Global News Journal
Beyond the World news headlines
New SPD leader has tough job: saving his party
Two years ago Sigmar Gabriel came into the Reuters office in Berlin for an interview about climate change, the environment, renewable energy policies and the state of his Social Democrats.
The burly minister, who was elected leader of Germany’s struggling centre-left SPD party on Friday, had clearly lost weight on his summer holiday that had just ended so, while my colleagues were still streaming into the conference room, I asked: “You’ve lost some weight, haven’t you?”
Gabriel smiled briefly. Colleagues later told me they were horrified that I had asked him about his weight. It was merely an attempt to break the ice. There was, after all, another German political leader a few years ago who was once even heavier and lost more than 50 kg with an intensive jogging and diet programme that began one summer: Joschka Fischer of the Greens.
“Yeah, I did,” Gabriel said. “I got some exercise on my holiday. But I won’t be able to keep it off if people keep putting things like this in front of me like you’ve done here,” he added with a laugh as he munched on some cookies.
Gabriel soon regained the few kilos he had lost – so did so did Fischer.
Gabriel, who even then was clearly one of the most ambitious politicians of his generation, has a bigger worry right now.
How do you save Germany’s oldest party? The SPD won just 23 percent of the vote in the September election and left government after an 11-year run. That was down 11 points from four years ago and a staggering 18 points off the 41 percent they won when winning the chancellery in 1998. About 10 million voters who backed the SPD in 1998 have abandoned the party.
from Commentaries:
Germans vote for change; will they get it?
Germans have voted for change. A centre-right government with a clear parliamentary majority will replace the ungainly grand coalition of conservatives and Social Democrats that ran Europe's biggest economy for the last four years.
This should mean an end to "steady as she goes" lowest common denominator policies, and at least some reform of the country's tax and welfare system. The liberal Free Democrats, who recorded their best ever result with around 14.7 percent, will try to pull the new government towards tax cuts, health care reform, a reduction in welfare spending and a loosening of job protection in small business.
Conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel, a cautious centrist, made clear in her first post-election comments that she she would not allow a radical lurch to the right. She promised to be the "chancellor of all Germans" -- old and young, entrepreneurs and workers -- and said the conseravtives would be sufficiently dominant in the new coalition to prevail "in questions that affect social balance".
The new government faces tough economic challenges in what is bound to be a more polarised political atmosphere, with the Social Democrats in opposition. The economy is expected to contract by at least 5 percent this year, and export-led growth is likely to return only slowly. Unemployment is set to explode in the coming months as short-time work schemes run out. The budget deficit is set to top 6 percent of gross domestic product next year, more than twice the EU limit. So 2010 will be an extremely difficult year. But there are some problems that are even more urgent.
The first big choice involves Germany's ailing banks. Outgoing Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck admitted last week that the public-owned regional Landesbanks "continue to pose an enormous systemic risk to our market". The outgoing parliament passed a virtually useless "bad bank" law meant to encourage stricken financial institutions to put their toxic assets into state-guaranteed special purpose vehicles. The banks have so far spurned the system because it leaves the risk of losses with them rather than with the taxpayer.
Merkel and her new partners need to amend the law so that the state takes more of the risk, otherwise Germany faces a future of "zombie" banks that are too burdened with liabilities to lend to the real economy. That won't be popular, with the left bound to claim that taxpayers are being forced to bail out wealthy bankers.
Fixing the banks is more urgent than cutting taxes or curbing public spending to revive the economy. That also means merging the Landesbanks, shrinking their activities and privatising as much as possible. The Germans must also be ready to allow healthy foreign banks to buy up sickly German ones. That is the logic of the European single market, to which a centre-right government is likely to be more committed.
Dear Writer,
Your article on recent German election results and for future political forecast are very fine, interesting to get lot of comments from many well readers on economics,particularly from German thinkers and from many world political leaders.
My predictions of Mrs.Merkel victory on this one sided election became true.
Yes.She has emerged a world famous political leader and for her country.
I have already posted my comments in BBC Have Your say,after getting latest news from New York Times.
Her latest tackling worse recession,economic collapse,job losses and panic moods from Germans were handled in very practical ways.
Whereas , America and UK had not solved their problems on war footing ways.
