-the-post system, just as in Britain; the rest are assigned through a PR-based, party-list system. So each voter has two votes, one for each half. No by- elections take place, as vacancies between elections are filled on a PR basis from the party lists. To fit in with this have-it-both- ways system, Germans living abroad are notionally assigned to the German con-
stituency in which they last resided for at least three months after mid-1949, and proof of such residence can be found in the (still compulsory) register of inhabitants. But as I had only lived in Germany from the end of 1939 to early 1949 this excluded me. My hopes of at last becoming elec- torally normal were pulverised in the mill of the regulations. I accepted that for the constituency vote my background present- ed difficulties, but I did think they could at least have allowed me the PR one. I would have liked to have been a kind of second- class voter, with half the normal voting rights.
For all I know, the European Court would not allow me to be disenfranchised in this manner, what with my having done my bit for Fiihrer and Fatherland in the last war and all. But perhaps Maastricht will make it unnecessary for me to find out. For by the end of 1994 my voting status is promised to be further enhanced, as per the Treaty, so as to include the municipal elections in the English town where I presently live. I might yet become mayor of the place before the millennium runs out, although even if I do, I shall not be able to vote for a member of parliament, at least not in the foreseeable future. But, again, before I get worked up at the prospect of wearing that chain, I'll wait to see if these promises are actually fulfilled. And if they are, how? Will there be two voters' rolls, or even three? What will they be called: the first-, second- and third-class roll? Or will they find some politically correct euphemism for the rolls of the electorally disadvantaged? Are town halls, already burdened with the change-over from poll to council tax, now feverishly preparing for the introduction of these new voters' rolls?
The real question is not whether Com- munity law — whatever that might be — should encompass such extreme, though genuine, circumstances as mine, but whether if it did it would matter two hoots. Having been denied for some 45 years what most citizens of Western democracies — including, by the way, my children and grandchildren — consider their natural and irrevocable rights, I have got used to not having them and have learnt to appreciate the advantages of doing without.
I'm not on any electoral roll, so no court seeking potential jurors will ever find me; nor will market researchers and junk-mall purveyors be able to obtain my name and whereabouts. With my travelling about, the tax man cannot but accept that I have a foreign domicile; for surely no one would wish to stay for any length of time, beyond the minimum necessary, in a place which grants him no political rights. And being a German I like to avoid political responsi- bilities, and so I am glad you can't blame me if you dislike the Common Market, the ERM or the new, purple Euro-passport which I already carry and you soon will if you don't as yet: you voted for it — I was not allowed to.
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