The German general election 2002:

The German general election 2002:
Question of candidates

Ignas Kleden
Director
Center for East
Indonesian Affairs
Jakarta
ceia@centrin.net.id

There is a belief among German political analysts that in 1998
Gerhard Schroeder from the Social-Democratic Party (SPD) won the
general election not because he was the strongest candidate, but
rather because most of the German people no longer wanted to see
Helmut Kohl from Christian-Democratic Union (CDU) head the
government he had already ruled for 16 years. In the German
language-game, the 1998 general election was said to be not a
"wahl" (voting for the eligible) but an "abwahl" (voting out the
ineligible).

During the last two weeks before Germany's election day on
Sept. 22, this same dilemma again haunted many people who wanted
to cast their votes. Both candidates, Gerhard Schroeder from the
Social-Democratic Party (SPD) and Edmund Stoiber from the
Christian-Social Union (CSU), did their best during the campaign
either to attract or to convince their followers. The end-result
seemed to be a strange balance: Schroeder was more attractive
than convincing, whereas Stoiber had some persuasive arguments
without, however, becoming terribly attractive.

This balance between the two continued all the way through to
the counting of the ballots, so much so that the entire country
was involved in a kind of tense vote count never before seen in
Germany. Some newspapers called it "Wahlkrimi", or election
thriller. After the last vote was counted, it became obvious that
both SPD and the Union parties (CDU/CSU) had achieved exactly the
same percentage of support from voters, 38.5 percent. Though in
absolute numbers, the SPD won 8,864 more votes than the CDU.

This situation, however, reflected different developments
within each of the two parties, because the Social-Democratic
Party received 2.4 percent less support than in 1998, whereas the
Union had 3.4 percent more than in 1998.

The question for an outsider is, of course: why did the SPD
win despite the fact that it had no clear advantage over its
rival? This can be explained with regard to at least two other
developments. On the one hand the coalition partner of the SPD,
the Green Party, won 8.6 percent of the vote. Whereas the
coalition partners of the Union, namely the Liberal Party (FDP),
got only 7.4 percent of the vote, far below its own estimate.

Also, the SPD received some votes from the so-called
Ueberhangmandate, which happens when the votes from the direct
election turn out to exceed the votes from the proportional
election. The German election consists of a direct election,
which decides more or less 300 parliamentary seats, and a
proportional election, which also decides more or less 300 seats.

The total number of seats in the German parliament is 603, so
an absolute majority is achieved when a party wins 302 seats. If
the votes from the direct election exceed those from the
proportional one, the surplus votes should go to Ueberhangmandate
where they will be calculated to maintain the balance between the
direct and proportional votes.

In the last election the Social-Democratic Party won four
seats from the Ueberhangmandate and thereby could win the
election over the Union parties. The coalition of the CDU/CSU and
the Greens (the so-called Red-Green Coalition) therefore won 306
seats, which means four votes more than the required absolute
majority.

Both Schroeder and Stoiber tried to play with sensitive issues
during the last stages of the campaign. Schroeder wanted to gain
sympathy for his foreign policy by taking a political stance that
was more than one just dictated by the U.S. This ploy was
received with general ambivalence, both inside the country as
well within the European Union.

In contrast to that, Stoiber raised the issue of migration to
Germany, thereby trying to win support from inside the country,
playing on the idea that restricting the number of immigrants to
Germany would solve the problem of 4,000,000 unemployed Germans.

Schroeder said in an interview with German's Der Spiegel that
he hoped never to have to secure his political life on the back
of those people who could not defend themselves.

A more substantial argument was given by Deutsche Bank, which
calculated that considering the present birth rate in Germany,
the restrictions on immigration as proposed by Stoiber would
lower the German population from 82 million to 65 million within
50 years, and would decrease Germany's labor force by 27 percent
to 30 million by 2004.

Needless to say, the SPD owed its victory in large part to the
achievements of the Green Party, in particular to Joschka
Fischer, the "real chairman" of the Greens (the actual
chairperson is Claudia Roth). Fischer, who is known in Germany as
the pop star of German politics, turned out to be the most
talented and the most popular politician in the whole country,
and attracted most of his followers with his personal appeal
(wearing jeans, going jogging, no smoking).

Besides that he must take into account the demands of his
party for more power in the government, though Fischer hinted
quite early that the Greens would not insist on having more posts
within the cabinet. The Greens, however, require that their
minister for the environment should also be given responsibility
for energy politics. And that the ministry for consumers not only
be in charge of the condition of foodstuffs, but should also be
entitled to control gene technology.

It seems that after the short celebration of their common
victory, the partners in the Red-Green coalition will have to
deal with the internal problems of their own party and with a
more reasonable division of labor and authority between them.

After the victory of the personal appeal of Joschka Fischer,
the Red-Green coalition has to decide whether Germany will allow
more room for the reddening or the greening of German politics.

Dr. Ignas Kleden was one of 12 social scientists from 12
countries who were invited by the German Service for Academic
Exchange to observe the last stages of Germany's recent general
election.