Will Gerhard Schröder's narrow victory after a nail-biting election race diversify German politics? Sustained efforts to silence even moderate criticism of Israel and the US suggest otherwise, writes Dominic Coldwell Click to view caption German politics long appeared as, well, a bit of a bore. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's election in 1998 constituted the first time in the history of the Federal Republic that Germans actually voted an incumbent government out of office. But matters look like they might be changing now. On Sunday, voters re-elected the governing coalition of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens just by a straw. The SPD and its conservative rival, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Edmund Stoiber, each bagged 38.5 per cent of the vote. The Green Party made its strongest showing ever in a federal election pocketing 8.6 per cent of the ballot. By contrast, the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) -- a potential coalition partner of the CDU -- clearly failed to reach its target of 18 per cent, settling for 7.4 per cent instead. The governing coalition therefore enjoys a narrow lead of 11 seats in the future parliament (Bundestag). The irony of the situation is that Schröder will remain chancellor although he actually lost 2.4 per cent of the vote vis-à-vis 1998 -- a considerable deficit by the standards of Germany's arcane electoral arithmetic. On the other hand, the CDU gained 3.4 per cent. The unexpectedly strong showing of the Greens saved Schröder. Conversely, the poor performance of the FDP undermined Stoiber's aspirations. The result is even more astonishing given that the CDU appeared moribund only two years earlier. Shortly after their election defeat in 1998, the conservatives' leading lights became embroiled in revelations of a party-financing scandal that ousted the faction's entire upper echelon. In 2000, no pundit worth his salt would have predicted anything less than a landslide victory for Schröder two years down the road. Yet up until a few weeks before the ballot, Stoiber was the clear favourite in all major opinion polls. Given the chancellor's less than spectacular triumph last Sunday, the real task is to explain the phenomenal conservative comeback. Underpinning Schröder's victory in 1998, was the notion of a 'Third Way'. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new crop of leftist politicians tried to modernise progressive politics by embracing market-oriented strategies. The SPD still advocated the provision of equal opportunities for all citizens, rather than policies privileging only the wealthy. But by promoting competitive enterprise, Third Way politicians simultaneously rejected top-down redistribution. Ensuring economic dynamism rather than more welfare, the state was to help citizens help themselves. The market was now viewed as a means to achieve public ends, encouraging civic and community institutions to play a larger role in public life. In practice, the notion of empowering citizens to better their lot has fallen miserably short of its objectives. Faced with the demographic dilemma of a steadily growing population of pensioners, Schröder tried to reduce the burden on the federal budget by slashing public entitlements and increasing private contributions to pension funds. Coupled with a growth-oriented policy of tax- cuts for big business and negligible improvements for low-income segments, the net result has been to make many ordinary Germans poorer than before. Unlike neighbouring France, Germany has not imposed any legislation protecting consumers against price hikes following the country's conversion to the euro earlier this year. Twelve years after reunification, the East German economy is still in the doldrums. Schröder's earlier avowal that he did not deserve to be re- elected in 2002 if he failed to cut the country's chronically high unemployment rate below the 4 million threshold became an acute liability in this year's campaign. The chancellor's dismal economic record, in turn, revived the CDU's flagging fortunes. Stoiber overcame traditional aversion throughout much of the country to a contestant from the conservative state of Bavaria. Despite obvious structural dissimilarities between Bavaria and the rest of Germany, Stoiber pointed to Bavaria's exceptionally low unemployment and high growth rates as a model for the rest of the country. In addition, Schröder has had trouble mobilising traditional SPD voters. Many young people remain disenchanted with politics. It is true that Stoiber has not curried much favour with East Germans after elbowing the region's Angela Merkel -- the CDU's secretary-general -- out of the race to become the first female candidate for the chancellorship. But then, Schröder has not contributed much to the elusive upswing in Germany's Mezzogiorno either. Nor has the chancellor compensated for such apathy by mobilising the country's newly naturalised citizens of Turkish origin. While it is true that many former 'guestworkers' remain hostile to the CDU's anti-immigration rhetoric, conservative pressure in 2000 diluted Schröder's reform of citizenship laws. Under the new dispensation, immigrants have to give up the nationality of their country of origin, if they wish to obtain a German passport. As a result, few Turks have actually opted for naturalisation since the reform. What ultimately allowed Schröder -- in an unprecedented development -- to inch ahead of Stoiber in opinion polls just one week ahead of the election, were two outside factors. First, Schröder benefited from the recent flooding in many parts of Eastern Germany. While his rival continued holidaying, the chancellor waded through the slick promising quick-relief packages for the victims of the catastrophe. Second, the chancellor capitalised on a rising tide of anti- war sentiment and -- unlike Stoiber-- categorically ruled out any German participation in an invasion of Iraq. In the final analysis, the chancellor's re- election signals not so much approval of his policies than the presence of saving graces. According to most analysts, the draw between CDU and SPD resulted from the contrast between the chancellor's high popularity and the people's greater trust in his rival's ability to jumpstart the sluggish economy. The SPD lost more than 5 per cent of all votes amongst workers and trade unionists. Stoiber, on the other hand, increased his support among this traditional SPD-constituency by more than eight