Election of the new president Drag queen emerges as star of the show
Berlin · The great and the good of German political and community life turned up on Sunday at the parliament in Berlin for the serious business of electing the country's new president.
But it was drag queen Olivia Jones who emerged as the star of the otherwise grey proceedings, as delegates convened to vote on who should assume the largely ceremonial post.
The 48-year-old Jones is one of the 1,260 member Federal Convention, comprising lawmakers and leading community figures, which elects the new president.
With an enormous orange wig and a bright blue dress, Jones (aka Hamburg-born Oliver Knoebel) towered over theother members of the Federal Convention. Describing herself as a "statement on all things diverse," Jones said in the parliament: "I am the splash of colour here."
After chatting with Merkel, she found herself a popular figure for selfies and photos from those gathered to elect the new president. Jones, who is over two metres tall, said in one interview ahead of the vote that she could imagine being president herself. "The office would suit me wonderfully," Jones told the daily Saarbruecken Zeitung. "It would not be boring with me."
Nominated as a convention member by the Green Party in the central German state of Lower Saxony, Jones has been active in community causes including animal rights and the women's movement.
