Janet
09-20-2005, 08:01 AM
German election: a clear rejection of right-wing policies
By Peter Schwarz
20 September 2005
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 cuts—the 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 when—for the first time in the history of the German Federal Republic—two 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 SPD—22 percent points in the middle of June—had 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 Germany’s post-war history, the two so-called “people’s parties,” the SPD and the Union, polled a combined vote of less than 70 percent.
continued here..........
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/germ-s20.shtml
Peace be with you!
Janet
By Peter Schwarz
20 September 2005
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 cuts—the 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 when—for the first time in the history of the German Federal Republic—two 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 SPD—22 percent points in the middle of June—had 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 Germany’s post-war history, the two so-called “people’s parties,” the SPD and the Union, polled a combined vote of less than 70 percent.
continued here..........
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/germ-s20.shtml
Peace be with you!
Janet