per cent. The question now is whether Schröder will be able to form a stable government. Though Stoiber predicted the next coalition would be inherently weak with such a slim majority, the chancellor maintained that, "a majority is a majority." In fact, there is little reason to fear the fragmentation of German politics, since MPs generally vote in tandem with the party line. The Federal Republic's first chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, for a long time ruled with a majority of one vote and proceeded to become one of the most successful post-war politicians. Nor are Germany's establishment politicians actually willing to tolerate the type of civic pluralism, which the 'third way' is supposed to engender. Just three days before the election, Schröder's Minister of Justice Herta D�ubler-Gmelin raised a diplomatic storm when she allegedly told a gathering of trade unionists that United States President George W Bush "is trying to divert attention from his domestic problems. This is a preferred method. Hitler used to do the same". She proceeded to say that the US had "a lousy judicial system" -- for if the current legislation against manipulation of earnings accounts had been in place since the 1980s, "then Bush would be in prison now". In a blistering riposte, US National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice said the comments had "poisoned" bi-lateral relations. US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld refused to confer with his German counterpart at a meeting of NATO defence ministers in Warsaw this week. Bush is the only world leader so far not to have congratulated Schröder on his re-election. Not surprisingly, Schröder promptly ruled out D�ubler-Gmelin's participation in any future cabinet. No less bruising is the fate of Jürgen Möllemann, the chairman of the German-Arab Society, and -- until Monday-- the vice- chairman of the liberal FDP. Möllemann dominated the early months of the election campaign by backing the application for party membership of Syrian-born Jamal Karsli. Karsli, a former member of the environmentalist Green Party, raised a public outcry earlier this year when he compared Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's invasion of Jenin to "Nazi methods". Comments such as these hit a raw nerve with a political establishment accustomed to 'atoning' for World War II by voicing almost unmitigated public support for Israel at the expense of any concern for the human rights of Palestinians. There are strong grounds for suspecting that the German public, however, does not share the instinct of its leaders. While establishment politicians have joined Michel Friedmann -- the vice president of Germany's influential Central Council of Jews (CCJ) -- in tarring Möllemann with the brush of anti-Semitism, a majority feels that anti-Semitism and criticism of Sharon's policies are not necessarily identical. Thus, a rarely noted opinion poll in May revealed that more than 60 per cent of Germans feel they should be allowed to criticise Israeli violations of human rights in the occupied territories more than half a century after the Second World War. Not surprisingly, Möllemann boasted that the FDP had received more than 300 new applications for Party membership in his own constituency one month after the outbreak of the controversy. In two separate votes, the FDP's parliamentary faction endorsed Karsli's application for membership. In June, Hans Kreher, the FDP leader in the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, also asserted that Karsli should be given a chance to prove his merit by joining the Party. "I don't know anyone here, who blames Möllemann," added his colleague Andreas Kniepert from Thuringia. Möllemann's strategy of breaking taboos was beneficial for political culture at large, he argued. By the same token, Torsten Herbst, Saxony's vice-chairman of the FDP, registered "massive backing" for Möllemann at the party base. Regardless of such sentiments, Party Chairman Guido Westerwelle issued an ultimatum to his deputy in June: Either Karsli would withdraw his application, or Westerwelle could no longer work together with Möllemann. Although Karsli promptly tendered his resignation, Möllemann was forced to apologise in case his comments had offended "the feelings of Jewish people". Nonetheless, he flatly rejected charges of anti- Semitism, and emphasised that his apology excluded Friedmann, whom he himself held responsible for contributing to the rise of anti- Semitism by virtue of "his obnoxious and arrogant behaviour". Although the controversy died down for the rest of the campaign, Möllemann opened a can of worms three weeks ago by distributing leaflets to five million households across his home state of North-Rhine Westphalia, emphasising that he has always supported a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict with secure borders for Israel and a separate state for the Palestinians. By contrast, Sharon was acting in flagrant contempt of UN resolutions and dispatching tanks to refugee camps. At a final campaign rally last week, Möllemann said that he would continue castigating Sharon as a warmonger so long as he was violating the Oslo Treaty. "Not even Friedmann will prevent me from doing so," Möllemann quipped. Although Jürgen Koppelin, the FDP leader of Schleswig-Holstein, argued that "Möllemann's leaflet contains statements that we have long known" to be true, the latest round of 'anti- Semitic' remarks were too much for Germany's establishment. Following the FDP's miserable showing in Sunday's elections, the party's executive committee called on Möllemann to resign from his vice-chairmanship alleging that the deputy's dispute with Westerwelle hurt the FDP's electoral fortunes. The irony of the situation is that Möllemann has much less to do with the FDP's under- performance than Westerwelle would have his party faithful believe. Möllemann's popularity was apparent in North-Rhine Westphalia, where he bagged 9.3 per cent of all secondary votes -- i.e. 2.1 per cent more than four years ago. This year, almost two-thirds of all Germans expected the FDP to commit itself firmly to a coalition with the CDU ahead of the poll. Westerwelle's refusal to do so meant that many conservative FDP supporters refrained from voting liberal for fear of pitchforking an SPD-led coalition with the Greens and the FDP into office. But the same rules apparently hold true for all elections. If a majority is a majority, then a scapegoat is a scapegoat.
