Schroeder quits as party leader
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« on: February 06, 2004, 12:49:11 PM »

Schroeder quits as party leader
 
 
Mr Schroeder faced growing criticism in his party
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has announced his resignation as chairman of his centre-left party.
"I will concentrate on my work as chancellor and head of government," he told a news conference.

The decision comes after mounting criticism in the party of his economic reform agenda and record low ratings.

Mr Schroeder named Franz Muentefering, the party's current parliamentary group leader, as the man he would like to succeed him as chairman of the Social Democrats.

  I think the difficulties we have had in the process of communication justify concentrating our strength in this way

Gerhard Schroeder  
A special party conference will be held in March to appoint the new leader.

The BBC's Ray Furlong in Berlin says Mr Schroeder has never been a particularly popular leader within his party.

Mr Schroeder admitted as he announced his decision on Friday that his leadership suffered from communication problems with the party's rank and file.

"I think the difficulties we have had in the process of communication justify concentrating our strength in this way," he said.

He told a hastily-arranged news conference that Germany was currently in its "most important reform stage since World War II" and he was committed to this process.

'Closer to left'

Mr Muentefering is seen as being closer to the party's left wing and core voters.

 
Mr Muentefering is a key ally of the chancellor, but more popular in the party
If appointed, he will have to lead the Social Democrats through a marathon of more than 10 state and local elections this year.

Mr Schroeder's "Agenda 2010" reforms, pushed through parliament last year, are particularly unpopular with left-wingers in his party, who say core principles are being betrayed.

He had to repeatedly threaten to resign as chancellor last year to quell left-wing revolts in his party.

Reforms 'essential'

Mr Schroeder says the programme of welfare cuts and labour market reforms is essential to reviving the stagnant German economy and adapting it to an ageing population.

The reforms include a new requirement for patients to pay 10 euros (12.50 dollars) per quarter for doctors' visits, which were previously free.

Germany's Social Democrats suffered several setbacks in state elections last year.

They have also hit an all-time low of about 25% in opinion polls, and lost tens of thousands of members.

Mr Schroeder first became party leader in 1999, a year after he was elected Chancellor.

His great leftist rival, Oskar Lafontaine stepped aside as both chairman and finance minister after losing a power struggle with him.



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Michael Z
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« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2004, 05:00:16 PM »
« Edited: February 06, 2004, 05:04:42 PM by Michael Zeigermann »

It was bound to happen, given that the party never quite warmed to Schroeder; even though party chairman is more of an honorary title which won't necessarily dent his position as chancellor. At least in the short run.

That said, Schroeder's position is becoming increasingly untenable and I do expect Wolfgang Clement to be the Social Democratic candidate for Chancellor at the next election (which, regardless of that, the conservative CDU under Angela Merkel looks set to win).
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Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon
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« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2004, 06:36:02 PM »

Maybe Merkel is the next Thatcher! Smiley

Or maybe not Tongue
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Gustaf
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« Reply #3 on: February 06, 2004, 07:03:05 PM »

Good to see Schröder going, slimy guy. The CDU will definitely win the next election, and Angela Merkel has been compared to Thatcher. But I don't know how true a comparison that is... Wink
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #4 on: February 06, 2004, 10:19:56 PM »

Good to see Schröder going, slimy guy. The CDU will definitely win the next election, and Angela Merkel has been compared to Thatcher. But I don't know how true a comparison that is... Wink
That comparison looks nothing but absurd to me.
Don't expect Clement to be going anywhere. Elections in Germany are won by mobilizing the base, not in the scarcely-existing center. We wouldn't vote for Clement.
This also explains the low standing in the opinion polls. The Social Democrats will rally behind Schroeder again when the election draws near and they take a closer look at the alternative.
There is also the non-small matter of the age structure of the CDU  voters. That party is effectively dying out.
They still may win in 2006 of course. But don't count on it until three days before polls close maximum.
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M
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« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2004, 02:14:27 AM »

Maybe the SD can nominate Howard Dean. "We're gonna win in Bavaria. And we're gonna win in NRW! And Baden! And Upper Saxony! And then. we're gonna go to Wilhemstrasse, and take back the Chancellory. Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2004, 05:09:07 AM »

Lewis is right... at the last election Schroeder, who had been written off by the polling firms after the SPD's appalling showing in Sachsen-Anhalt and by the huge lead that the Chief Redneck of Bavaria had, came back from the dead to scrape out a narrow win.

