The German Social Democrats and the "Super Elections,"
Braunthal, Gerard
Many conservatives and neoliberals claim that now that Soviet-style communism is extinct, social democracy (or democratic socialism) will soon meet the same fate. Then, of course, they...
...However, reform efforts had limitations: first, the SPD could not settle intraparty dissension on some major policies and rejected system-transcending radical proposals from the Young Socialists (the "Jusos...
...the CDU/CSU, 32 to 37 percent...
...These incremental changes may be considered steps toward a more social democratic future...
...Such a position has already been taken by a few SPD minister-presidents despite protests by organized labor...
...Polls in early 1994 showed the SPD gaining between 38 to 41 percent of the vote...
...In May 1993, Engholm resigned after admitting that he had lied to an investigative commission established in 1987 to probe a CDU election scandal...
...An SPD-led government, in collective bargaining negotiations with public employees, probably will support demands for a shorter work week in order to decrease unemployment and save jobs, but only with commensurate cuts in pay or fringe benefits...
...Many conservatives and neoliberals claim that now that Soviet-style communism is extinct, social democracy (or democratic socialism) will soon meet the same fate...
...Although from a U.S...
...SUMMER • 1994 • 319...
...In the 1990 elections, the East German SPD fared poorly...
...The SPD has undergone numerous leadership changes since 1987, when Brandt resigned as chairman...
...Manfred Stolpe, ministerpresident of Bradenburg (in the East), took issue with him and warned Bonn SPD chiefs that such a position would harm the party in the 1994 elections...
...Of course, party leaders will not make a decision until after the elections...
...The SPD domestic and foreign policy proposals show that the party's differences with the CDU/CSU have narrowed considerably, although the SPD does stand to the left of the CDU/CSU in maintaining its commitment to expanding social justice and siding with the growing underclass in both parts of Germany...
...He first gained a plurality among SPD members in an unprecedented referendum of candidates for the post, designed to enhance internal party democracy, and then was formally elected at a party convention in June 1993...
...A small group of pastors and other dissidents founded the party there in October 1989 and several months later received financial and other support from the West German SPD...
...SPD proposals include tax increases on the wealthy...
...In the national headquarters in Bonn, SPD officials decided to assist financially the buildup of the party in the East by imposing a special tax on all SPD members...
...Thus the SPD will not push for the Keynesian solution—launching state-financed and state-run employment programs to fight the current massive unemployment of four million persons—because state indebtedness will climb, in its view, to unacceptable levels...
...Government and unions can be expected to disagree on how best to combat the continuing recession...
...It also lost support among floating voters and youth, many of whom voted for the Greens or opted out of politics...
...Does the sharp turn of the Social Democratic party of Germany (SPD) to pragmatism in this "Super Election Year" 1994, in which twenty local, state, national, and European Parliament elections are scheduled, signify that the party has given up its vision of a muted social democratic future that conservatives and neoliberals do not share...
...Since then East German SPD leaders have received representation in all the top organs...
...Conservative and neo-liberal claims of social democratic demise are premature...
...In 1993 alone, SPD membership dropped from 886,000 to less than 865,000...
...It would introduce progressive legislation in at least the environmental and social fields, gender equality included, which would be a welcome alternative to the traditionalism of the CDU/CSU-FDP programs...
...Still, most SPD leaders, on the left and in the center, expect such a coalition to work out any important difficulties...
...The SPD could also form a three-party 318 • DISSENT Politics Abroad coalition with the Alliance 90/Greens and the FDP, but that might be more unstable than a two-party alliance...
...Two decades ago Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky declared that the "strength of social democracy in Europe and the world depends to a great extent on how strong social democracy is in Germany...
...The SPD was often seen by voters as less competent than Kohl's coalition to deal with key problems...
...Although lacking the colorful personality of some of his rivals, Scharping is liked for his diligence, honesty, and unassuming provincial manners...
...and the FDP, 6 percent...
...These issues drew the SPD into the government's decisionmaking process...
...Government policies will also depend on the SPD's choice of coalition partner...
...Should the SPD gain a plurality of votes and should the Alliance 90/Greens muster enough support to produce a Bundestag majority for both parties in coalition, there could be an unprecedented national "red-green" government...
...An SPD-led government, which would need the support of the conservative business community, with whose leaders Scharping has held numerous talks, will seek to revive the German economy within the constraints of a global market...
