Elections in Germany update:No turn to the right, after all!

For me, the most astonishing fact is that the conservatives (CDU/CSU) and the liberals (FDP) are talking openly about who gets what cabinet department - although it's not clear yet, if there will be elections at all.

Walter Hinteler wrote:

... so, like ... I suppose you wont be leaving the mothership and joining any Lafontaine/WASG vehicle, then, eh?

No (but the Missus is leaning towards Andrea Nahles now :wink: ).

She's staying (in the SPD) tho, isnt she?

Just adding the numbers for the four state elections this past half a year - Saarland, Sachsen, Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein (but not the Nordrhein Westfalen local elections), I'm getting this net balance in thousands of votes:

Code:CHRISTIAN-DEMOCRATS - 425

SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS - 275

GREENS + 77

RIGHTWING-LIBERALS + 111

EX-COMMUNISTS + 77

NEO-NAZIS + 184
OTHER NATIONALIST - 73

FAMILY PARTY + 50
ELDERLY PARTIES + 44
FREE/LOCAL/REGIONAL + 3
OTHERS + 56

TOTAL - 168

Trends differed from election to election but some main patterns were clear:

- Low turnout
- Extremely bad results for the ruling Social-Democrats
- Disappointing results for the oppositional Christian-Democrats
- Gains, occasionally strong gains, for the parties of the extreme Right, with the neo-nazi NPD netting 9% in Sachsen and 4% in Saarland
- Gains for the junior government party, the Greens, and the junior opposition party, the Free Democrats (right-wing liberals)
- Gains for the former East-German communists, both in West and East
- Gains for numerous smaller parties

The end of a liaison

This much confidence in the Chancellor was never expressed before, at least not publicly. The usual suspects in his own party, who've all too oft made governing hard for Schroeder, aren't keen on obliging him by playing Judas, now that the Chancellor is urgently looking for traitors. The spokespersons of the leftist wing protested against "the round dance of lies" that were spread about them; it won't be the party's left that will obstruct the business tax reform, which would well serve as the much-needed break-point. The Greens, too, are not eager to later read back in the history books that they stabbed the dagger in the back of the Chancellor, and therewith the Red-Green project. They will not carry a co-responsibility for the Chancellor's machinations. That would just be cheap, since the decision was made without them and without taking their interests into account.

The lonesome decision of Schroeder and Muentefering to shorten the electoral period was a breach in the coalition, clarified further by the subsequent refusal to commit to any post-election coalition. Suddenly the red-green liaison is, as Muentefering says, "not a marriage of love" but "rather a coincidental coalition". The Greens needed a few days to realise that the romance between them and the SPD is over. But slowly the party is starting to react to the sauve-qui-peut (every man for himself) line of their for-now-still coalition partner, be it through loudly proclaimed doubts about the constitutionality of the ordered vote of no confidence or through an independent positioning for the elections, when they do come. [..]

[The current SPD line] is more risky for the Chancellor than for the party's chairman. He who asks for a vote of no confidence from his own ranks, must be wary that his party won't eventually fulfill his wish all too seriously.

Urgently sought: lack of confidence

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is, seen from a purely individual perspective, a man in an envious position. When he openly doubted whether he still enjoyed sufficient support among his own followers, he was promptly corrected by countless declarations of sympathy. Never before was there so much love for the Chancellor. Leftwing SPDers, green ministers, everyone vowed that it wouldn't be them who would bring the government down. [..] Let's put it this way: nobody wants to have been the one to do it.

Nests of opposition beyond political parties

Elections in North-Rhine Westphalia / Many, who once voted SPD, now involve themselves in varied initiatives on a local level instead

[..] "We in NRW" - for several decades the SPD was able to invest these words with the secure feeling of constituting the perennial majority in the state with the largest population, much like the CSU does under Bavaria's white-blue sky. The Socialdemocrats from North-Rhine Westphalia were able to gain this position from the late fifties on, when it incorporated former communist and former catholic working class constituencies, facilitated by the DGB trade unions and their unity principles. And even as the structural industrial changes around Rhine and Ruhr mixed many things up, the SPD under Johannes Rau, state father, seemed to guarantee that things would continue to be done in a socialdemocratic way. Under Wolfgang Clement as NRW Prime Minister this tradition crumbled away. New Economy and "productive inequality" became the values of socialdemocratic state politics, even if the context was still secured through the intertwined connections between SPD management and trade unions. All that is past, the CDU has now long overtaken the SPD in the NRW counties, the SPD has lost a significant part of its core constituency. Even if it would want to reprofile itself in opposition as a party that's critical of capitalism, it would lack the necessary numbers, the human potential. All that remains is the hope to come out better in the mass media-tized competition between the candidates for the PM office [..]

More than in any other state a dilemma becomes visible here. The politics of the party cartels that determine things today, the social deconstruction with assigned roles, is confronted with wide-spread rejection, the majority of the population still identifies with the ideal of fundamental social rights and social redistribution, despite all the neoliberal propaganda; but the structures for action, in which this social-political option might be pursued effectively, have partly collapsed away.

