Schröder's Election Victory: The Secret Plan
By Dr. Josef Joffe

Is this the twilight of Gerhard Schröder's career? Suicide out of fear of death? This is the secret plan for victory that was plotted by three interns in the German chancellery in merely twenty minutes, the same plan that they mailed to "Die Zeit" accidentally. The assumption is the following: the Social Democrats (SPD) lost all the recent elections because it saddled the people with such presumptuous reforms as Hartz IV. That means the Chancellor, who won in 1998 and 2002 not for the party but for himself, has to again personalize the election campaign und portray himself as the protector of the forgotten citizens.He has to promise the people once more that he will protect them against the foes of globalization (more accurately, Europeanization or the social and tax dumping of new EU member states onto the older states) and will anchor them in the secure harbor of the welfare state. Essentially, no "American conditions," just like in the 2002 elections. At the same time, the move to announce new elections thwarts the strategy of the Christian Democrats that consists of only a few words: "Don't say anything, don't do anything." Instead, they would like to wait until the election victory falls in their lap like a ripe plum. The secret plan poses the following predicament for the Christian Democrats: if they move to the right (become neo-liberal), the people will be even angrier with Angela Merkel than they are now with Gerhard Schröder. Or the Christian Democrats can move to the left. Schröder could then deride them as a cheap knock-off and ask the electorate, "Do you want a cheap copy or the original?" This tactic proved to be successful in 2002, when Christian Democratic candidate Edmund Stoiber tried to pass the Chancellor on the left side regarding the war in Iraq. Even this time, the Christian Democrats will not dare to be the reformer. The people do not want more, but less insolence from the government. The eloquent silence of the CDU/CSU during the anti-capitalism campaign shows how afraid they are to pursue the politics of genuine reform. Angela Merkel would like to be daring, but the newly formed social democratic power bloc of Edmund Stoiber and Jürgen Rüttgers prevents that. In any case, the chancellor can take the initiative. The only thing he should not do is to ask, "her or me?" as the politically correct would resent that. Instead, he should call it "Us or them - the original or a copy?" As mentioned before, this plan was conceived by a couple of interns who did not really know what they were doing. The Christian Democrats, however, are well aware of this trap; they were the ones who set it up in the first place.

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The author, Dr. Josef Joffe, is co-publisher and co-editor of the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit and an AICGS Trustee.

This article was translated by Kirsten Verclas. The German original previously appeared in the German newspaper "Die Zeit" on May 25, 2005. It appeared in the June 2, 2005, AICGS Advisor with the author's permission.
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For the original German version, please click here.