Germany's Election Season and Platforms

Gerhard Schroeder is now indicating (through his main “spokesman,” Franz Muentefering) that he will not resign if President Koehler does not authorize new elections for September. The reasons for this are far from clear. Schroeder has said in the past that his logic for proposing the no-confidence process was that he can no longer govern because of his lack of consensus and popularity. This is the same Chancellor who proudly boasted that he would not deserve his position if he could not bring the number of unemployed Germans below the 4 million mark. Well, that figure is now 4.9 million, and the guy still will not go away.

Why would Herr Schroeder now be backing away from this approach? The answer is of course as it always is with the Chancellor…Politics. Seems as though the ever-scheming SPD now believe that President Horst Koehler (a former CDU politician) might be seen as the bogeyman if he rules that the proposed Fall elections are not constitutional. Of course the fact that the SPD remains 15% - 19% behind the conservative opposition CDU Party may also play into this statement.

I have also read many left-leaning articles, which have been critical of the recently issued CDU election platform. No such clamor came as a result of the issuance of the SPD’s similar document a week or so earlier. The SPD manifesto seems to have gone “wobbly” on Germany’s economic reforms. It precludes everything from raising the retirement age, to student fees, to provisions for freeing up of Industry. The new SPD platform is a step back from their own reforms that they have been pushing for two years. Clearly, this is done for electioneering purposes to garner votes from those who seem perfectly content continue with the status quo because of a fear of losing entitlements.

The CDU manifesto, on the other hand, offers a series of economic stimuli in a much more detailed manner than their opponents’. They also indicate dates to go along with each step. This is important because as many are aware, a series of benchmarks without precise dates is merely a list of hopes; not a plan! American conservatives would most likely say that the CDU platform is not radical enough (particularly with the additional Value Added Tax it proposes). But, in the absence of an obvious “Reagan Revolution” in Germany, Merkel is wise as this time to merely “nibble at the edges.”

One need look no further than each party platform with respect to unemployment to understand which party is offering much-needed leadership. The main planks for the SPD include: increasing the fight against illegal employment, maintenance of state-financed training and job creation programs, and an the allowance of higher levels of unemployment for longer periods of time for older job seekers… Huh! More Keynesian protocol that has proven to be an absolute failure since Schroeder took office.

The CDU platform’s plan for unemployment is markedly different. It proposes a cut in income-based social security contributions (funded by the increased VAT), allowances for companies to deviate from sector-wide wage agreements, and it also allows companies to more easily make market-related decisions to improve their market position. The CDU rightly acknowledges that Germany’s high labor costs are crippling the economy in the face of the realities of globalization