FRIEDBERT PFLÜGER COULD BARELY CONTAIN himself. It was last April when I asked the foreign policy spokesman for Germany’s Christian Democratic/Christian Social Union opposition alliance about elections taking place the following month in North Rhine-Westphalia. “The Social Democrats have governed that state for the past 39 years,” he explained. “It is the core of the German blue-collar mentality.” And if his Christian Democrats were to triumph there, “it would be the equivalent of New York and California going Republican.”
On May 22, voters in North Rhine-Westphalia fulfilled Pflüger’s dream, ousting the Social Democrats after nearly four decades of rule. Later that evening, with only 5 of 16 states remaining under his party’s control, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had this to say: “As a result of the bitter election result for my party in North Rhine-Westphalia, the political base for our continued work has been called into question.” Schröder then announced his plan to move up nationwide elections from the fall of 2006 to this coming September, less than 100 days away.
Why Schröder, a political survivalist, decided to move up Election Day (in what amounts to a self-inflicted vote of no confidence) remains unclear. “Schröder won’t allow Germany to enter a state of uncertainty,” said Professor Gert Weisskirchen, a prominent Social Democrat and his party’s foreign policy spokesman. “What is necessary is that we should speed up the reform process in Germany, and this is why the chancellor is now seeking a new mandate.” Others, however, were skeptical. Matthias Rüb, a political correspondent for the Frankfurter Allgemeine and author of Der atlantische Graben (the Atlantic rift), called it a “desperate and bold move. Schröder is counting on his ability to win a beauty contest” against his opponent, a woman named Angela Merkel.
On paper, Merkel is the ideal candidate. Born in Hamburg in 1954, she and her family actually moved to East Germany when she was still a child–her father, a Protestant pastor, was committed to preserving the faith behind the Iron Curtain. Merkel has degrees in both physics and quantum chemistry. Soon after the Berlin Wall came down, she became a Christian Democrat and a darling of then-chancellor Helmut Kohl, who named her environmental minister. In 2000, Merkel became chairwoman of the CDU, repairing the party’s image after a devastating financial scandal. Two years later she assumed the chairmanship of the entire CDU/CSU coalition.
The reality of Merkel’s rise to power, however, has not been so smooth. During her campaign for CDU chair, she referred to Kohl as an “old warhorse,” upsetting many of her colleagues. In 2002, Merkel was practically forced not to run against Schröder, deferring instead to Bavaria’s prime minister, Edmund Stoiber, who was then narrowly defeated. Critics also say Merkel lacks charisma and is a terrible public speaker. Professor Michael Werz, a German Marshall Fund Transatlantic fellow, believes that “if Schröder debates her one-on-one on television, he’ll blast her away.” But he is careful to add, “The question is whether or not that impression is going to last. I don’t think so. Look at the current numbers–the conservatives are approaching an absolute majority.”
Werz is right. A poll taken after Schröder’s decision to move up the election indicated 49 percent of Germans would vote for the opposition CDU/CSU coalition while only 28 percent would reelect the Social Democrats. Another poll revealed that only 8 percent of Germans believe Schröder has a chance of winning. “That is the lowest percentage for any incumbent chancellor ever,” says Torsten Krauel, the Washington political correspondent for Die Welt. “In a nutshell, Germans want early elections to topple the Schröder government, period.”
This sentiment should not come as a surprise. Germany is suffering its worst unemployment–approximately 12 percent–since the Weimar Republic. GDP growth is expected to be a meager 0.7 percent this year. Companies such as Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler have slashed thousands of jobs. SPD chairman Franz Müntefering, under fire for pressing economic reforms, blamed his country’s stagnation on Goldman Sachs and other private-equity firms, describing them as “swarms of locusts that fall on companies, stripping them bare before moving on.” Despite this rabble-rousing rhetoric, Müntefering continues to get pelted with eggs (literally) by trade unionists.
Aware of Germans’ sometimes violent reaction against reform, Merkel will most likely not announce any radical measures between now and Election Day. In fact, her Christian Democrats have already backpedaled on tax cuts and the liberalization of stringent German laws protecting labor. As Josef Joffe noted in the Financial Times, “Although they are basking in the warm glow of the polls, the besiegers are trapped. If Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats move to the right–say, towards labor market liberalization–they will face even more of the same anger that has savaged the SPD. If they move left, Mr. Schröder will clobber them as copycats.”
Yet with polls indicating a strong desire for change, Schröder can clobber all he wants–Merkel will probably still win. The crucial moment comes afterward, when the Christian Democrats will have control over both houses of parliament for the next three to four years.
“They will probably go along the lines of the social economic reforms that the Social Democratic/Green government tried to start but couldn’t finish,” says Michael Werz. “I would also hope they bring German foreign policy back onto track. There were two German foreign policies, one between 1998 and 2002, which was reasonable and supportive, sending troops to Kosovo and Afghanistan, and being a good ally with the United States, and there was the post-2002 foreign policy, when the chancellor took it over from Joschka Fischer. I hope they will be reasonable and reinvigorate the Western alliance.”
And as Torsten Krauel of Die Welt points out, “Even if each and every regular state election sees the SPD as a winner after September 18, the Social Democrats won’t be in a position to block Merkel’s bills in the upper house until 2010. Not since 1949 has any chancellor been in such a comfortable position. A Merkel government would have true leeway to reform Germany.”
Victorino Matus is an assistant managing editor at The Weekly Standard.
