Christian Wulff resigns as President of Germany

It did not really come as a surprise, but this morning Christian Wulff resigned as President of Germany. His resignation came as a consequence of prosecutors wishing to investigate his role in a corruption case asked Parliament to suspend his immunity.
The President acknowledged in his resignation statement that he had lost the confidence of the German people. The case began in December, when it was revealed by the media that Wulff, when Minister President of Lower Saxony, had taken a large loan from the wife of a millionaire friend by the name of Egon Geerkens. As Minister President, Wulff had been asked by the state parliament if he had any business ties with Mr Geerkens, something which he explicitly denied without mentioning the loan from Mrs Geerkens.
The President faced mounting criticism when it emerged he had made an angry and apparently threatening phone call to the editor of the newspaper Bild in an attempt to get the newspaper to postpone its publication of the story.
Christian Wulff, who, like Chancellor Angela Merkel, belongs to the Christian Democratic Party, was elected President on 30 June 2010, following the abrupt resignation of President Horst Köhler. A new head of state will have to be elected by the Federal Assembly within thirty days.