Social Democrats in Crisis
標題:Election Results Pose Hard Leadership Questions
新聞來源: (須有正確連結)
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,651694,00.html
By Veit Medick
Election results for Germany's Social Democrats are the worst in the party's
post-WWII history. Leading candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier and party boss
Franz Müntefering say they want to lead the SPD into forceful opposition.
But inside the party questions are already being asked about who might
replace them.
The night in which Germany's Social Democrats became a shadow of their former
selves started off with a loud cheer. Projections being screened at the party
headquarters in Willy Brandt House in Berlin were showing that the Christian
Democratic Union (CDU) -- their main opposition -- was sitting on a miserly
27.5 percent. Supporters in the atrium of the party headquarters cheered
exuberantly -- but then when the numbers for the Christian Social Union, the
CDU's Bavarian sister party, were added to the CDU's own numbers, they began
to groan instead, horrified.
Together the Union, as the two parties are known together, had 34 percent.
And then their own numbers: Projections for the Social Democrats (SPD) had
the party at 23 percent of the vote.
The black-yellow coalition -- the colors of the CDU are black and those of
their desired coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) are yellow
-- had the majority. The rest was irrelevant. And the first guests began to
leave.
A Historic Loss, A 'Bitter Day' For Social Democracy
The German federal elections of 2009 have delivered a historic loss to the
SPD. They party is down by almost 11 percent its their 2005 election results
-- the most precipitous loss incurred by any party this election. The SPD
will lose almost one-third of its members in parliament. The SPD remains
stronger than the Left Party and the Greens together, but just barely. And
the party's claim to center-left leadership is now threatened with
extinction. "We have been bombed right back into the Weimar Republic," said
one leading party member said.
Shortly before 6:30 p.m. SPD chancellor candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier and
head of the party, Franz Müntefering, came onto the stage at Willy Brandt
House. There was loud applause -- it was defiant though. And of course,
Steinmeier was smiling -- that's part of his job. But his smile seemed unreal
in light of what he was about to have to tell the audience. Müntefering, on
the other hand, who was standing next to him, looked like a statue -- his
mouth a thin line, his hands folded, gazing into the distance. He knew that a
lot of people here tonight would be viewing him as Sunday's actual election
loser.
"The voters have decided," Steinmeier began. "And the results are a bitter
day for German social democracy. You can't really beat around the bush." But,
he added, "we did fight!" And again there were loud cheers.
Steinmeier Wants to Lead Tough Opposition
Steinmeier thanked his supporters, reminisced on the 11 straight years his
party had been part of the government and announced the inevitable: The SPD
will go into the opposition. And Steinmeier, the candidate who only delivered
a result of 23 percent for his party, wants to be the opposition leader, as
the head of the SPD's parliamentary group. The party's current whip in
parliament, Peter Struck, is leaving the position. "As the leading candidate,
I would love to have this responsibility, and that is why I am saying on this
bitter evening that I will not flee from this responsibility."
So Steinmeier will stay. That's not terribly surprising. Many expected him to
make a grab for power -- even if some guests were left scratching their heads
about the fact that he could think it self-evident to make such an
announcement after a disastrous showing in the polls. "We will be an
opposition that will pay very close attention to how the new government turns
out to be," the 53-year-old assured them.
Is Steinmeier the Right Leader?
The applause with which his fellow party members reacted might have been good
for him, but it doesn't cover up the doubts about whether he is the right man
for the job. The fact that the left wing of the SPD is not going to stand for
"business as usual" was already clear by 6 p.m. It certainly wasn't a
coincidence that Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, who has ambitions for a higher
position in his party, called for a "renewal and rejuvenation" of the SPD. Bj
örn Böhning, spokesman for the party's left-wing faction, made similar
remarks, describing the poor result as a "turning point" for the SPD.
Criticism of Steinmeier's claim to the position of party whip in parliament
began pouring in by the afternoon. During a telephone conference of the
party's state and district leaders, state-level party leaders in particular
expressed reservations about overly hasty steps. Hannelore Kraft, for
example, the party's boss in populous North Rhine-Westphalia, for example,
said that the party needed to take time in making personnel decisions, and
that rash decisions shouldn't be made.
Another leading SPD member, more a pragmatist than a leftist, put it
differently at the party's headquarters in Berlin, saying the wild applause
wasn't sufficient to appoint a person as head of the party's parliamentary
group after this election result. Another questioned whether Steinmeier had
the goods to pit himself directly against someone as powerfully eloquent as
Left Party leader Oskar Lafontaine in opposition.
The SPD Cannot Avoid a Fresh Start Now
Steinmeier's future is one thing, that of Müntefering is quite another.
There were quite a few SPD members at party headquarters on Sunday night who
predicted the party boss would soon resign. Even before the disaster, Mü
ntefering seemed politically crippled, having lost his aura somewhat after
the party's poor showing in June's European parliamentary elections.
As the first catastrophic figures began to arrive on Sunday, the resentment
within the party was made clear to the party boss during internal meetings.
Yet he apparently is not contemplating resignation even in the light of the
latest debacle. "German social democracy will once more fight on," he said
defiantly at the podium. "We will be in politics again very soon."
One thing is certain after this result: The SPD cannot avoid a new start. It
is almost certain that the party will have to move further to the left, both
in terms of policy and strategy. There is nothing left if they don't want to
face the 2013 election with no chances of forming a government.
Müntefering May Pay for Losses -- and Arrogant Leadership Style
The coming days will be dominated by the discussion of what leadership the
party will need for this new orientation. It seems at the very least highly
unlikely that Müntefering will continue as party leader. After all it
wouldn't be wrong to see the result as a reckoning for the arrogant political
style that has dominated the party for the past 11 years and the most
prominent remaining representative of that style is Müntefering. The party
is likely to make that glaringly clear to him during the party conference in
November at the very latest.
Müntefering may well say that he wants "us all to stick together" ahead of
that conference. Yet, that could be difficult, as was made all too clear by
comments from his old rival Kurt Beck. The governor of Rhineland-Palatinate,
who was SPD party leader until September 2008, said now was the time to work
together to look for a new party leader. "I am in favor of working together
on a proposal," he told the Tagesspiegel newspaper.
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「就像其他各類集體主義一樣，種族主義也尋求不勞而獲。它尋求自動獲得知識﹔它尋求
自動評價人們的品質而忽略運用理性或道德判斷的責任﹔而更重要的是，它尋求自動的自
尊（或偽自尊）」
Ayn Rand<The Virtue of Selfishness>
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