West Germany: Bad Omen

A warning for Kohl

A funereal pall hung over the wood-paneled conference room of the headquarters of the ruling Christian Democratic Party in Bonn. Even Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s characteristic good humor had given way to a gloomy frown as he contemplated the party’s surprising defeat the previous Sunday in local elections in the city-state of Hamburg. It was the last test of strength before the national elections Kohl plans to hold on March 6 in hopes of winning a mandate for his three-month-old conservative coalition government. Said the conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “The result is both a disappointment and a warning. The election will not be as easy as many imagined.”

Against all predictions, the opposition Social Democratic Party won a decisive 51.3% majority in Hamburg, up from 42.7% in the election seven months ago. The Christian Democrats dropped to 38.6% from 43.2%, while the environmentalist and pacifist group known as the Greens receded to 6.8%, from 7.7%. Since the Social Democrats did not get a working majority in the June election, Mayor Klaus von Dohnanyi tried forming a coalition with the Greens to run Hamburg. The attempt failed, and because the Social Democrats did not have the majority required to govern on their own, new elections were required.

Last week’s vote was especially shocking for Kohl’s coalition partners in Bonn, the Free Democratic Party. Once the pivotal third force in West German politics, the Free Democrats slipped to 2.6%, from 4.9% in June, prompting Bonn’s daily General-Anzeiger to compare it to “a Christmas tree with no needles on its branches.” The party’s Hamburg debacle indicates that it is in danger of falling under the 5% minimum necessary to qualify for parliamentary seats. If that happens in March, the Free Democrats will be useless to Chancellor Kohl as a coalition partner. The Christian Democrats and their allies, Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, would have to win an absolute majority to stay in office.

Willy Brandt, 69, chairman of the Social Democrats, jubilantly described his party’s victory last week as a rejection of Kohl’s coalition, which came to power on Oct. 1 when the Free Democrats switched allegiance from the coalition led by former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. A hometown hero in Hamburg, Schmidt had campaigned hard, accusing the Free Democrats of “betrayal.” Kohl was chastened but not discouraged by his party’s setback because Hamburg has traditionally been a Social Democratic stronghold. Though it would be premature to judge as the start of a nationwide trend, the opposition’s return to power in Hamburg, it is an omen Kohl would do well to heed.