Petra Bläss

Petra Bläss (since 2005, Petra Bläss-Rafajlovski: born 12 June 1964) is a German politician (formerly PDS). She served in the German parliament (Bundestag) between 1990 and 2002, and was a Bundestag vice-president between 1998 and 2002.

In 1990 she served, improbably as she thought, both at the time and subsequently, as the chair of the 50 member Electoral Commission appointed to supervise East Germany's first (and last) freely held and fairly administered general election. She grew up in Wittenberg, a small university town closely associated with Martin Luther, located some 40 km (25 miles) to the north of Leipzig.

Bläss successfully completed her school final exams ("Abitur") in 1982 which opened the way for her enrollment at the Humboldt University in Berlin where she studied History, Germanistics and Pedagogy, emerging in 1987 with a degree and a qualification as a teacher of History and German. The working title for her doctoral dissertation was "The presentation of war and images of peace in the dramatic output of " ("Kriegsdarstellung und Friedensbilder in der Dramatik Alfred Matusches"). This piece of work was never completed, however. In 1986 she had joined East Germany's ruling Socialist Unity Party ("Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands" / SED), "buoyed by the hope that Gorbachev's more liberal brand of socialism in the USSR might be workable in East Germany too", As she herself later explained the matter, since there were no parties with real power ... other than the SED, joining the party was the only option there was to influence political developments.

Time of changes Political changes accelerated during 1989 and 1990 along with accompanying uncertainty: the university let her know early in 1989 that after she had obtained her doctorate it did not expect to offer her a job, and she spent a year or so looking for suitable work in the theatre, the arts or the media, but without immediate success. A month after helping to create the UFV, in January 1990 Bläss resigned from the SED. In recent years she has described herself as a "freelance political consultant" (" freiberufliche Politikberaterin"). One priority, reflecting a defining theme of her entire political career, concerned training women for politics and participation in civil society. After she switched her focus towards Albania she combined advising on parliamentary matters in Tirana with teaching a course on Gender studies at a university in the southeast of the country. and of the Southeast Europe Society.