Politics

This is not a political blog. But sometimes there are political events worth commenting. And a politicial voluntarily giving up power for the better of his country is certainly an event rare enough to report. The politician in question is the German chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

Germany, being a federal republic, has two houses of parliament, the national parliament controlled by Gerhard Schröder's party, the SPD, and the federal assembly controlled by the opposition party, the CDU. While both parties agree that Germany is in an economic mess and reforms are necessary, the opposition is blocking any measure proposed by the government, just so that the government won't get any credit for it. On Sunday the SPD lost another federal election, in what used to be their core state, giving the CDU even more blocking powers. It is pretty obvious that Germany is ungovernable under these conditions.

Now most politicians would have plodded on regardless, clinging to power until the next general election in autumn 2006, achieving nothing. But Gerhard Schröder announced that he doesn't want to do that, and that he will arrange for general elections a year early, autumn 2005. He is doing that in spite of the fact that he is almost guaranteed to lose this early election. I'm taking my virtual hat off to him. Even if he has to cut some constitutional corners to arrive there.

The opposition doesn't have much better ideas than the government party, but at least they will control both houses for a while, and be able to do *something*. And instead of judging the SPD on how little they can do while blocked in the federal assembly, Germany will be able to judge the CDU on what they can do while they have nearly unlimited power. As it was the CDU who is responsible for the reunification, which was politically good, but causes the current economic mess, it is quite appropriate to let them handle it. And while the early election has been called "political suicide" for Gerhard Schröder, I think that in the short term it will be better for the country, and in the long term it will even be better for the SPD.
- posted by Tobold @ 8:49 AM Permanent Link