BTW 2002 was the CDU(not including the CSU)'s 3rd worst ever result... their worst ever result was in 1949 and their second worst ever result was in 1998.

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There is no way that the SPD is going to win anything in Bavaria.
Trust me on this...
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2004, 06:14:02 AM »

Lewis is right... at the last election Schroeder, who had been written off by the polling firms after the SPD's appalling showing in Sachsen-Anhalt and by the huge lead that the Chief Redneck of Bavaria had, came back from the dead to scrape out a narrow win.

BTW 2002 was the CDU(not including the CSU)'s 3rd worst ever result... their worst ever result was in 1949 and their second worst ever result was in 1998.

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There is no way that the SPD is going to win anything in Bavaria.
Trust me on this...

Teh SPD always wins some tiny corners of bavaria. Its traditional strength in the state's far eat and in Nuremberg is waning, but even at their 2003 debacle they still held one direct election seat in Inner city Munich. Meanwhile, in the Munich suburban district of Freising (or was it Erding? Why do all those places have to sound so similar?), they were overtaken by the Greens...
They weren't really written off by the polling firms, btw. All those polls come with a little anaysis, which regularly gets ignored by lazy journalists the world over, but which never failed to mention the extremely high mobilization rate for such an early date in the CDU and the abysmally low one on the left, and the possibility of a scenario like the one that actually happened.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2004, 06:25:47 AM »

Teh SPD always wins some tiny corners of bavaria. Its traditional strength in the state's far eat...

Now it's me turning into John...
The SPD always wins some tiny corners of Bavaria. It's traditional strength in the state's far North east...
That's what I was trying to say.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2004, 06:44:45 AM »

Ah... So the media misrepresented something? Theres a suprise Wink

Do you know where I can find a map of direct election seats for the 2002 election?
I have the results for each one but without a map I'm not sure where they are (eg. Potsdam-Potsdam-Mittelmark II-Teltow-Fläming II)
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #10 on: February 07, 2004, 07:16:45 AM »

Ah... So the media misrepresented something? Theres a suprise Wink

Do you know where I can find a map of direct election seats for the 2002 election?
I have the results for each one but without a map I'm not sure where they are (eg. Potsdam-Potsdam-Mittelmark II-Teltow-Fläming II)


http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/wahlen/bundestagswahl2002/deutsch/wkeint2002/karten/index.html
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Gustaf
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« Reply #11 on: February 07, 2004, 07:51:19 AM »

Good to see Schröder going, slimy guy. The CDU will definitely win the next election, and Angela Merkel has been compared to Thatcher. But I don't know how true a comparison that is... Wink
That comparison looks nothing but absurd to me.
Don't expect Clement to be going anywhere. Elections in Germany are won by mobilizing the base, not in the scarcely-existing center. We wouldn't vote for Clement.
This also explains the low standing in the opinion polls. The Social Democrats will rally behind Schroeder again when the election draws near and they take a closer look at the alternative.
There is also the non-small matter of the age structure of the CDU  voters. That party is effectively dying out.
They still may win in 2006 of course. But don't count on it until three days before polls close maximum.

Clement? That's the name of that new patry leader, right?

The last time Schröder managed to cling on by moving against the Iraq War. I don't think the Germans will buy him again, but if they do, it's their loss, imo. And if you try to excite the base, huge cuts in welfare might not be the way to go. And I don't think too much shold be read into age structure, there is always the tendency of people to grow more conservative when they get old.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #12 on: February 07, 2004, 08:07:05 AM »

Ah... So the media misrepresented something? Theres a suprise Wink

Do you know where I can find a map of direct election seats for the 2002 election?
I have the results for each one but without a map I'm not sure where they are (eg. Potsdam-Potsdam-Mittelmark II-Teltow-Fläming II)


http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/wahlen/bundestagswahl2002/deutsch/wkeint2002/karten/index.html

Thanks Smiley
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #13 on: February 07, 2004, 08:12:15 AM »
« Edited: February 07, 2004, 08:13:00 AM by Lewis Trondheim »

