East German Group Won’t Form Party : East Europe: The opposition New Forum will enter candidates in May elections.

LEIPZIG, East Germany — The leading East German opposition group, New Forum, on Sunday decided against forming an official political party but agreed to enter candidates in national elections planned for May.

The New Forum movement, which claims it has signed up 200,000 members in a matter of months, held a two-day conference to develop strategy for the election campaign, East Germany’s first free vote. About 150 delegates participated.

The group also agreed to support a nationwide demonstration Jan. 15 to protest what it called the continuing control of national institutions by the Communist Party, whose leadership was ousted last year after massive street protests. New Forum claims that the party has not yet really reformed itself.

Further, the New Forum meeting charged, the East German secret police, the so-called Stasi, has not really been purged but continues to exercise behind-the-scenes control, particularly in the countryside outside East Berlin, the capital.

In an interview on Austrian television Sunday, East Germany’s Communist prime minister, Hans Modrow, said laws currently being drafted will ensure that his party has no unfair advantage in the elections, news agencies reported.

“As soon as we have an election law, it will work just as it does with you (in Austria), with all parties having equal access to television,” he said.

The New Forum decision on the election campaign reflects a basic fissure in the organization: whether to develop a full-fledged party apparatus or to remain a movement of loosely allied opposition forces.

As one of the New Forum senior leaders, artist Baerbel Bohley, explained the dilemma after the session ended Sunday:

“Deep down, I am an anarchist. I find it difficult to sit quietly for two days, following an agenda and discussing tactics rather than substance about policy. We did not have enough time here to work out serious policies.”

But a central problem in working out overall policies, according to other senior New Forum figures meeting in a local hall in a working-class district, is a need to forgo the practice of issuing sweeping statements about political and economic policy and instead develop a grass-roots campaign strategy for the election.

“Our revolution was spontaneous,” commented Jens Reich, a scientist who is one of the most respected leaders of New Forum. “We have changed a lot of things and a lot of our thinking. But we don’t have much time until the May election to get organized.”

As a result, New Forum has called another national meeting for the last week in January to refine the ideas discussed here over the weekend.

Under the East German constitution, “social groups,” in addition to political parties, can present candidates for the Volkskammer, or Parliament.

Some opposition leaders fear that the Communist Party is better organized than the new democratic groups and could therefore go into the election campaign with a substantial lead, simply because of its past organizational skills.