Although nearly one in five of Germany‘s 80 million people are immigrants, or the children or grandchildren of immigrants, relatively few have made it into the federal legislature. Until now there were no black lawmakers in Parliament, despite more than 500,000 people of recent African origin believed to be living in Germany.”My election into the German Parliament is of historical importance,” said Karamba Diaby, a Senegalese-born chemist who moved to the city of Halle in 1986 after receiving a scholarship to study in communist East Germany.The 51-year-old, who gained German citizenship in 2001, said his priority would be to promote equal opportunities in education. “Every child born in Germany should have the chance to be successful in school regardless of their social background or the income of their parents,” he said.The other black lawmaker elected Sunday was Charles M Huber, a 56-year-old actor born in Munich to a Senegalese father and a German mother. Huber is a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s Christian Democratic Union, which won the election with 41.5 per cent of the vote.
via Germany elects first black lawmakers – News – JamaicaObserver.com.
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