E. German Party Says It’s Ready to Give Up Top Role

East German leader Egon Krenz announced Friday that the formerly all-powerful East German Communist Party wishes to relinquish its constitutional role as the main political force in the country.

In bending to the demands for radical change, Krenz’s unexpected statement could put the party in jeopardy when it contests the new and free elections the Communist regime has promised the nation.

In a full-page interview in the Communist Party newspaper, Neues Deutschland, Krenz said he and Politburo leaders want to strike from the constitution Article 1, which gives the party a leading role in national affairs.

“If it was just a question of removing the passage in Article 1 of the constitution referring to the party’s leading role, there would be no need for debate. We want to delete it,” said the 52-year-old party chief, adding that he wishes to see the whole 106-article constitution revised. Article 1 states that East Germany is a socialist state led by the “working class and its Marxist-Leninist party.”

“The way a party tackles the development of society should not be proclaimed in laws or declarations,” Krenz added.

The Communist Party’s dominant role already has been undercut by reformist Prime Minister Hans Modrow, who named 11 non-Communist ministers to his 27-member inner circle.

In a public opinion poll released Friday by the ADN news agency, Modrow was voted East Germany’s most popular politician, with support from 41.9% of respondents. Krenz, by contrast, won support from only 9.6% in the poll, conducted by a party sociology institute.

The poll showed that 31.5% thought that the Communist Party favored their interests, while 41.9% said no party or movement represented their interests.

The downgrading of the Communist Party came only a few hours after it revealed that ousted longtime leader Erich Honecker and other former senior officials will be investigated on charges of alleged misrule.

Sweeping new reforms are expected to be announced at the special Communist Party congress, the nation’s supreme political body, in East Berlin on Dec. 15-17.

Krenz promised Friday that the party congress will “put the whole truth on the table” about past leadership errors and questionable party finances.

“There cannot and will not be a return to old conditions,” he declared. “Whoever has broken the law belongs in court. Whoever failed morally must answer before the party and the people.”

Also Friday, Modrow said that existing frontiers and alliances in Europe should be maintained to ensure the continent’s security. Thus, in remarks to visiting Austrian Chancellor Franz Vranitzky, he appeared to rule out any rapid move toward reunification with West Germany.

The official news agency ADN reported that Modrow, 61, told Vranitzky that “existing frontiers and the membership of states in alliances are a fundamental element of European security.”

Nonetheless, he said, East Germany want to overcome the division of Europe.

Two of East Germany’s smaller parties allied with the Communists, the Christian Democrats and the National Democrats, reported this week that they favor a confederation between the two German states rather than reunification.

And in the first meeting between the East German Christian Democrats and Volker Ruehe, general secretary of Bonn’s Christian Democrats, both sides said they favor a German confederation to foster national unity.

Ruehe reaffirmed the West German commitment to reunification in the long run, but he said: “A confederation would be a conceivable interim step.”

Karl Hennig, a leader of the East German Christian Democrats, said confederation would be “a reflection of Germany unity.”

“Reunification is no goal for us at this time,” he said.

In other developments, the government instituted new customs checks to crack down on people smuggling subsidized goods purchased at low prices in East Germany and then sold in West Germany for high profits.