ON October 17, a fortnight after the West German polls, the German De-mocratic Republic (GDR) held its own election*. Characterised by the GDR leaders as ''an acme of socialist democracy*' and dubbed as "farce" and "fictitious1' by the West German mass media and the government, 98.58 per cent of the nearly 12 million eli-gible voters cast their votes in these elections, in 14 districts and in East Berlin.