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Strategies & Market Trends : Position Trading Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tim Luke who wrote (2472)	9/28/1998 12:12:00 AM
From: DennisToo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7247

Hi Tim, Hope this doesn't shake up the market tomorrow. Regards, D2 ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' Sunday September 27 3:28 PM EDT Schroeder Ends Kohl Era In Germany By Robert Mahoney BONN (Reuters) - Gerhard Schroeder ended an era in European politics by ousting Germany's veteran chancellor Helmut Kohl Sunday in an election that turned on unemployment. Schroeder brought the center-left Social Democratic Party back to power after 16 years in the shadow of the conservative colossus who reunified Germany and anchored it in a united Europe. ''After 16 years, the Kohl era is at an end,'' Schroeder told cheering supporters. ''The voters in Germany have brought about a once in a generation change,'' he said. Television exit polls forecast the SPD won around 41 percent of the vote compared with about 35 percent for Kohl. That would make Schroeder only the third SPD chancellor since World War Two. Kohl, 68, quickly acknowledged that his reign as the West's longest-serving leader had been ended by the worst showing of his conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) since 1949. ''The voters have clearly opted for Red-Green,'' Kohl told dejected supporters just an hour after polls closed. But it was not clear whether Schroeder would win enough seats in the Bundestag lower house of parliament to rule in coalition with the left-wing,ecologist Greens party. If he fails, Schroeder could form a grand coalition with the CDU, although Kohl has already ruled out serving in such a government. ''The new middle of Germany has decided and the SPD has won them back...it will be our task to modernize our country thoroughly and overcome the blockage of reforms,'' Schroeder said. Schroeder's pragmatic pursuit of a new center or Third Way in politics has invited comparisons with President Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair was one of the first Western leaders to congratulate the winner. ''It's a tremendous thing that we will now see center-left government in Britain, France, and Germany,'' Blair said. Schroeder promised to strive for continuity in foreign policy and to battle unemployment, currently more than four million. ''My most important goal, dear friends, is the fight against the plague of mass unemployment,'' he said. Analysts in Frankfurt, Germany's business capital, said the SPD would likely pursue economic policies similar to those of Kohl. Some said the stock market would prefer a grand coalition to a Red-Green alliance. Although the Social Democrats have at times sounded distinctly hostile toward liberalizing the German economy, many analysts believe that constraints placed on the new government by membership of Europe's single currency will mean economic priorities here remain little changed. ''There really are no big differences between the two parties' platforms,'' said Gerhard Grebe, economist at Bank Julius Baer in Frankfurt. Schroeder said he would wait for final results and would decide ''in peace and quiet'' over the next few days how he would negotiate to form a coalition. ''I want a government with a stable majority,'' he said. A grand coalition, often dubbed an ''elephants' wedding,'' could be led by Schroeder with an important post for Kohl's deputy Wolfgang Schaeuble. The exit polls gave the Greens between 6.2 and 6.5 percent while the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), Kohl's junior coalition partner, won just over six percent. A big surprise was the performance of the reform communist Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), heirs to the rulers of communist east Germany. They took five percent of the vote nationally for the first time. If confirmed, their presence in parliament could make it difficult for Schroeder to join with the Greens. ZDF television said it projected an SPD-Green alliance would have a two-seat majority in the 656-member lower house if the PDS remained in parliament, but over 20 seats if it didn't. The ARD network said, based on computer projections, that ''Red-Green'' would have 333 seats in parliament compared to 323 for the combined opposition of Christian Democrats, Free Democrats and the PDS. SPD officials have said they needed at least a 10-seat majority to form a ''stable coalition'' that would not be held hostage by the notoriously unreliable left wing of the Greens. Early in the campaign, Schroeder had said a one-seat majority was enough to govern. But that was quickly scrapped. Schroeder capitalized on unemployment to unseat Kohl, who earned a chapter in the history books as the architect of Germany's 1990 reunification and Europe's single currency. But the cost of rebuilding the east -- more than 1,000 billion marks ($595 billion) -- resulted in joblessness and high taxes and strained Germany's already unaffordable welfare state. Schroeder, a war widow's son from Lower Saxony, ran a slick, personalized, campaign presenting himself as a fresh face with fresh ideas to counter Kohl, whom he called yesterday's man. A pragmatic north German expected to strengthen ties with the English-speaking world, he courted big business with his trademark fat cigars while calling for more social justice.