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On September, 27th the elections for the German Bundestag
(http://www.bundestag.de/) [1] will take place. They are held
every four years. There are five main parties running for power.
They have ruled the country since 1982 when they took over the government from the former coalition between social democrats (SPD) and liberals (FDP). Actually since the war these parties have not been part of the government only for these 13 years during the social-liberal coalition from 1969 until 1982.
The CDU/CSU presently forms a coalition with the FDP, and in the last election four years ago this coalition won only a relative small majority (341 to 331).
Though chancellor Helmut Kohl (CDU) four years ago asserted, that he won't run for chancellorship again, he changed his mind, and therefore was once more was elected candidate by his party. Kohl has been chancellor since 1982, and made the German re-unification possible in 1989/1990.
The initial enthusiasm and glory about the re-unification has however been vanishing and with it the glory of Helmut Kohl. The promised ``blühenden Landschaften'' (blossoming landscapes) in the former GDR never became reality. Instead the economical and most of all industrial decline in the GDR is still going on leading to high rates of unemployment (19.4% average (April), but up to 30% in some regions) in Germany [5].
The main ability of Helmut Kohl is to manage power. Under his regime the CDU declined more or less to a chancellor election club [6]. He always understood to control persons, who probably would be dangerous for him. The only one who Kohl let grow besides him is Wolfgang Schäuble. However, Wolfgang Schäuble is handicapped because since an assessination attempt he is tied to a wheelchair. And though Kohl - without asking the party - made Schäuble his crown prince, Schäuble's wife recently questioned, whether the burden of chancellorship would not be too big a responsibility for her husband. Indeed there are voices in the CDU/CSU, which explicitly don't want a handicapped chancellor.
In the last few months as it seems, the CDU ship is sinking. This is expressed by the worst results in represantative opinion polls during their period of government. In addition many of the current ongoings in and around the CDU can be interepreted in a way, that a lot of people see the coming fall, and try to save whatever possible.
They ruled from 1969 until 1982 in coalition with the FDP. Apart from the big coalition from 1965 until 1969 where the SPD coalized with the CDU/CSU, this was the only time since the war where the SPD managed to get the power.
In the past elections the SPD most of all lacked a candidate for chancellorship, which fits into the modern media reality. Thus they never won. Some say, that the bad shape of the SPD was the real reason why the CDU/CSU managed to win election after election. Moreover in the past it was not always fully clear, which coalition they would take if voted [7].
This time both of these aspects have changed. Gerhard Schröder managed to become the candidate for chancellorship. He was one of three men, which all tried to become chancellor in the past.
Oskar Lafontaine failed in the election in 1990, when he among other things warned, that the German re-unification was not easy to afford. Though as time showed he was very right with that, people didn't want to hear things like that. One may say, that Oskar Lafontaine is the most left one of the three.
Rudolf Scharping failed in the election in 1994. The main reason may have been that he was not able to get himself across to the people in the TV society of Germany.
Gerhard Schröder always made clear, that he wants to become chancellor. There have been heavy fights especially between him and Oskar Lafontaine, who today is the chairman of the SPD. However, personally I always thought that he's the only one who's able to become a SPD chancellor.
In the past he managed his career pretty successful, and on the day of the glorious victory of Schröder's SPD in Lower-Saxony [8] in March it was finally made clear, that he will run for chancellorship.
Today Schröder tries to show the big statesman, which he is pretty successful with. In fact he has a winner appeal, which seems to be quite convincing. Most of the voters in Germany think, that he is going to win the election. He's trying to use some concepts anticipated by Tony Blair in Great Britain. As a result the position of Gerhard Schröder and Helmut Kohl often is difficult to distinguish. He's the prototype of the today's social democrat. This is also reflected by the sort of meeting where he was officially elected for candidate. This meeting had a strong taste of US presidential election campaigns, which until now has been completly unusual in Germany.
The other thing which changed compared with former elections is, that the SPD made clear, that they will coalize with Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen. This is known as red-green coalition. However, there are signs, that a big coalition with a leading SPD and a smaller CDU are thought of already. This would not be impossible since a lot of positions of both parties are difficult to distinguish anyway.