Good to see Schröder going, slimy guy. The CDU will definitely win the next election, and Angela Merkel has been compared to Thatcher. But I don't know how true a comparison that is... Wink
That comparison looks nothing but absurd to me.
Don't expect Clement to be going anywhere. Elections in Germany are won by mobilizing the base, not in the scarcely-existing center. We wouldn't vote for Clement.
This also explains the low standing in the opinion polls. The Social Democrats will rally behind Schroeder again when the election draws near and they take a closer look at the alternative.
There is also the non-small matter of the age structure of the CDU  voters. That party is effectively dying out.
They still may win in 2006 of course. But don't count on it until three days before polls close maximum.

Clement? That's the name of that new patry leader, right?

The last time Schröder managed to cling on by moving against the Iraq War. I don't think the Germans will buy him again, but if they do, it's their loss, imo. And if you try to excite the base, huge cuts in welfare might not be the way to go. And I don't think too much shold be read into age structure, there is always the tendency of people to grow more conservative when they get old.

Clement is the finance minister. The new party leader will be Franz Muentefering. Not that he'd win an Election either, he's just too boring.
The Gulf War issue was probably not decisive. That flood in East Germany probably helped more...
"if you try to excite the base, huge cuts in welfare might not be the way to go' - true, of course. That's the reason for the current dismal poll standing.
Age structure - have a look at the age structure of the German parties and think again. It's really extreme. And I mean EXTREME. Iran is probably the only country in the world where your age says more about how you vote.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #14 on: February 07, 2004, 08:18:15 AM »

Good to see Schröder going, slimy guy. The CDU will definitely win the next election, and Angela Merkel has been compared to Thatcher. But I don't know how true a comparison that is... Wink
That comparison looks nothing but absurd to me.
Don't expect Clement to be going anywhere. Elections in Germany are won by mobilizing the base, not in the scarcely-existing center. We wouldn't vote for Clement.
This also explains the low standing in the opinion polls. The Social Democrats will rally behind Schroeder again when the election draws near and they take a closer look at the alternative.
There is also the non-small matter of the age structure of the CDU  voters. That party is effectively dying out.
They still may win in 2006 of course. But don't count on it until three days before polls close maximum.

Clement? That's the name of that new patry leader, right?

The last time Schröder managed to cling on by moving against the Iraq War. I don't think the Germans will buy him again, but if they do, it's their loss, imo. And if you try to excite the base, huge cuts in welfare might not be the way to go. And I don't think too much shold be read into age structure, there is always the tendency of people to grow more conservative when they get old.

Clement is the finance minister. The new party leader will be Franz Muentefering. Not that he'd win an Election either, he's just too boring.
The Gulf War issue was probably not decisive. That flood in East Germany probably helped more...
"if you try to excite the base, huge cuts in welfare might not be the way to go' - true, of course. That's the reason for the current dismal poll standing.
Age structure - have a look at the age structure of the German parties and think again. It's really extreme. And I mean EXTREME. Iran is probably the only country in the world where your age says more about how you vote.


OK, I'll admit to not having looked into it a lot. In our referendum on the euro, 71% of those aged 18-21 voted no, I thought that was a rather extreme age difference.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #15 on: February 07, 2004, 08:18:21 AM »

It's more extreme than in the U.K?!?!!?!

Amazing...
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2004, 08:20:05 AM »

Is it true that Oskar Lafontaine is making a comeback?
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #17 on: February 07, 2004, 08:30:09 AM »

Basically you have two peoples living in West Germany - the 60+ and the under 60s. The first go to the polls in large numbers, vote well over 50% CDU/CSU, the rest SPD and a very few FDP. No Greens. The others have much higher abstention rates, SPD usually strongest and Greens weakest in what is effectively a three party system of equals, plus somewhat higher FDP and much higher "protest" vote totals.
East Germany is different, though. PDS, CDU and SPD all get voted for across all age groups, others are purely a phenomenon of the young, turnout is generally lower but I don't know how it breaks by age.

