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NEWS & LETTERS, September-October 2005Our Life and Times by Kevin A. BarrySurprise German voteGermany’s elections shocked those who had expected a clear victory for the candidate of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), Angela Merkel, whom THE NEW YORK TIMES characterized as "a genuine Anglo-American free-market figure" (9/18/05). In the end, Merkel’s CDU received only 35% of the vote, a single percentage point higher than Gerhard Schröder’s governing Social Democrats (SPD). More to the point, Merkel and her neo-liberal Free Democrat allies fell short of a parliamentary majority. With the German economy plagued by an unemployment rate of 11.5% and an economic growth rate of 1%, it was Merkel’s election to lose. But doubts about her "free market" policies, with her chief economic advisor advocating a flat tax, undermined her support among working people. This happened even though Volkswagen sought to hurt Schröder by announcing 10,000 more layoffs a week before the election. Schröder deftly played on fears that Merkel would dismantle the welfare state. He also pledged not to support a U.S. attack on Iran, in this way calling attention to Merkel’s failure to denounce the militaristic policies of the Bush administration. Schröder’s compromises with capital and his own whittling away of the welfare state had led to the birth earlier this year of the Left Party, formed by leftists exiting the SPD and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the former Communist Party of East Germany. This party, which strongly backed German workers’ rights, but took some demagogic stands on immigrant labor, scored nearly 9%. Schröder’s coalition partners, the Greens, received 8% of the vote. This meant that leftist parties actually won a majority, but Schröder refuses to consider an alliance with the Left Party. |
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