While CDU/CSU and SPD are the two big parties, the FDP is a small party, which constantly faces the danger of dropping below the 5% hurdle [9]. In fact at the moment the FDP is in very few state parliaments. Although it gets regularly a higher percentage in elections to the Bundestag.
However, the FDP has been part of the coalition since 1969, and thus is longer part of the government than any other party.
Die Grünen were founded at the end of the 70's, and at this time consisted of ecologists and radical lefts, which left their sectarian communist parties and entered the Grüne. However, today the radical left part of the Greens left the party more or less completly, and the ecologists gained power.
Bündnis 90 is one of the rare remnants of the uprising in the GDR in 1989/1990. They are the bourguis part of this movement, and today some of there important members have become members of the CDU. Indeed most of the positions of Bündnis 90 align bad with that of Die Grünen. Nonetheless both parties merged some years ago, because Die Grünen thought it would be nice to suck up the civil rights movement of the former GDR. Though the Bündnis 90 originated in the GDR, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen are relative weak in Eastern Germany. The bulk of their voters live in the Western states.
Today the Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen more or less fill out the left liberal part of the party spectrum. Thus it's only natural, that they are possible coalition partners for the social democrats. However, propaganda demonized Die Grünen pretty successful, so even today it still needs some courage to want a coalition with them because this may cost votes.
As the FDP die Grünen are constantly threatened by the 5% hurdle. And this is the point the conservatives in parties and media are trying to use to prevent a red-green coalition. Since a few months there is a media campaign against Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, which picks up single statements from their program, and turn them against them. As the best example the 5DM-campaign may serve. In their election program Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen had a demand to raise the price for a litre gasoline to 5DM - in ten years [10]. The CDU and the media however stated that Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen want to raise the prize from the average 1.60DM / litre of today to the said 5DM. Though this was definitely untrue it costed Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen a third of their votes in represantative opinion polls.
As the PDS and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen the PDS is threatened by the 5% hurdle. In fact the PDS has members in the current Bundestag only because they won at least three direct mandates [11].
Though from the start the PDS tried to get members and voters in the Western part of Germany, until now this did not happen to a high degree. However, they have strong roots in the Eastern part of Germany. In all five states they get results about 20% in votes to the parliaments of theses states, and a lot of mayors are members of the PDS.
The PDS is the only party, which has definitly has an interest in the special problems of the people in the former GDR. These problems arise partly from injustice turned into law by the Western winners [12], and by the high rate of unemployment. However, they the party is not limited to these questions but tries to find socialist answers to the full spectrum of current political questions.
As part of the anti-communist agenda the PDS still is demonized especially by Western parties and media. However, the strong basis in the East in Sachsen-Anhalt led to a minority government led by the SPD and tolerated by the PDS. Minority governments are extremly rare in German history.
This is especially interesting since this PDS toleration was re-newed after the elections in Sachsen-Anhalt a few months ago. The Western SPD bosses had major difficulties with that because of the demonization of the PDS. Promptly the CDU/CSU made a campaign, which suggested a coalition between SPD and PDS after the elections for the Bundestag. Of course this is somewhat ridiculuos.
The main goal of the PDS in the coming elections is to get more than 5%. Besides not needing three direct mandates, this would have the effect, that the PDS members of the Bundestag count as a normal fraction, whereas at the moment they are only a group with limited rights.
The extreme right in fact is a factor difficult to calculate. In the last elections in Sachsen-Anhalt the DVU got 13%(!) from nothing. This success, which was obviously quite unexpected even for the DVU itself, has mainly been accomplished by a short but massive campaign with direct letters to voters (first time voters in particular), and countless posters on the streets. There message was cleary racist.
For the Budestag election there is a good chance, that none of today's main parties of DVU and Reps make it into the Bundestag, because they presumably both fail at the 5% hurdle. If however, their votes would count together they may be even stronger than each of the other small parties.
This leads to numerous situations, where especially in rural areas since years the ownership of many plots of lands and real estates is uncertain. In turn the LPGs (Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaften, agricultural production cooperative societies) which survived the end of the GDR don't get credits from banks - which is lethal in the modern agricultural sector.