...perspective the latter membership figure is still impressive, for the SPD, which had more than one million members in 1976, the trend is quite disturbing...
...The Party Program Anticipating a year of elections, left and right factions in the SPD have muted their differences on key domestic and foreign policy issues, generally backing the leadership's policy recommendations at the November 1993 national convention in Wiesbaden...
...Scharping also reasoned that the party had to make ideological retreats on controversial domestic policies, such as political asylum, on which the party had already made important concessions to the CDU/CSU, and on civil liberties, in which the CDU/CSU has normally taken a tougher law-and-order stance than the SPD...
...The German electoral system mixes proportional representation and single-member constituencies...
...cuts in state expenditures, including subsidies and welfare programs...
...In addition, SPD leaders have been unable to build up an effective organization in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR...
...Then, of course, they assert that capitalism has triumphed...
...Should the SPD win the election, Scharping, as chancellor, might have some freedom to move the party back to the moderate left in social and civil liberties issues, if he were so inclined...
...His statement still holds true...
...Politically close to the center/right of the party, he is primarily a pragmatist and not an ideologue...
...No one could have predicted in 1982 that after German unification in 1990 key constitutional issues, such as political asylum, the deployment of German troops outside of the NATO perimeter, and constitutional revision, requiring two-thirds parliamentary support, would arise...
...This fall the SPD may well emerge victorious...
...Voters in Western Germany are tired of huge budget deficits, high unemployment, and the costs of rebuilding the East German economy...
...and a meshing of the state budget with improvements in the economy, which in turn must be linked to increases in productivity...
...After a brief period, Rudolf Scharping, the fortyfiveyear-old minister-president of Rhineland Palatinate since 1991, emerged as the new party leader...
...The two-thirds requirement leads to a blurring of differences between parties, which must compromise if legislation is to be approved...
...Moreover, most citizens, tired of past organizational and party memberships, are too busy coping with the present to join any party...
...One result: the SPD and the other parties are losing members...
...A majority of the shrinking number of blue-collar workers, the traditional bloc of SPD supporters, can be expected to vote for the party in the October election...
...Many members in Western Germany, lacking solidarity with their colleagues in the East, quit the party in protest...
...The SPD was unable to gain enough votes in the 1983, 1987, and 1990 elections to displace Kohl...
...But this will not happen in economic and financial policies as long as Germany's economy is in recession...
...To illustrate: in 1993, Oskar Lafontaine, minister-president of the Saarland (in the West), proposed that, in order to slow down national budget deficits, wages and pensions in the East should not be raised to West German levels as quickly as had been suggested earlier...
...Despite discomfort on the left, he reasoned that the party had no chance of unseating Kohl in 1994 unless it abandoned its attempt to win over Green voters on its left flank (they compose a smaller core than the centrist voters), and abandoned Keynesian solutions...
...It received support primarily from well-educated, middle-class urban voters, including left intellectuals, but not from bluecollar workers who had been satiated by decades of "real socialism" and who were eager to increase their standard of living, as promised by the CDU...
...moderate income redistribution...
...There has been increasing popular revulsion toward all establishment parties, the SPD included, because of scandals, a failure to solve major problems, and a lack of openness and honesty...
...In September 1990, the East and West German SPD organizations Politics Abroad merged...
...As the senior party in power from 1969 to 1982, under chancellors Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt, its progressive domestic agenda did have a limited success...
...On energy, Scharping postponed discussion of the future party course on a proposed higher tax to conserve fuel, which in the past produced much debate within and outside the party...
...Prospects for SPD Rule Scharping may have to pay a price in his determined drive to win the national election...
...As a consequence, voters in future elections may again find themselves with a more meaningful choice between two blocs of parties than is the case at first glance in 1994...
...Voters in the East feel betrayed by Kohl's promises that unification would bring the benefits of capitalism at little cost...
...SPD leaders know that the buildup of the organization in the East must be a high priority if the party is to gain more electoral support than in 1990...
...It nominated prominent figures for chancellor but waged some of its campaigns on the wrong issues...
...Second, the liberal Free Democratic party (FDP), the junior member in the SPD-led coalition governments, blocked a number of SPD recommendations...
...Only then, so runs the argument, can the economy become more competitive with that of other countries and can unemployment be reduced...
