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The Week in Germany: Politics

August 19, 2005

East emerges as election battleground

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and his conservative challenger, Angela Merkel, are scrambling to woo voters in the formerly communist east amid predictions that next month's general election could be decided by swing voters in the struggling region.

Merkel's conservatives still hold a healthy lead over the SPD, but their advantage has shrunk from over 20 points in June to around 13 points now. dpa photo

Buoyed by a nascent poll turnaround but still a distant second, Chancellor Schroeder's center-left Social Democrats (SPD) are looking eastward with hopes of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat as Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) struggle to contain the fallout from a series of ill-judged comments about the pivotal region.

Germany's two leading parties are not only fighting each other, though, but also the newly formed, hard-left Linkspartei, which could emerge from the Sept. 18 poll as Germany's third-strongest political force.

The political maneuvering comes against the backdrop of high unemployment, low growth and depopulation in a region that lags behind the more prosperous west 15 years after reunification.

While the eastern part of Germany is home to around 11 million voters, representing less than one-fifth of the country's electorate, the large number of swing voters there form a key constituency for both would-be chancellors.

In the last election three years ago, for example, easterners impressed by Schroeder's handling of catastrophic floods in the region were one of the driving forces in his come-from-behind win.

Pollsters were this week abuzz with speculation that Schroeder could engineer a similar swing again this year after the disparaging remarks of a key western conservative gave some eastern voters cause to rethink their usual party allegiances.

Edmund Stoiber, the powerful leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, outraged easterners when he said that "frustrated" eastern voters shouldn't be allowed to decide the upcoming election.

"It's a pity people in other parts of the country aren't as clever as in Bavaria," Stoiber said.

Click above for our latest reports from the campaign trail.

Elaborating later, Stoiber said his remarks were not meant to insult the intelligence of people in the east, where irate newspapers were quick to print anti-Bavarian jokes including: "Question: What do you call eight Bavarians lined up ear to ear? Answer: A wind canal."

Still, the comments threaten to undermine the election effort being led by Merkel, herself an easterner, say analysts.

Merkel's conservatives still hold a healthy lead over the SPD, but their advantage has shrunk from over 20 points in June to around 13 points now amid a string of missteps that has Merkel on the defensive at a time when she would rather tout her plan to boost jobs and growth.

Schroeder pounced on perceived infighting in the conservative camp at a rally in his hometown of Hanover last weekend, accusing Merkel of failing to rein in Stoiber, who narrowly lost his own bid to become chancellor in 2002.

"Tasteless swaggering from Mr. Stoiber and lack of leadership from Mrs. Merkel are not going to bring this country together," said Schroeder.

Merkel has meanwhile sought to shift the campaign back to the economic issues that are her strong suit, attacking the SPD government on unemployment, which reaches 20% in parts of the east.

But that effort fell flat this week at a rally in the eastern state of Brandenburg. There, voters booed and heckled Merkel during a speech whose message was designed to unite: "It doesn't matter if you're from the north, south, east or west — unemployment is too high."

Stoiber: "It's a pity people in other parts of the country aren't as clever as in Bavaria." dpa photo

Worrying for both Merkel and Schroeder is the rise of the newly formed Linkspartei, an alliance of the political heirs to the communist party that once ruled East Germany and western-based defectors from the SPD.

Polls show the party with 30% support in parts of the east, leading Stoiber to quip that "only the dumbest of calves vote for their own butcher."

The Linkspartei's rapid rise has increased the chance that the neither the SPD nor the CDU will have the seats needed to form a coalition government, raising the possibility that the two parties could be forced into a "grand coalition" for the first time since the 1960s.

"The more [Stoiber] rants at easterners, the better the Linkspartei will be able to sell protest voters on its utopian throwback program," advised the Dresden daily Neuste Nachrichten.

"And as long as there's talk about calves, butchers and frustrated voters, Gerhard Schroeder can prance though the country, presenting himself as either a peace chancellor or an eastern sympathizer without having to elaborate on concrete problems."

Links:

Decision 2005 (from Germany.info)

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