CDU :thumb:
Chancellor Schröder Calls for Early Elections
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder shocked the country on Sunday by calling for early federal elections. Nobody in Germany really expected the crucial state elections in Germany's most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia on Sunday to turn out differently. After years of bleeding support, plunging party membership and rising unemployment figures across Germany, Chancellor Schröder's Social Democratic party (SPD) was clearly heading for a monumental defeat. And that is precisely what happened. The party was pummelled. After 39 years holding the reigns of power in this heavily blue-collar population, which is also home to the industrial Ruhr region, the party managed only a paltry 37.1 percent of the vote. The opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) garnered 44.8 percent. Bye bye SPD bastion.
And yet, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the profound implications of the vote for the power structure in Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, where Schroeder's party is now hopelessly outnumbered, the actual results of the North-Rhine Westphalia vote quickly turned into a political sideshow. Immediately following the elections, Chancellor Schroeder pulled one last rabbit out of his hat. His party announced that Schroeder was calling for general elections to be moved up -- originally scheduled to take place in September 2006 -- to autumn of this year.
"With the bitter election results for my party in North-Rhine Westphalia, the political basis for the continuation of our work has been called into question," Schroeder said during a brief appearance on Sunday. "For the continuation of the reforms, I believe clear support by the majority of Germans is essential."
All eyes are now on opposition leader Angela Merkel -- likely Germany's next chancellor.
The announcement was shocking. While it's not the first time early elections have been called in Germany -- former chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl were both able to consolidate support by moving up election days -- it does mark the first time a chancellor has accelerated the electoral calendar to hasten his own retirement. As Spiegel Online commentator Claus Christian Malzahn put it, Schroeder is "committing political suicide out of fear of political death."
The move also caught the opposition -- celebrating wildly on Sunday evening as the results of the vote became clear -- off guard. For months, the party's strategy has been to sit back and watch as the Social Democrats self destruct. Now, they are being forced into action. Already, the party has said it will present its candidate for chancellor on May 30. The announcement is not likely to be a surprise; CDU head Angela Merkel is the clear frontrunner -- although questions remain as to whether 2002 chancellor candidate Edmund Stoiber will once again throw his hat into the ring -- and a number of leading party members have already expressed their support. If the CDU wins the elections, as seems likely, she would become Germany's first ever woman chancellor.
And yet despite the SPD's recent difficulties, it's not entirely clear that political suicide was Schroeder's intention. It's true that the bad news has been unrelenting of late -- with unemployment rocketing over the 5 million mark, economic growth sluggish at best and his foreign minister, the formerly well-loved Joschka Fischer of the Green party, wallowing in a visa scandal in which he is accused of making it easier for criminals from the former Soviet Union to travel to Germany. Indeed, were the election to be held now, Schroeder's SPD would get only 29 percent against 46 percent for the CDU, according to the most recent survey conducted by Infratest.
But there is something to be said for a chancellor who calls for elections in the face of eroding support for his premiership, and Schroeder may well be hoping that the surprise move will garner him a few sympathy votes. And the campaign issues, at least from the perspective of the SPD, are already clear; the party on Monday said it would campaign against what it refers to as the CDU's "market radicalism."
Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer will likely also be sent into retirement in the autumn vote. "We have to show that what is at stake now is the social aspect of the market economy," SPD general secretary Klaus Uwe Benneter said on ZDF television on Monday morning. "This fall, we will have to conduct a debate between those who want ... to push through market radicalism and those to whom protection from dismissal and worker participation in managing companies is important."
In other words, back to the basics. But the SPD may benefit from the fact that a nation-wide debate on the benefits of a pure capitalist society has been raging in recent weeks. Originally set off by SPD party head Franz Muentefering -- who referred to those in the finance industry as "locusts" -- the party may be hoping they can keep the debate alive until the autumn.
The CDU, for its part, will likely focus on unemployment and Germany's sluggish economy, two eminently attackable Achilles heels of the SPD. Merkel has long made it clear that she would push for more leeway for German companies in dealing with their employees in an effort to make the German economy more flexible and streamlined.
