German Election:
A Clear Rejection Of Right-Wing Policies
By Peter Schwarz
21 September 2005
World
Socialist Web
The
result of the election for the German parliament (Bundestag) on Sunday
can be interpreted in only one way: policies based on welfare cuts and
the re-division of social wealth to benefit the rich have met with bitter
resistance from the German population and been vigorously rejected.
Federal Chancellor
Gerhard Schröder had arranged the early election in order to create
a stable parliamentary majority for the implementation of his thoroughly
unpopular program of welfare cutsthe Agenda 2010. To this end,
he received support from all of the parties represented in the Bundestag,
from the German president, the Federal Constitutional Court and the
entire economic and political elite.
The governing Social
Democratic Party (SPD)-Green Party coalition was to receive a new mandate
and critics of government policy from inside the ruling parties were
to be silenced, or power would be handed over to the conservative opposition,
consisting of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social
Union (CSU), and the free market Free Democratic Party (FDP).
Now just the opposite
has occurred. The election result has resulted in a parliamentary majority
which is even more precarious, and has made clear that the prevailing
policy of free market reforms is rejected by the majority
of the population. Political crises as well as violent social conflicts
are the inevitable outcome.
This was already
foreshadowed on the evening of the election whenfor the first
time in the history of the German Federal Republictwo candidates,
Angela Merkel (CDU) and the incumbent chancellor, Schröder (SPD),
both claimed victory and both said they were determined to assume the
post of chancellor in the new government.
When polling stations
closed on Sunday at 6 p.m. and the first prognoses were published, the
result came as a shock to representatives of the CDU/CSU as well as
to professional public opinion analysts. The Union parties,
which were set to win well over 40 percent according to all polls taken
prior to the vote, received just 35 percent. This figure was confirmed
in the course of the evening. The Union parties supposedly impregnable
advantage over the SPD22 percent points in the middle of Junehad
shrunk to just one percent.
The SPD fared better
than it itself had expected just a few weeks ago. Nevertheless, the
party was the clear loser in the election, its vote declining more than
4 percent compared to the Bundestag election three years previously.
It obtained a bit less than 34 percent, one of the worst results in
its history. The Greens suffered slight losses, receiving 8 percent
of the vote.
The Union parties
were unable to profit from the losses in the government camp. The CDU
lost 3 percent of its total compared to the last election, while the
CSU, which is based in Bavaria and runs candidates only in that state,
lost as much as 10 percent. For the first time in Germanys post-war
history, the two so-called peoples parties, the SPD
and the Union, polled a combined vote of less than 70 percent.
With just 10 percent,
the FDP obtained one of its best ever results. It received many so-called
second ballot votes from Union voters who sought to prevent
a grand coalition of the SPD and CDU. Nevertheless, the
combined vote for the Union and FDP was less than their total at the
last Bundestag election, when they only narrowly failed to poll more
than the SPD-Green camp. Tipped as sure winners of the election, the
Union and FDP only polled 45 percent of the vote.
The party that registered
the biggest increase in support was the recently formed Left Party.
In 2002, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDSsuccessor party
to the Stalinist ruling party of the former East Germany) failed to
gain the five percent minimum necessary under German electoral law for
admission to parliament. Now standing as the Left Party (following a
fusion with the West German-based Election Alternative group) its candidates
more than doubled their vote to nearly nine percent, and the merged
party will control a significant fraction of deputies in the new parliament.
In the former East
Germany, where the PDS had its main base of support, the Left Party
received 27 percenton a level with the vote for the CDUwhile
the SPD won the largest share of the vote, with 33 percent. In the states
of former West Germany, the Left Party won slightly less than five percent
of the vote.
All in all, the
election result indicates a clear shift to the left within the electorate.
The Union and FDP notched up just 45 percent, compared to 51 percent
for the governing parties plus the Left Party. The remaining 4 percent
of the vote was divided amongst smaller parties which will not be represented
in the Bundestag.
This shift to the
left became increasingly evident as social questions moved to the center
of the election debate. Initially, the Union had been able to profit
from popular discontent with the Schröder government, but its own
ratings sank when the public became clearer about what the Union itself
was proposing in terms of social policy.
In particular, the
Union lost a huge amount of support in the wake of public debate on
the radical right-wing tax plans proposed by Paul Kirchhof, who was
brought by Merkel onto her campaign team as her expert on financial
policy. At the same time, the SPD and the Greens began to talk left.
While they had originally presented themselves as hard-line reformers,
towards the end of the election campaign they shifted their tactics
and posed as defenders of the welfare state.
An additional factor
was the hurricane disaster in New Orleans. The complete failure of the
Bush administration in the face of a natural catastrophe which had long
been forecast, and the way in which hundred of thousands of poor people
were left to their fate, made clear to many voters the consequences
of policies that subordinate all social needs to the market and corporate
profit-making.
It would, however,
be entirely mistaken to think that the government which eventually emerges
from these elections will respond to the concerns and needs of the voters.
On the contrary, it will move even further to the right.
Discussion had already
begun on the evening of the election on the mechanism for arriving at
a stable government which will be able to continue the dismantling of
the German social welfare system. This was the basis for the assertion
by Schröder that he should remain chancellor.
Nobody apart
from me is able to construct a stable government, he declared
in a television debate on the evening of the election. The issue was,
he said, to ensure that reform processes start to move in Germany
without endangering social harmony. In other words, Schröder
is claiming that only he can implement further reforms without
unleashing open social conflict.
He excluded any
form of cooperation with the Left Party, which could theoretically assist
the SPD and Greens in establishing a majority. A so-called traffic
light coalition comprising the SPD, the Greens and the FDP, which
would also have a majority, has been categorically rejected by the FDP
chairman, Guido Westerwelle.
The only remaining
alternative is a grand coalition under Schröders leadership.
Angela Merkel angrily rejected such a demand, and persisted in stressing
that as the largest parliamentary grouping, the Union had the right
to determine the chancellor of a grand coalition. At the same time,
prominent representatives of big business are insisting that a government
has to be assembled as rapidly as possible.
The spokesman for
the Retail Trade Federation, Hubertus Pellengahr, demanded that the
parties unite to find a solution and form an effective government as
quickly as possible. Anything else promises uncertainty, and uncertainty
is always the worst condition for an economic upswing.
BDI President Jürgen
Thumann said of the election result: From the standpoint of industry
and business, we are bitterly disappointed. He warned that Germany
would be more difficult to govern. He appealed to the Union and SPD
to be conscious of their great responsibility and do everything
necessary to get reforms moving.
A further possible
coalition that is being discussed is an alliance of the Union, the FDP
and the Greens. Prominent representatives of the Greens have declared
that such a coalition is hardly realistic, but have also refrained from
entirely excluding it. For its part, the Left Party has declared that
it does not intend to disturb the plans of the other parties. It has
no intention of mobilizing its voters and opposing the formation of
either a grand coalition or another form of right-wing alliance.
Oskar Lafontaine,
former SPD chairman and a leading candidate of the Left Party, had already
on several occasions during the campaign endorsed a grand coalition.
Following the vote, PDS Chairman Lothar Bisky echoed Lafontaines
words in a televised debate. The Left Party would emerge as the victor
from a grand coalition, he said, and called such an outcome a lesser
evil to a Union-FPD government.