A comeback for Oskar? Well, I have to remind you I haven't been to Germany for about three months. I know there was some, I don't know how serious but apparently not entirely baseless, talk of running him for CM in the Saarland elections in the fall. But they decided against that. I can't really see Lafontaine making a comeback in the SPD, he burned too many bridges behind him when he left. The PDS would certainly take him if he wanted to, but I don't know how many voters he could pull with him in that case. Anyway, he seems not to want to do that, otherwise he could have done it years ago.
 
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #18 on: February 07, 2004, 08:46:56 AM »

It would have been worth it just to annoy The Sun...

Over here the 60+ vote Tory and most of the under 25's would never vote Tory under any circumstances...
There are some huge regional differences (eg. Labour won over 60% in the North East and only a bit over 30% in the South East)
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #19 on: February 07, 2004, 09:21:41 AM »

It would have been worth it just to annoy The Sun...

Over here the 60+ vote Tory and most of the under 25's would never vote Tory under any circumstances...

I saw a table on that a while ago and the trends certainly pointed in the same direction, but it was nowhere as extreme as in Germany. But if you look at the US, or Italy, or even France, you don't get this split (you get an embryonic verson of it in France, I think)
Then again, I think the main difference is in Labour's strength among old working class people. The turnout problem is worse on your island, and the decline of the Conservatives even more developed.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #20 on: February 07, 2004, 09:38:37 AM »
« Edited: February 07, 2004, 09:45:07 AM by Old Europe »


Clement is the finance minister. The new party leader will be Franz Muentefering. Not that he'd win an Election either, he's just too boring.


Clement is Economy and Labour, Hans Eichel is Finance Minister.  Wink



Is it true that Oskar Lafontaine is making a comeback?


I always considered this as highly unlikely. Saw him yesterday on TV and he ruled out a comeback again. This is just a very popular rumour, which simply refuses to disappear.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #21 on: February 07, 2004, 09:42:38 AM »

Oops.
you're right of course.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #22 on: February 07, 2004, 11:08:30 AM »

It would have been worth it just to annoy The Sun...

Over here the 60+ vote Tory and most of the under 25's would never vote Tory under any circumstances...

I saw a table on that a while ago and the trends certainly pointed in the same direction, but it was nowhere as extreme as in Germany. But if you look at the US, or Italy, or even France, you don't get this split (you get an embryonic verson of it in France, I think)
Then again, I think the main difference is in Labour's strength among old working class people. The turnout problem is worse on your island, and the decline of the Conservatives even more developed.

Turnout is a problem... just 59% last election... Sad
And we are looking at under 20% for the Euro' elections... Sad

But yes, the main difference would be the fact that Labour has an unshakable hold on most working class communities from cradle to grave.
Politics in the U.K has always been far more class based than most other countries, but I'm not really sure why.
It might be to do with the size of the coalfields.
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jaichind
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« Reply #23 on: February 07, 2004, 08:26:57 PM »

There are 14 seperate elections (Land, European etc) this year in Germany.   A SPD insider predicted that if things to not change soon the SPD-Green will lose all 14 to the CDU/CSU-FDP.  SPD are now polling at 24 and CDU/CSU 48.  Schroeder is luckly that the next general election is not until 2006.  On the other hand, to have any chance in 2006 he must act to reform the German economic and pension system but to do that would anger the SPD left wing who in turn could bring down his government.  I guess Schroeder will have to pray for another Bush Middle East adventure like Iran and then he can run again on the anti-American/Bush platform.
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jaichind
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« Reply #24 on: February 07, 2004, 08:30:09 PM »

Lewis is right... at the last election Schroeder, who had been written off by the polling firms after the SPD's appalling showing in Sachsen-Anhalt and by the huge lead that the Chief Redneck of Bavaria had, came back from the dead to scrape out a narrow win.

BTW 2002 was the CDU(not including the CSU)'s 3rd worst ever result... their worst ever result was in 1949 and their second worst ever result was in 1998.

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There is no way that the SPD is going to win anything in Bavaria.
Trust me on this...

Actually SPD is qute competitive in urban Bavaria and have been slowing chipping away at the CSU lead over the years.  Of course the 2002 Federal election campaign destroyed all that as the SPD pretty much ran against Bavaria in a desperate attempt to win the election, a gamble that worked, if just barely.
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