Forget the Ashes
This summer's most intriguing contest has been the German elections. After a seemingly unassailable lead for Angela Merkel, Gerhard Schroeder seems to have rallied somewhat in recent weeks - the BBC has shown excerpts from his recent visit to Potsdam, and he seems to be pursueing re-election like a man possessed. Unlike the UK General Election, there are deep ideological differences between the two major parties, and the wounds of reunification do not yet seem to have healed. The east-west split seems more apparent than ever. Any thoughts from Berlin would be more than welcome...
posted by lukeski at 7:14 pm
1 Comments:
Well, it's 3.50 in the morning and I'm about to hit the sack after a night of translation and wine (not the worst combination) so this will have to be brief for now. But you're right that Gerhard is making a bit of a comeback, which is almost odd as he seemed to call the election because he'd had enough and wanted to be voted out, or so it seemed. I don't know if this is a coincidence of timing or just whether a campaign has brought out the best in him, but Gerhard is such a media star in comparison to Angie and his statesmanship now seems secure. He's Bill Clinton and she's Khrushchev's wife in the glamour stakes... But this isn't all about glamour, of course. Angie is most frequently compared to Mrs. Thatcher, ideologically, but whatever reforms she would bring in, if elected, wouldn't be nearly as radical as anything done in the UK, at least not to start with (unless she's talking her plans down, of course, for fear of frightening the natives). But the word on the street - I think my Desi-poll had about three respondents - is that people have had enough of Gerhard and even the type you wouldn't expect to vote for Angie - youngish queens, zum Beispiel - are planning to. It took them longer to get rid of Kohl, of course but, anyway, allegedly it's now time for a change. Yes, there are some radical policy/ideology differences between the two main parties. Angie is famously against Turkey being admitted to the EU, for example... In any case, as whichever party wins will have to form a coalition, there'll be a lot of behind-the-scenes machinations going on and the colour of the coalition we end up with could still be a surprise.
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