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West Germany: Coalition Politics Reigns
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12945 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
5 / 1987 |
1,217 Words |
| Author
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Werner Kaltefleiter
Werner Kaltefleiter is director of the Institute of Political
Science at Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel, West
Germany. |
The substantial losses of the Christian Democrats in January's election in West Germany evoked surprise abroad. However, a closer look at these results shows a stable majority of the voters support Chancellor Helmut Kohl's coalition of the Christian Democrats, Christian Social Union, and Free Democrats.
First of all, the switch in votes was an intracoalition one, not from the government to the opposition. The three coalition partners together gained 53.4 percent of the vote, one of the largest majorities in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. The losses of the CDU/CSU were the gains of the FDP.
Furthermore, the ruling coalition suffered from the low turnout - about 85 percent, high by international standards but the lowest in Germany since 1949. The largest party in Bonn always suffers from low turnouts. This low turnout was caused by widespread anticipation of a victory by the coalition. Therefore, there is a CDU/CSU reserve of about 3 percentage points that could be mobilized in a close election.
In short, what looks like defeat really opens the door for a prolongation of the coalition after 1991.
Competition with Greens
The most important variable in understanding German politics is the competition between the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens for the same segment of the electorate. Since 1982, the SPD has tried to take over the symbolic positions of the Greens to win back Greens voters. This strategy seemed to be successful for a while: There was a slow but steady decline of the Greens between 1982 and 1985, but then a revival of the Greens followed.
This can be attributed to heightened concern over the environment in the wake of the Chernobyl accident and, more importantly, the legitimation of the Greens by the SPD/Greens coalition in the state of Hesse. At the moment when the oldest democratic party, the SPD, formed this coalition in December 1985, the Greens shed their image as outcasts and became a legitimate party. Today, about two-thirds of the population welcome the existence of the Greens. From this perspective, the Greens now are part of the establishment. Obviously, the SPD's strategy toward the Greens has failed.
This failure immediately stimulated an internal debate in the SPD about future strategy and
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