I can't remember where I read it, but some newspaper said that Schröder was acting like someone who was committing suicide out of fear of dying. Sounds more and more like an apt analogy.

On the day after, the top figures of the CDU laugh about that. Because they believe to know, that the fate that is befalling Schroeder now is that of the gambler, who at the end of the poker night puts his last posessions into play - the car, the house, the last pieces of clothing - in a bluff; only to then be told by the briefly surprised opponent that he really does have the unambiguously better cards. In the end, the CDU administrators agree, the surprise coup of the Chancellor was really just an act of desperation.

From [..] officer's wisdom is this rule: "Better a false decision than none". Gerhard Schroeder [..] has kept to this rule. His decision to call the national elections about a year early, equates with the order of a commander, whose troops are surrounded, to launch a break-out. With such a manoeuvre the surrounded troops for a moment win back their freedom of action, because they decide where and when the break-out attempt will take place. As soon as it takes place, however, the surrounders can concentrate their power on this last attempt of the opponent.

The CDU and FDP were brusquely surprised by Schroeder's decision on Sunday night. But on Monday already they'd rallied their forces.

The SPD loses its core electorate

[..] The SPD suffered especially harsh losses - 11% - among workers and the unemployed, with losses twice as large as in the overall results. Even so, the SPD remains the strongest party in both groups. Among its core electorate, the workers who are union members, the SPD did better than average with 61% of the vote, but here too it loses 11 percentage points. The CDU on the other hand gains 9% among both workers and the unemployed.

[..] Despite the electoral debacle, 42% of the respondents in NRW did not believe a change in course was necessary for the SPD. 24% said it would be better for the SPD if it turned more to the left, 19% on the other hand pleaded for a change in course to the right.

[..] In the view of the polling group, too, it seems very brave at first sight to strive for early elections. Apparently however the point after the loss of the socialdemocratic heartland is now more to prevent an existence-threatening fight between different currents within the SPD, by using the need to close ranks for national elections.

Tracks free

With the Agenda 2010 [Schroeder] cant win any elections. He is obviously not prepared to change the course. Holding out would under these conditions have led to hefty inner-party controversies. This is where the emergence of Lafontaione at the head of an electoral alternative was to be feared. [..] For the success of such a venture, however, time has become notably short now. The decision of the socialdemocratic leaders has also taken the wind out of Lafontaine's sails.

Muentefering now calls on the SPD to close ranks - on Schroeder's line. [..] That means: now, that the government can not be saved anymore, the party is more important than the Chancellorship.

From Red-Green to Red and Green

[Schroeder's words] were however clearly not an unambiguous commitment to the green coalition partner. After SPD-chief Muentefering declared the upcoming early elections to be a popular vote for or against the Chancellor's programme "Agenda 2010", Schroeder now made clear: the vote on September 18 will be between the two persons Schroeder and Merkel. The debate would be "focused on both the top candidates", he said.

Chancellor loyalists in Parliament like Hans-Peter Kemper or Susanne Kastner, as well as the PM of Rheinland-Pfalz Kurt Beck, also gestured towards a Great Coalition. Whether that is a possibility at all [it would only come into the picture if CDU and FDP wouldnt have enough seats by themselves] however depends on whether the postcommunist PDS makes it into parliament [and thus increases the squeeze for seats]. This however was made more likely by Oskar Lafontaine yesterday.

The former SPD chief declared that he wanted to enter the election campaign with the PDS and the WASG, if those two would build a common list. SPD general secretary Klaus Uwe Benneter promptly and quite lyrically demanded him [to either finally quit the party altogether or stop messing about]: "Oskar, stop with the vain talk! / Oskar, stop damaging the SPD! / Oskar, be honest: go now!" Within minutes - in an example of smoothly managed polit-media business - Lafontaine's resignation from the party rolled into the news agencies.

[..] [Prominent SPD leftist] Klaus Kirschner told taz he thought the decision for early elections was "a serious mistake". Even if the young party leftists would still fight for modifications in the election programme, "an opportunity to correct the policies along the lines of Muenteferings criticism of capitalism we would only have had in the course of 2006".

Red and Green looking for Profile

It sounds, as if they'd agreed on it, despite the newly felt distance. and one word comes up ever again, when SPD-people or Greens give info these days about the set-up of their election campaigns: profile. Mostly with the addition: "independent". The campname "Red-Green" is taboo. [..] SPD right-wingers are wishing for a Great Coalition. Daniel Cohn-Bendit admonishes his Greens from Brussels: "There is no red-green government anymore". In any case there is no longer a red-green election campaign. [..]

Just like the SPD needs to first clear up the internal contradictions in its election campaign strategy, so too the Greens are still looking for a campaign line that will be accepted by the party. The Berlin top is strongly inclined to a rather bourgeois election campaign, defending the reform policies - accompanied with warnings of the SPD falling back into old-left positions. That implies not letting oneself join some race for the potential of far-left votes, but instead representing a modern version of a left-leaning liberalism. There is already criticism to this course however. Green leftists like Baerbel Hoehn from NRW demand a greater attention to social justice and corrections to the Harz course.