Good news ,we are getting from Germany and to rest of this world.
I wish that,Germany will be prosperous on many fields in future days,months and in future years.
Congratulations to her for entering to second term as a Chancellor in Germany.
After a great German Chancellor,Merkel had created a noted history on Germany political map.
German election live blog
Welcome to the live blog of the German election, a showdown between Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (left) and Chancellor Angela Merkel (right). More than 50 Reuters correspondents, photographers and television crews in Berlin and across Germany will be tracking the story throughout the weekend.
And in this box you will be able to follow the latest twists and turns throughout the weekend. We’re using #germanelection as the hashtag if you want to follow us on Twitter.
Here is a glimpse of the Reuters office in Berlin that will be delivering the story to Germany and the world.
I’m a German immigrant living in the United States. Since I was lazy to register for voting abroad I shouldn’t complain about the outcome but I’m still disappointed of my former landsmen. [Too understand the outcome of the election one needs to know that Germany uses a nation-wide relative voting system. That's why they have a 5-party system instead of 2. This election the 2 big parties in the middle - social-democrates and conservatives - lost a lot and the 3 smaller parties gained a lot.]
The communists have reentered parliament with 11% a second time. There’s hope that this is just a consequence of the financial crises, but it looks more like the communists will stay as fith party in the system for good.
The environmentalists scored within their best result ever with 10% since everybody seems to believe the economy can be fixed with “green jobs”. However, they will not participate in the government-coalition. They won the election but didn’t gain power from it.
The pirates (fighting for more basic rights and lower punishments on copyright-violations) got only 1,9% and will not enter parliament which means that the population is still not aware how much the government ignores basic rights.
Privacy is well protected in Germany and it’s a very safe country but free speech has always been a difficult topic.
The social democrates (like Democrates in America) are on an all-time low. The political leaders of the “Sozis” (especially last cancelor Schroder) saw the need for a more capitalistic and less socialistic system more as their voters did. They did the right thing and got punished for it.
The conservatives (like republicans in America) benefit from the weakness of the “Sozis” but that doesn’t mean they’re strong. They’re the stongest party in parliament now, but still with less seats as ever before. Nobody really likes them since they lost their political profile ruling together with the Sozis and supporting America in Afghanistan made them unpopular. However they reached their goal to continue governing. To continue governing together with the neo-liberals instaed of the sozis as they did the last 4 years.
The neo-liberals (pro-capitalism) scored their best result ever. They’re the only ones who really won the election. However, now that they have to govern they’ll stop talking about lower taxes soon and try to save money wherever they can. Germany’s financial situation is maybe better as America’s but still the worst since WW2.
Conclusion: Mrs. Merkel continues governing in spite of being unqualified for her job and having no political profile. However, ruling together with the neo-liberals rather than the social-democrats will still change the goverment’s course dramatically. The population – who’s always been taught to think socialistic – won’t be to happy about it.
America will benefit since Merkel has always tried to keep a good relationship with America rather than Eastern-Europe and Russia and has defended Germany’s engagement in Afghanistan in spite of 65-80% of Germany’s population calling for instant withdrawal.
from The Great Debate UK:
German elections too close to call
- Erik Kirschbaum is a Reuters correspondent in Berlin. -
Has this been dullest German election campaign in decades or the most exciting? Has the battle for power in Berlin between Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier that concludes with Sunday's election been a memorable showdown or a forgettably boring contest?
Many journalists, pundits and voters have complained it's all been a merciless bore compared to the high-octane battles of the past with little action and precious few highlights.
But I would argue that in many ways it has been one of the most interesting campaigns in decades. Why? Because the outcome is so uncertain and there are more different government possibilities that could result from it than at any time in Germany's post-war history.
Instead of the usual centre-right or centre-left choice that German voters had for the last 60 years, there are options galore this time -- at least in theory.
There could be a centre-right government, another grand coalition or several three-way coalitions that could include the Free Democrats, the Greens and from a purely mathematical point of view even the Left party that have never been tried before at the federal level.
On top of that, the opinion polls have once again tracked a dramatic narrowing in the lead that Merkel's preferred centre-right coalition (Conservative Christian Democrats and Free Democrats) have over the three other parties -- Social Democrats, Greens and Left party .
