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Ärende: Why Euro Party-Style government doesn't work
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Europe / Brussels briefing

Post Mortem on the Result Comes Later, says Merkel
By Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: September 19 2005 18:29 | Last updated: September 19 2005 18:29

Angela MerkelAngela Merkel refused on Monday even to try to explain what
went wrong for her Christian Democratic Union in Sunday's election. Tipped
as the near-certain winner, the party squandered a 20 percentage point
lead in opinion polls over the ruling Social Democrats and turned in one
of its worst performances since 1949.

Party leaders rallied around Ms Merkel as she sought to build a coalition
but some analysts said her long-term future as leader was now in doubt.
Along with the Christian Social Union, its Bavarian sister party, it
secured only 35.2 per cent of the vote, just 0.9 per cent ahead of the
SPDs.

A strained-looking Ms Merkel said a full-scale analysis of the result
would come later. "The priority now is to build a governing coalition."

Others felt it necessary to start an immediate assessment of why it went
so badly wrong for the CDU and Ms Merkel - and whether Ms Merkel will
become chancellor with a robust parliamentary majority behind her.

"Her prospects for gaining the chancellorship remain good but her party
colleagues may initially only give her a short lease of life in the job,"
said Peter Lösche, politics professor at Göttingen university.

"I estimate that she will have about a year to repair the damage," he
said, arguing that for Ms Merkel's rivals in the CDU and CSU - powerful
party barons and state premiers - "the time is not right to mount a putsch
against her".

Such comments show that Ms Merkel's position has been severely weakened.
Billed for months as Germany's next chancellor, she now has to work hard
to build what is likely to be an unstable coalition, and is reliant on
support from her rivals to remain in office.

In an effort to ensure her support base she is expected today to be
re-elected leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, in a vote that had
been scheduled for later this year.

Senior CDU politicians blamed confusion over the party's tax policy as a
reason for the party's poor election showing. The naming of Paul Kirchhof,
a radical tax reformer, as shadow finance minister was seen as a clear
mistake. "In the end this damaged our campaign," said Gerald Weiss, head
of the CDU's labour wing in the parliamentary group.

Some pollsters argued on Monday that the gender factor also played a role,
with conservative voters in southern Germany put off by the idea of
electing Germany's first female chancellor. Mr Lösche disagreed. "I'm not
sure this made a significant difference," he said.

Merkel allies sought on Monday to deflect attention from their leader.
Arnold Vaatz, deputy leader of the CDU's parliamentary group, blamed
tactical voting by CDU supporters for the liberal Free Democrats. "The
conservative camp as a whole, including the FDP, has not shrunk," he said.

Yet for Heinrich Oberreuter, a political scientist at Passau university,
Ms Merkel's days are certainly numbered. "It cannot be ruled out that the
CDU leads a grand coalition but that neither Ms Merkel nor Gerhard
Schröder becomes chancellor. This would clear the way for a CDU state
premier such as Hesse's Roland Koch to take this role, he said.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/02aeb5c8-2930-11da-8a5e-00000e2511c8,dwp_uuid=d4f
2ab60-c98e-11d7-81c6-0820abe49a01.html

Roy

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