Schroeder shocks land with claim of victory
PARTIES IN DISARRAY
BERLIN • What on Earth is he up to?
That is the question Germans are asking of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder as he stages one of the most gripping pieces of political theatre the country has seen.
After he led his Social Democrats to defeat in Sunday’s election, the script was clear — Mr. Schroeder would bow out and allow Angela Merkel, whose conservatives came out narrowly on top, the task of forming the next government.
But he either forgot his lines or began improvising.
For by claiming a remarkable last-minute surge in SPD support as a victory, and declaring he alone was able to run the country over the next four years, Mr. Schroeder is turning the rules of German politics on their head.
“ To pluck out a leading political role from this miserable result is nothing short of grotesque,” pundit Claus Christian Malzahn wrote for magazine. “ The amazing thing is, he is almost getting away with it.”
The 61-year-old former lawyer has long been known as a political bruiser. Sunday’s vote came about only after he stunned Germans in May by calling early elections and engineering a vote of no-confidence in himself in parliament.
But nothing prepared the country for his performance on Sunday in the hours after it emerged Ms. Merkel had frittered away a once-strong lead in opinion polls and had no majority to rule with her preferred centrecoalition.
In front of party supporters chanting “Gerhard, Gerhard!” an electrified Mr. Schroeder punched the air and declared the inconclusive result was a personal victory that gave him the right to form the next government.
There was more to come. Typically the leader of the strongest party in parliament becomes chancellor. But when asked in a television discussion with other party leaders whether that role now fell to Ms. Merkel, Mr. Schroeder’s sarcasm-laden reply drew gasps from the audience:
“Do you really believe that in the current state of affairs my party would enter talks with Frau Merkel, with her saying she wanted to be chancellor?” he said, as the camera panned over to his visibly shaken opponent sitting just metres away. “Don’t kid yourself.”
Riding roughshod over the rules of Germany’s genteel political discourse, Mr. Schroeder went on to question the intelligence of one interviewer and hinted another was politically biased.
“Perhaps a bit too rough,” his wife, Doris, reportedly chided him after the show, which won Mr. Schroeder accusations of arrogance and macho bullying.
But while the outcome is far from certain, everything suggests such tactics are part of a carefully planned bid by Mr. Schroeder and SPD party Franz Muentefering to cling on to power.
The Chancellor’s ebullient body language contrasts with Ms. Merkel’s glum demeanor since Sunday. He is the moral victor, it seems to say.
There was more taboo-breaking on Monday when Mr. Muentefering sent out invitations to other parties to explore coalition options, normally the job of the strongest party.
SPD insiders say Mr. Schroeder had hoped the conservatives would ditch Ms. Merkel and descend into a bout of in-fighting. While that may still happen, they say his main tactic now is to lure her liberal allies into an alliance with him and his Green partners.
It is a high-risk strategy. The FDP leadership has publicly rejected such an option. At the same time, there is talk of the conservatives luring the Greens into a rival coalition in which Mr. Schroeder and his SPD would have no role.
There is even a theory under which Mr. Schroeder would go out in a blaze of glory by exacting Ms. Merkel’s head and forcing the CDU into disarray as the price for letting his SPD take a junior role in a grand coalition.
“ A chancellor who sacrifices himself to pave the way for a government to be formed … Schroeder would go down in party history as a giant,” newspaper quoted an unnamed SPD executive member as saying.