'Red Oskar' launches plan to bring down Schröder
By Tony Paterson in Chemnitz
17 June 2005


Oskar Lafontaine could hardly have picked a more politically correct venue from which to launch a personal campaign to topple Chancellor Gerhard Schröder from power in Germany's forthcoming general election.

The former German finance minister, once described by Britain's Sun newspaper as "The most dangerous man in Europe", appeared in pouring rain last week in front of a 40-ton, Soviet-made bronze head of Karl Marx that survives as a "souvenir of communist culture" in the east German city of Chemnitz.

Before him stood the victims of Mr Schröder's unpopular attempt to reform the country's ailing economy and turn back the tide of 1930s-scale unemployment: a 2,000-strong crowd of elderly former East German communists, the jobless social-security recipients, and anti-globalisation activists.

Among the red banners, umbrellas and slogans demanding "social justice" was a small girl brandishing a placard that read: "Get rid of Schröder, the bosses' Chancellor who is ruining my life as a child".

His chin jutting towards the lead-grey heavens, "Red Oskar", the renegade former Social Democrat turned left-wing bogeyman, did his best to confirm the long-held convictions of those present with a withering assault on the near-criminal shortcomings of Mr Schröder's government.

Nothing was spared in his invective. Germany's "neo-liberal" political elite had allowed the nation's public morals to become "rotten and depraved". It had hoodwinked workers into believing that industry had to shed thousands of jobs if it were to remain profitable.

Politicians in the pay of big business had come up with the "gigantic lie" that Germany's welfare state was no longer affordable. The European Union - once sacrosanct for all politicians except the neo-Nazi far right - had allowed Germany to become swamped with eastern Europeans who were depriving German workers of jobs.

"We are the people," insisted "Red Oskar", borrowing the popular slogan that brought down communist East Germany's regime 15 years ago. "We are not the pawns of an industrial class that is only interested in furthering its own ends," he added.

It was what the crowd wanted to hear. "Yes, I think Oskar has a good chance in the election," said Bernd Schmidtbauer, 62, a former employee of a now-defunct communist computer-chip firm. "He is one of the only politicians left with the guts to tell the truth," he added.

The performance was Mr Lafontaine's opening gambit in what he hopes will be his return to the forefront of German politics after six years in the wilderness. Last month, the former protégé of Willy Brandt turned in the Social Democrat Party card that he had held for 39 years. Yesterday he confirmed his decision to run as a candidate for the "Democratic Left", a new alliance of former communists and disaffected ex-Social Democrats in the election.

The alliance has alarmed the SPD. Early opinion polls predict that the "Democratic Left" could win anything from 9 to 18 per cent of the vote in September. The consequences could be devastating for the party that produced such post-war political icons as Brandt and Helmut Schmidt.

Several commentators have forecast a worst-case scenario in which the increasingly divided Social Democrats become irrevocably weakened by the "Democratic Left" and consigned to the sidelines of power for decades.

For Oskar Lafontaine, such an outcome would be the sweetest of political triumphs. The impending election marks the final battle in his personal vendetta against Mr Schröder "I will do everything to make sure that he loses," he is reported to have told close friends.

His return to the hustings is also an attempt to reverse a dramatic fall from grace. In 1990 Mr Lafontaine was the SPD candidate who challenged the legendary "unification Chancellor" Helmut Kohl in a general election. Although he lost, he masterminded a party putsch five years later that ensured him the role of party leader with a mission to restore the Social Democrats to power after more than a decade of conservative rule. By the summer of 1997, Mr Lafontaine and Mr Schröder appeared committed to a future of personal and political friendship and when the Social Democrats swept to power in Germany's 1998 election, Mr Lafontaine was given the job of Finance Minister.

The ensuing power struggle lasted just six months. Mr Lafontaine is reputed to have been reduced to tears on realising the futility of his efforts to impose his brand of 70s left-wing economics and politics on a government that at the time was trying to copy Tony Blair's New Labour.

He was forced to resign as Finance Minister in March 1999. Mr Lafontaine and Mr Schröder have not spoken to each other since. Yet his view of those now running the SPD is as uncompromising as his desire to finish off Mr Schröder: "In terms of political content, they all left the SPD years ago," he insists.

Parting of the ways

* 1998: Gerhard Schröder is swept to power as the first Social Democrat Chancellor for 16 years on a promise to halve the country's growing number of unemployed. Oskar Lafontaine, the Social Democrat party leader credited with bringing the party back to power, becomes Finance Minister.

* 1999: Lafontaine is forced to resign from all government and party posts after a row with Mr Schröder over policy.

* 2002: Mr Schröder's coalition of Social Democrats and Greens is narrowly returned to power after his government firmly opposes American plans to invade Iraq. Unemployment rises.

* 2005: Mr Schröder calls for a general election two years ahead of schedule following his party's disastrous defeat by opposition conservatives in the key state of North Rhine-Westphalia where his party loses power for the first time in nearly 40 years. German unemployment reaches 5 million, the highest level since the 1930s.

* June 2005: Mr Lafontaine declares he will challenge Mr Schröder as candidate for a new left-wing alliance of former communists and disaffected former Social Democrats.