Gloves off over Chancellor ‘attack’; vote fight heats up
Same-sex marriage push divides German ruling coalition
Germany’s election campaign battle heated up, with accusations of mud-slinging flying after Chancellor Angela Merkel’s rival accused her of an “attack on democracy”. Social Democrats chief Martin Schulz lashed out Sunday at the German leader, saying the famously cautious Merkel caused voters to disengage by refusing to air her views or engage in forceful debate.” That’s what’s called, in Berlin circles, ‘asymmetric demobilization’,” said Schulz, referring to Merkel’s supposed tactic of making politics so dull that opposition voters don’t bother showing up on polling day.
“I call it an attack on democracy,” charged Schulz, whose Social Democratic Party (SPD) are now the junior partner in Merkel’s right-left coalition. But Schulz, who also accused Merkel of “arrogance”, was swiftly met with a torrent of protest and accused of having crossed a line. “Even if Mr Schulz is frustrated by the polls, he should remain measured,” tweeted Peter Tauber, the general secretary of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “The desperation must never be so deep that democrats accuse democrats of attacks against democracy,” he said.
Tauber pledged that the CDU would pursue a “fair campaign”, adding that “that’s what we’re expecting from the SPD, too”. But, defending his SPD party boss, its parliamentary group head Thomas Oppermann said Schulz has struck the right tone.”An election campaign is not a pillow fight, one needs to be concrete. I find that he succeeded in this case,” Oppermann told public broadcaster ARD. Government spokesman Steffen Seibert declined to comment on issues of party politics but stressed that it was “clear” for the coalition that “we are all working for democracy”.
‘Sounds like panic’
Schulz revitalised SPD support and enjoyed soaring popularity ratings when he took his party’s reins in January, but the trend has since reversed. Three months before Germany heads to the polls on September 24, the SPD is trailing Merkel’s centre-right CDU by 15 percentage points, according to a survey published Sunday by Bild am Sonntag. After four years in a coalition led by Merkel, the SPD has seen falling support as its left-leaning supporters accuse it of shifting too far right to accomodate the German leader’s economically liberal policies. For Horst Seehofer, who heads Merkel’s conservative Bavarian allies the CSU, Schulz’s harsh words for Merkel bode ill for the SPD candidate himself.
“It seems a little early in the campaign to have lost one’s nerves,” he said, adding that it’s “not a good sign for a chancellor candidate but, actually, rather unworthy”. The head of the pro-business liberal FDP party, Christian Lindner, also waded in. “When one uses vocabulary as serious as that which Mr Schulz did, then undoubtedly there is a danger of trivializing the real enemies of democracy,” he told the Heilbronner Stimme newspaper.
Germany is set to legalize same-sex marriage tomorrow after a heated coalition spat sealed an election-year divorce between Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and her centreleft governing partners. The reform would grant full marital rights, including child adoption, to gay and lesbian couples, who in Germany are now only able to enter so-called civil unions. Granting all couples marriage equality would put Germany in line with a host of other democracies, including the United States, Canada and many EU member nations.
“The path to equality is open,” tweeted lawmaker Renate Kuenast of the Greens opposition party, which has campaigned for gay rights for decades, after a committee paved the way for a Friday vote. But even as the LGBT community celebrated many conservative politicians were fuming. The speedy parliamentary vote before the summer break was forced by Merkel’s rivals who pounced on her U-turn on same-sex marriage she voiced in an on-stage interview Monday evening. The usually cautious chancellor said her thinking had shifted since she met a lesbian couple who lovingly cared for eight foster children in her Baltic Coast electoral district. Merkel had previously opposed gay marriage with adoption rights because of concern about “the well-being of the children”. The chancellor added that she favored a vote on the issue, at an undefined future stage, in which all lawmakers could follow their conscience rather than the party line.
‘Breach of trust’
Merkel’s comments were widely read as a tactical move to deprive opposition parties of a campaign issue before September 24 elections. Her coalition partners the Social Democrats (SPD), as well as the Greens, far-left Linke and pro-business Free Democrats, have declared same-sex marriage as a red-line demand and condition for entering into any future coalition. By signaling that she was open on the issue, Merkel kept the door open to various alliance options for her Christian Democrats (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the CSU.
But as Merkel’s comments sparked hot debate under the trending Twitter hashtag #EheFuerAlle (MarriageForAll), momentum quickly built to force an early vote. SPD chancellor-candidate Martin Schulz, eager to close a yawning poll gap with front-runner Merkel, said “we will take her at her word” and broke coalition ranks to call for an immediate vote, backed by the Greens and Linke parties. The CDU slammed the SPD for its “breach of trust” after four years of joint rule. The spat erupted days after Schulz had infuriated conservatives by accusing Merkel of an “attack on democracy” for her supposed tactic of making politics so dull that opposition voters don’t bother showing up on polling day. — Agencies