This is ironic, and OT. The Berlin republic has arrived. After landslide success in two state elections yesterday of the conservative CDU party over the social democrat SPD party of Chancellor Schroeder, secretary general of the CDU party Angela Merkel now talks 'state saxon'. CDU will use its second chamber majority 'constructively'. The idiomatic change, that hit the republic at the first major political event just at the end of political summer break, is most surprising.
Altogether it is clear that in the future German politics will have even less interest in caring for foreign states, like the central ones (Poland, other neighbours, Turkey, Yugoslav countries), let alone about Bulgaria, Romania. This comes despite two exciting pieces of news of the week: Foreign Minister Fischer said that Poland is already part of the EU 'in my view' at the sixtieth anniversary of Germany's assault; and Turkey is 'most likely' (i.e.: 'will') enter the list of EU applicant states this year.
Regards and good wishes, MNI.
Definitions:
#1: 'state saxon' is a certain idiom of German that was cultured (but never officially defined) among the GDR party members, writers, sportsmen, etc. (whoever had a chance to appear in mass media had to use this accent).
#2: Angela Merkel, maybe the most noted individual politician among the younger CDU generation, is from former GDR; she is from Catholic environs and was part of the students' parishes movement in the GDR. She is least likely to use state saxon for several reasons: a) dissenters in the last year of the GDR spoke out in high German, if they felt able to produce reasonable output in that way; and Frau Merkel impressed in this art from her very first day in the media 1989, b) her home country is Thuringia, with clearly different tongue, c) even those politicians (e.g. of the PDS, formerly SED = party that formerly ruled the GDR) who built on contrasting East and West German popular cultures to gain in the East, never used state saxon, but the more civilian traditional tongues of saxon proper, East and West Thuringian, Berliner, Anhaltiner and Brandenburger Platt. As a secretary general her job is to be the political mouthpiece of the party, not so much to stand as a central candidate.
#3: Landslide elections:
a) In the Saarland, homecountry of former minster of finance Oskar Lafontaine, who has been ousted by Schroeder, after several months of mutual fighting-experience, SPD has had an absolute majority of votes for the last 14 years. Only when in the last few months it became clear that unprofiled young CDU contender Peter Mueller would have a chance of winning, Saarland president Klimmt (SPD) together with Lafontaine shot wildly at the federal government of their party colleague Chancellor Schroeder - pollsters say by this actions SPD won back around a percent of the votes. But not enough to win back the 8% of votes they had lost already at that time. CDu has absolute majority in the new parliament; Greens and Liberals could not overcome a 5% threshold to enter parliament. For the Greens it is the first time.
Saarland is the smallest state in Federal Germany, in the extreme West. The switching of Saarland means that a CDU majority in the federal chamber, that has been won last year, is stabilized.
b) Brandenburg is the biggest state by area, reaching back from the extreme East to surround Berlin, that is a state of its' own. Brandenburg is the only one of the former GDR that did not vote with CDU majority in 1991. It has been reigned by a comfortable SPD absolute majority, lead by Bishop Stolpe, ever since, while the other states slowly reconverged to SPD majorities. Bishop Stolpe was the central figure of the lutheran church in the GDR and is so amazingly popular that even some marginal proof of wild StaSi (=secret police of the GDR) cooperation allegations couldn't destroy that popularity.
Brandenburgs economic and social situation is so desperate (compared to other regions in Germany, of course), that a loss seemed inevitable. However nobody had believed that voters' mobility could reach 15% in Germany. Brandenburg's parliament includes now the SPD as the biggest party (39%), the CDU as a second largest (26%), the PDS as the third (21%) (in Brandenburg, it is a huge succes for the CDU to outnumber the PDS) and the neo-Nazi DVU at 5.3% (first time to enter parliament in Brandenburg). Which coalition Stolpe will seek is not yet clear, but everything points to a SPD-CDU coalition.
The despair and frustration of Brandenburg voters is exacted not only by the DVU strike, but even more by the low ballot rate: an all time low of 52%. Side remark: polls two months ago have shown that some 70% of Brandenburg voters are likely to oppose democracy as a system.
However, also in the Saarland total ballot was small: five years ago there was an 'all-time low' of 86%, this time 68%, mainly indicating frustrated voters.
Stolpes political tactics lately has been to oppose Schroeder's federal budget saving course. A considerable part of the campaigning effort was typed as 'We in Brandenburg' regional patriotism, with some second rate SPD politicians shooting personal attacks at the CDU and PDS leading figures. CDU was led by a westerner, PDS by Lothar Bissky, formerly SED, and talking high german... |
