The German general election campaign was a close race and remains uncertain even now that it's over. Both the right and the left have failed to win enough votes to form a coalition government. In a most unusual situation, both Andrea Merkel's Christian Democrats/Christian Socialists and Gerhard Schöder's Social Democrats are saying they will take the lead in forming coalitions. The political situation is falling into a state of chaos as a result.
The experts say that Merkel is essentially the biggest looser. Until recently she dreamed of becoming Germany's first female prime minister but her union of Christian Democrats and Christian Socialists won the third lowest number of votes in its history. One of the main reasons for such results was the campaign promise to give up on the progressive rates for income tax, something controversial even within Merkel's own party. The policy was criticized for giving priority to those with high-income levels and thereby hurting social integration, and low-income voters and a considerable portion of the middle class turned elsewhere. The Social Democrats, on the other hand, went on a major final offensive and won enough votes to put itself in a position where while it lost, it still gets to exercise influence in coalition negotiations. On the other hand it lost more votes than other parties compared to its performance in the 2002 general election, making it hard to deny that popular sentiment has abandoned the Social Democrats.
The two major parties failed to win firm support, but relatively less mainstream parties made notable advances. The market-oriented Free Democrats became the third most powerful party, and a left-leaning union of parties made considerable progress and overtook the Greens. The Left Party, itself a party formed by former East German communists and defectors from the Social Democrats, are part of that left-leaning union that has won 54 seats and thereby made it impossible for either the right or the left to form an independent coalition. Part of the reason they made such advances is because of the social disparity that is becoming ever more serious amidst grave economic stagnation. The left did well in the economically struggling former East Germany, second only to the Social Democrats. There it scored 25.4 percent of the votes, 8.5 percentage points more than its 16.9 percent during the last general election.
The German case shows you how the main parties failed to win popular sentiment for failing to give the people confidence, and that ignited the uncertainty and confusion most feared by German society's main political forces. In that sense the German situation is relevant beyond Germany.
The Hankyoreh, 20 September 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] German Election Creates Uncertainty |