And in the end, it will likely be the CDU that will steer the campaign debate. Germans are tired of ongoing economic helplessness and the economy has struggled to even reach 1 percent growth per year over the last four years. The country's stock market reacted to Schröder's announcement with a jump of over 1 percent in early trading on Monday.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder shocked the country on Sunday by calling for early federal elections. Nobody in Germany really expected the crucial state elections in Germany's most populous state of North-Rhine Westphalia on Sunday to turn out differently. After years of bleeding support, plunging party membership and rising unemployment figures across Germany, Chancellor Schröder's Social Democratic party (SPD) was clearly heading for a monumental defeat. And that is precisely what happened. The party was pummelled. After 39 years holding the reigns of power in this heavily blue-collar population, which is also home to the industrial Ruhr region, the party managed only a paltry 37.1 percent of the vote. The opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) garnered 44.8 percent. Bye bye SPD bastion.
And yet, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the profound implications of the vote for the power structure in Germany's upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat, where Schroeder's party is now hopelessly outnumbered, the actual results of the North-Rhine Westphalia vote quickly turned into a political sideshow. Immediately following the elections, Chancellor Schroeder pulled one last rabbit out of his hat. His party announced that Schroeder was calling for general elections to be moved up -- originally scheduled to take place in September 2006 -- to autumn of this year.
"With the bitter election results for my party in North-Rhine Westphalia, the political basis for the continuation of our work has been called into question," Schroeder said during a brief appearance on Sunday. "For the continuation of the reforms, I believe clear support by the majority of Germans is essential."
All eyes are now on opposition leader Angela Merkel -- likely Germany's next chancellor.
The announcement was shocking. While it's not the first time early elections have been called in Germany -- former chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl were both able to consolidate support by moving up election days -- it does mark the first time a chancellor has accelerated the electoral calendar to hasten his own retirement. As Spiegel Online commentator Claus Christian Malzahn put it, Schroeder is "committing political suicide out of fear of political death."
The move also caught the opposition -- celebrating wildly on Sunday evening as the results of the vote became clear -- off guard. For months, the party's strategy has been to sit back and watch as the Social Democrats self destruct. Now, they are being forced into action. Already, the party has said it will present its candidate for chancellor on May 30. The announcement is not likely to be a surprise; CDU head Angela Merkel is the clear frontrunner -- although questions remain as to whether 2002 chancellor candidate Edmund Stoiber will once again throw his hat into the ring -- and a number of leading party members have already expressed their support. If the CDU wins the elections, as seems likely, she would become Germany's first ever woman chancellor.
And yet despite the SPD's recent difficulties, it's not entirely clear that political suicide was Schroeder's intention. It's true that the bad news has been unrelenting of late -- with unemployment rocketing over the 5 million mark, economic growth sluggish at best and his foreign minister, the formerly well-loved Joschka Fischer of the Green party, wallowing in a visa scandal in which he is accused of making it easier for criminals from the former Soviet Union to travel to Germany. Indeed, were the election to be held now, Schroeder's SPD would get only 29 percent against 46 percent for the CDU, according to the most recent survey conducted by Infratest.
But there is something to be said for a chancellor who calls for elections in the face of eroding support for his premiership, and Schroeder may well be hoping that the surprise move will garner him a few sympathy votes. And the campaign issues, at least from the perspective of the SPD, are already clear; the party on Monday said it would campaign against what it refers to as the CDU's "market radicalism."
Germany's Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer will likely also be sent into retirement in the autumn vote. "We have to show that what is at stake now is the social aspect of the market economy," SPD general secretary Klaus Uwe Benneter said on ZDF television on Monday morning. "This fall, we will have to conduct a debate between those who want ... to push through market radicalism and those to whom protection from dismissal and worker participation in managing companies is important."
In other words, back to the basics. But the SPD may benefit from the fact that a nation-wide debate on the benefits of a pure capitalist society has been raging in recent weeks. Originally set off by SPD party head Franz Muentefering -- who referred to those in the finance industry as "locusts" -- the party may be hoping they can keep the debate alive until the autumn.
The CDU, for its part, will likely focus on unemployment and Germany's sluggish economy, two eminently attackable Achilles heels of the SPD. Merkel has long made it clear that she would push for more leeway for German companies in dealing with their employees in an effort to make the German economy more flexible and streamlined.
And in the end, it will likely be the CDU that will steer the campaign debate. Germans are tired of ongoing economic helplessness and the economy has struggled to even reach 1 percent growth per year over the last four years. The country's stock market reacted to Schröder's announcement with a jump of over 1 percent in early trading on Monday.
