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United Germany: A Divided Nation?
| Article
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19617 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
10 / 1991 |
2,702 Words |
| Author
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Paul Cook and Paul Dutton
Paul Cook is deputy director of European Studies at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, where Paul Dutton is
a researcher. |
After Chancellor Helmut Kohl's sweeping victory in Germany's first postunification national elections on December 2, 1990, life after Kohl seemed beyond imaging. The chancellor's masterful international diplomacy, culminating in the triumph of national reunification, had catapulted him to the ranks of the politically unassailable. Or so it seemed. Three stunning defeats in local contests close on the heels of the December election--in Hesse, January 20; the Rhineland Palatinate, April 21; and Hamburg, June 2--raise questions about the new German politics. Kohl's electoral setbacks spawned predictions among some pundits that the architect of German reunification may not preside over his creation much longer. A body politic in the throes of ferment and change compounds the uncertainty.
Kohl's Waning Popularity
Elections in Hesse marked the first warning of Kohl's postunification political trouble when the rival Social Democrat Party (SPD) and its Green partners defeated the incumbent Christian Democrats (CDU) by a thin margin. The outcome in Kohl's own Rhineland-Palatinate was more shocking still. Voters in that Christian Democratic fortress had given the CDU a 9 percent margin in the December national elections, but less than five months later, 15 percent of that support vanished into the thin air of German transformation.
A ZDF Television poll conducted in June shows that while Kohl enjoys a popularity rating of 51 percent, he comes off less well in comparison with other leading politicians. On a scale of -5 to +5, Kohl eked out a 0.7, Bjorn Engholm of the SPD got 2.5, and Hans-Dietrich Genscher of the Free Democratic party (FPD) Kohl's coalition partner, rated 2.9.
The CDU's June 2 loss in Hamburg gave control of the nation's upper chamber--the Bundesrat--to the SPD by a margin of 37-31 seats. A national poll published that month put support for the CDU at 38.5 percent, down from 43.8 percent in December, while the Social Democrats pulled ahead at 39.5 percent, a result of growing support in the Eastern laender.
Germany's electoral laws make it very unlikely that the Kohl government will be turned out until national elections in 1994. It is possible the FDP might abandon Kohl and seek an alliance with the SPD, but the SPD is a divided party, currently more adept at criticizing Kohl than offering practical solutions to national challenges, not a particularly alluring partner for the centrist FDP. Thus, unless Kohl and his party commit
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