The economic factor:
Hackett, Clifford P
West German elections THE ECONOMIC FACTOR DEPLOYMENT'S NOT SETTLED ONLY A FEW TIMES since World War II has an election been more closely watched than the one in West Germany on March 6. In Paris...
...For German voters, this analysis was neither accurate nor relevant to their major concern, the economy...
...There certainly are new political currents in Germany today-is it not time...
...The Christian Democrats (CDU) with their Bavarian partners, the CSU, the Social Democrats (SPD), and the swing party, the Free Democrats (FDP), have dominated West German political life since the first Bundestag election in 1949...
...CLIFFORD P. HACKETT (Clifford P. Hackett served for ten years in the Foreign Service, principally in Germany, and for thirteen years on the staffs of House and Senate committees involved with foreign affairs...
...First, Washington could assume that the missile decision is now settled or at least easier to settle in Germany and in Europe...
...While losing is generally worse than winning in politics, this is not the best time to be in political control in West Germany...
...For the Social Democrats, the election results are more mixed but not without important benefits...
...If the Green vote had been much larger, an SPD-Green coalition, which the Social Democrats do not want, would have been suggested...
...A total concentration on the missile issue and a failure to understand either its secondary role in the campaign or the German aversion to any new missiles regardless of party is the only explanation...
...Without these he may fail and his position on missiles will make no difference if he does...
...But if there had been no Green presence in parliament, the SPD would be forced itself to represent the strong anti-nuclear, anti-missile, and pro-ecology movements...
...Last fall polls indicated a much higher loss by the SPD to the left radicals...
...Unemployment is high, growth is low, dissatisfaction is increasing...
...West German elections THE ECONOMIC FACTOR DEPLOYMENT'S NOT SETTLED ONLY A FEW TIMES since World War II has an election been more closely watched than the one in West Germany on March 6. In Paris and Washington especially, but also throughout Europe people seemed determined to find definitive answers about where Germany was moving, and what was the significance of these early elections and this confusing new party that threatened to replace an older one in parliament...
...missiles in their country...
...With skill, luck, and some help from Washington, Kohl can succeed...
...Until this year, no other national party emerged to challenge the orthodox and the predictable...
...A second reason for SPD satisfaction is the small vote for the Greens who gained 5.9 percent, mostly it is thought, at the cost of the Social Democrats...
...The two major parties thus had opposite hopes for the minor parties on their flanks...
...For CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the victory with nearly 49 percent of the vote meant continued and more secure rule...
...Now the Greens-even the name seems unGerman!-a conglomerate of protest groups, have skillfully achieved a parliamentary foothold...
...While one may excuse the media simplifications of a foreign election, how can one explain the crude attempts by the Reagan administration to show openly its support for the CDU candidate (and crude attempts by Moscow on behalf of the SPD...
...In Germany itself, however, I found few Germans who thought the election that dramatic, although they admitted it was more exciting than normal German politics...
...The two major parties still received 87 percent of the votes this month...
...sit to Germany...
...An unpopular missile deployment may soon provoke resistance...
...Their arrival coincides with a decline in the Free Democrats...
...A massive 10 percent loss from the last election was the price paid by the SPD, in power for thirteen years, for the sharpest recession the country experienced in the postwar period...
...So there is some satisfaction in measured defeat for the SPD especially if they can eventually retain the Green voters...
...Americans tended to see the German election as a horse race with the single issue being missile deployment...
...Instead, Kohl needs help and understanding from Washington in finding a deployment decision which recognizes that a majority of West Germans polled still oppose new U.S...
...interest rates can thwart its recovery...
...The CDU wanted a strong FDP in order to keep a solid majority in the Bundestag for the next four years without increasing its dependence on CSU leader Frans Josef Strauss...
...Yet even if these minor party trends continue (and they are separate phenomena with different explanations), the political footings of the Federal Republic will probably not shift rapidly, nor importantly...
...He now runs an exchange program between the Congress and the European Parliament and recently paid a return visit to Germany...
...The FDP's additional 6.9 percent both keeps that party in ruling coalition with the CDU and maintains the Free Democrats in national politics...
...Two dangers flow from this misreading of the elections...
...The SPD, in contrast, wanted the smallest possible Green victory as long as the radicals met the five percent threshold to enter the Bundestag...
...Second, Kohl's major task is the economy and a new increase in U.S...
Vol. 110 • March 1983 • No. 6
