Back to Document View LexisNexis? Academic Copyright 2002 The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com The Washington Post September 23, 2002, Monday, Final Edition Correction Appended SECTION: A SECTION; Pg. A01 LENGTH: 1458 words HEADLINE: Ruling Coalition Wins Narrowly In German Vote; Strong Anti-War Stance Helps Schroeder Defeat Conservatives BYLINE: Peter Finn, Washington Post Foreign Service DATELINE: BERLIN, Sept. 23 (Monday) BODY: Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's left-of-center coalition returned to power by a very narrow margin in parliamentary elections Sunday, following a rancorous campaign in which Schroeder's repeated refusal to support a possible U.S. attack on Iraq became a central issue. The chancellor's coalition took 306 seats in Parliament, ending ahead of the 295 secured by a potential conservative-led bloc. "A majority is a majority," declared a relieved Schroeder late Sunday, playing down his slim margin of victory. "If we have it, we will use it." In a country with a strong pacifist streak, analysts said, Schroeder's promise to keep Germany out of any war with Iraq helped close a gap in the polls between him and the conservatives, led by Edmund Stoiber, the governor of the state of Bavaria. Schroeder was also helped by allegations of anti-Semitism in a junior party in the conservative bloc. Analysts say the controversy resulted in the party getting fewer seats than forecast. The big question in Germany today was whether Schroeder would keep to his campaign stance on Iraq. Many analysts predicted that with electoral victory secured, he would now acquiesce to any military action that secures U.N. backing. The United States maintains about 70,000 troops in Germany and is anxious about having the support of such an important ally in any conflict. Even if there is a public fence-mending, personal ties between President Bush and Schroeder have soured, a U.S. official said, and the working relationship between the two countries may not be fully rebuilt during either leader's time in office. In the voting, the Social Democrat Party led by Schroeder secured about 38.5 percent of the vote, a showing that was matched by the conservatives, made up of the Christian Democratic Union and its counterpart in Bavaria, the Christian Social Union. In Germany's multiparty system, however, power does not necessarily go to the party that wins the most seats in Parliament. It flows to the one that can form a working coalition with one or more of the smaller parties. In the voting Sunday, the environmentalist Greens, who got 8.6 percent of the vote, up from 6.7 percent four years ago, rescued the relatively weak vote of Schroeder's party, which dropped from 40.9 percent in 1998. The results blunt in a major way a trend away from the left in Europe over the past few years. In France, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and the Netherlands, voters have moved their governments to the right. Sweden earlier this month broke with that trend in an election, and now Germany has too. The anti-U.S. rhetoric that flourished in the campaign angered the Bush administration, which warned Schroeder that his speeches were straying beyond the bounds of acceptable disagreement between allies. The anger turned to fury when Schroeder's justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, was reported by a newspaper to have compared Bush to Adolf Hitler, saying both had employed the technique of beating war drums to distract their populations from domestic problems. "How can you use the name of Hitler and the name of the president of the United States in the same sentence?" asked Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper just before the election. "Particularly, how can a German, given the devotion of the U.S. in the liberation of Germany from Hitler? An atmosphere has been created that is in that sense poisoned." Many analysts expect that Schroeder, who apologized to Bush in a letter, will now fire Daeubler-Gmelin in the first of a series of conciliatory gestures to repair U.S.-German relations. Daeubler-Gmelin lost her seat in her constituency in southern Germany, but theoretically could return to government on a party list for Parliament; in Germany, people get two votes -- one for an individual and one for a party. To appease the United States, Germany may also take over leadership of the international peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, analysts here have suggested. And the chancellor may yet find a way to reconcile himself to any U.N. resolution authorizing an attack on Iraq. But he is still widely regarded as unlikely to commit troops to the effort. German analysts suggested that the United States should nonetheless ask itself why Schroeder's anti-war message went over so well in a country that traditionally has valued close relations with the United States. Commitment to deep transatlantic ties had always been an inviolable part of German foreign policy, supported by a clear majority of the electorate despite differences on particular issues. But frustration with the tone and substance of the Bush administration's foreign policy, including its rejection of the Kyoto global warming pact of 1997 and perceived contempt for allies' opinions, has made openly attacking the United States a much less risky political proposition, analysts said. "I think both sides need to step back and think," said Juergen Falter, a professor of political science at the Free University in Berlin. The margin of victory leaves Schroeder, 58, with very little room for bold initiatives, particularly to revive the country's flagging economy and turn around a 9.6 percent unemployment rate, the highest in the 15-country European Union. The final official count may leave the chancellor with a majority in Parliament of as few as 10 seats, according to projections. One month ago, Schroeder looked set to be soundly beaten, the result of his failure to lower unemployment. But flooding in eastern Germany allowed him to showcase his natural and reassuring leadership skills, restoring some of the public's affection. And he seized on the issue of Iraq. In the last of a series of statements that had become progressively stronger, he declared an almost absolute opposition to any attack on Iraq, including one sanctioned by the United Nations. Such a war might break up the coalition in the war against terrorism, he said, and bring general chaos to the Middle East. He would not "click his heels" to the commands of Washington, he said, in one of a number of charged metaphors uttered at rallies across the country. His opponent Stoiber was largely ineffectual in response. As his early lead eroded, he fell back on the bogeymen of German politics: immigration and resident foreigners, promising to expel 4,000 people whom the government regards as Islamic militants. He also belatedly said he opposed unilateral U.S. action against Iraq, but that Germany would have to respect a U.N. mandate. By some accounts, the justice minister's statements cost Schroeder some votes at the last minute, because any mention of Hitler in German politics is explosive. But it turned out that the heritage of World War II also created problems for Stoiber, who was the candidate of the national Christian Democratic Union, and its Bavarian counterpart, the Christian Social Union. They had hoped to form a coalition with the Free Democrats, a party known for pro-business policies and tax cuts. Polls in recent days showed the party would get at least 9 percent of the vote. But in the last week of the campaign, the party's deputy leader, Juergen Moellemann, mailed out leaflets attacking Michel Friedman, a prominent German Jewish leader. Political analysts say the leaflet, sent to voters' homes, created the impression that Moellemann was pandering to the far right. In May, Moellemann had made attacks on Israel, and said that Friedman spawned anti-Semitism with an "intolerant, spiteful style." The party ordered him to button his rhetoric, but with the appearance of the leaflet found itself back in the middle of the controversy. Moellemann's decision to attack Friedman anew mystified fellow party leaders. Outside a tiny minority, the allegation of anti-Semitism is deeply damaging in this country and the Free Democrats, despite frantic last-minute efforts to pointedly ostracize Moellemann, ended up with 6.2 percent of the vote, crucially below expectations. The Greens, who ran on little other than the persona of Joschka Fischer, the immensely popular foreign minister in the Schroeder government, apparently soaked up the votes of disillusioned Free Democrats. That left the conservatives just short of the seats they had counted on to form a new government. On Sunday night, the Free Democratic leadership demanded that Moellemann resign, and he said he would respond today. Late Sunday, a somber Stoiber told N-24 television that the debate inside the Free Democrats had been "very, very damaging." Early this morning, he predicted that a new Schroeder government would last only a year. CORRECTION-DATE: September 24, 2002 CORRECTION: A Sept. 23 article on the German elections misstated the proportion of votes by the Free Democratic Party. It got 7.4 percent. LOAD-DATE: September 23, 2002