Jews, Turks, and Other Strangers: Roots of Prejudice in Modern Germany

Postscript: The 2002 National Election

Postscript The 2002 National Election The 2002 German national election was extremely close, with Chancellor Gerhard Schröder barely retaining his position. The Christian Democrats and the Social Democratic Party ran virtually even, with the outcome decided by the slight edge the Green Party held over the Free Democrats. In the new Bundestag, the number of seats held by the SPD/Green coalition will be 306, compared with 295 seats secured by the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party. With a narrower majority than in the previous government, there will be more pressure on the Red/Green coalition to produce in terms of economic reform. Although there has been some reduction in unemployment since the coalition took power in fall 1998, the performance of the economy during the last four years has fallen far short of even SPD/Green expectations . Unemployment figures in 2002 exceeded those of the previous year, and Chancellor Schröder failed in his pledge to reduce the total number of jobless individuals to 3.5 million. On the day of the election, unemployment exceeded 4 million, with the greatest concentration in eastern Germany. Moreover, data from the first two quarters of 2002 reveal that Germany has barely moved out of the previous year’s recession . (The growth rates were 0.2 percent and 0.25 percent, respectively). In addition, like the similar Bush policy in the United States, the Red/ Green coalition’s considerable slashing of personal and corporate income taxes failed to stimulate the economy to the anticipated degree. European election campaigns are mercifully shorter than those in the United States. Perhaps because of the brevity of the German elec171 172 Postscript: The 2002 National Election tion campaign, Chancellor Schröder was able to capitalize on several issues that are extraneous to those raised in this book. For example, he picked up considerable support by opposing German involvement in or cooperation with an American invasion of Iraq, while candidate Stoiber seemed to waffle on the issue. Another important issue that Schröder was able to maximize to his advantage was the flooding that occurred in August in the eastern portions of Germany. While the PDS was expected by some to gain a sizeable vote in the eastern Bundesländer, Schröder’s empathy with the victims and his management of the situation probably helped to thwart a sizeable left-wing protest vote. In the end, the PDS was unable to garner the 5 percent of votes necessary to enter the Bundestag. The “risk averseness” of the German voter toward extremist parties in national elections was demonstrated in 2002 as well as 1998. In contrast to many state and local elections discussed in this volume, German voters shunned extremist voting at the national level in 2002 and attempted to find solutions to policy problems by voting for either the Red/Green coalition or the Christian Democrats and FDP. This illustrates a maturing of the political system, especially in the eastern region. But Schröder probably benefited from the fact that both Iraq and the floods took some focus off of unemployment and weak economic growth during the short time frame of the electoral campaign. Moreover, he demonstrated considerable political skill in shifting the focus of the issues. The problems of anti-foreign sentiment and antisemitism that are central to this book have not disappeared nor have they been solved. Given earlier right-wing voting during 2002 in both France and the Netherlands, one would have expected more extreme voting to take place in Germany. It seems that at the present time, the German political system is accommodating anti-immigrant prejudice and antisemitism to a better degree than other European polities. But these issues did arise during the election year, and given the closeness of the election, it can be argued that antisemitism was decisive in helping swing the election toward the Red/Green coalition. One particular incident in May that hurt the chances of defeating the Social Democrats occurred among officials in the FDP. The party was accused of antisemitism when its deputy leader, Jürgen Mölleman, stated that Jewish talk-show host Michel Friedman encouraged antisemitic attitudes with his “intolerant, spiteful style.” Party officials rushed to apologize, but the FDP’s stand- Postscript: The 2002 National Election 173 ings in the polls started to evaporate. Also not helping the cause was the fact that Mölleman had previously praised Austria’s...