...the Alliance 90/Greens (the new amalgamation of West and East German Greens and the progressive "Alliance 90"), 9 percent...
...No matter what government emerges, the Hirokuni Uzawa SPD has gained in stature and prestige in the past year...
...Polls show that a majority of respondents view the SPD as the party most qualified to deal with the economic crisis and Scharping as the most qualified candidate...
...At Wiesbaden, Scharping also relegated disputed foreign policy planks to the sidelines, knowing that to emphasize them would produce damaging debates...
...The rightwing Republicans most likely will not receive the necessary 5 percent minimum for Bundestag seats but the PDS may gain a few direct seats in the districts...
...The SPD seems unable to attract East German youth into its ranks because most are apolitical or gravitate toward the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the successor party to the communists...
...and a better quality of life in the cities...
...In recent years the party hoped to increase its membership in Eastern Germany, especially in Saxony and Thuringia, where its strength was concentrated before 1933...
...As a consequence, the number of nonvoters and voters without strong party loyalties has increased steadily...
...East German members in turn were displeased when some West German leaders tried to run their organization or took political positions deemed prejudicial to the interests of East Germans...
...Are their claims premature, at least as far as social democracy in Germany is concerned...
...Nonetheless he won support, after years of intraparty discussion, for his proposal that German troops be allowed to participate in United Nations peacekeeping SUMMER • 1994 • 317 Politics Abroad operations, provided that they would not be involved in combat...
...A third possibility is a grand coalition with the CDU/CSU, which most SPD leaders reject for ideological reasons and for fear that it would leave all parliamentary opposition in the hands of minor parties...
...The SPD is expected to make a strong showing in October because of the mounting dissatisfaction with the Kohl government's economic record...
...A survey of the SPD in contemporary Germany should be able to provide some answers...
...316 • DISSENT Party Problems In 1994, Scharping and his colleagues face a number of intraparty and external problems...
...Most likely a new type of SPD organization will develop in the East without mass membership on the Western model...
...He convinced a slim majority of convention delegates to support—although with some stipulations—a bill by the Kohl government that would allow security agencies to eavesdrop in apartments where criminal activities are suspected...
...Yet this opposition strategy, including critiques of the government during SUMMER • 1994 • 315 Politics Abroad Bundestag question hours, conceals the amount of cooperation or consensus on numerous bills (for example, pensions and health), which the parties have not publicized in order to maintain their own profiles...
...However, as in the period from 1969 to 1982 when the SPD was in power, an SPD-led government, if installed, is bound on occasion to take different positions than the German Trade Union Federation (DGB) officials, most of whom are Social Democrats...
...There is much talk of a crisis in the party system as a whole as new splinter parties arise, especially in the middle and right of the political spectrum...
...The leaders of the Greens are in favor but some SPD officials doubt whether such a government could span the differences between the two parties on several major issues...
...Since 1982, the SPD, having become the chief opposition party to coalition governments led by Helmut Kohl and composed of the conservative Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and the FDP, frequently prodticed alternative policy proposals, most of them more progressive than those of the government, on pressing political, economic, social, environmental, and foreign policy issues...
...This was especially true in the Brandt era, when numerous reforms produced improvements in social welfare, pensions, co-determination in industry, education, and environmental protec tion...
...However, few East German Social Democrats have become well known and some have been beset by controversies, including accusations of having worked for the Stasi, the communist secret police...
...Hans-Jochen Vogel, a former justice minister, led the party until 1991, and then made way for the younger Bjorn Engholm, minister-president (governor) of the Land (state) of Schleswig-Holstein...
...In keynote speeches, Scharping and Lafontaine (the latter serves as the party's spokesperson on economic and financial questions) dealt primarily with ways in which an SPD-led government would make improvements in employment, the economy, finances, and the social welfare system...
...Odds are that the SPD will gain considerable backing from Eastern voters who are dissatisfied with Kohl's policies...
...Prior commitments might lose votes among those who would disapprove of one coalition partner or another...
...In the past year, Scharping told DGB officials that German economic competitiveness requires lower labor costs...
...At the convention, Scharping, aware of the more conservative national climate, was intent on steering the party into the political center...
...Instead, the party has been lucky to hold on to most of its twentyfive thousand members...
...Third, the government's reform efforts were stymied by mounting fiscal problems...
Vol. 41 • July 1994 • No. 3
