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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, October 10, 1980
Page 16
The real winners of the election were the Free Democrats (FOP), the small
party which operates in coalition with Schmidt's Socialists. The news
magazine der Spiegel made a cover change halfway through their copy run
and ran a picture of Free Democratic Party head (and Foreign Minister)
Hans-Dietrich Genscher with the title, der Sieger (The Winner). The Free
Democrats increased their share of the total vote to 10.6% from 7.9% in
1976. Not bad for a party that some believed only a few months ago might
not even clear the 5% hurdle necessary for representation.
Clearly what German voters had done was to try to strengthen the moderate
center of German politics. They did not want to give the SPD more power
since they feared the party's left-wing would impose more socialistic
measures on the German economy and society.
(Schmidt himself is on the
conservative side of the SPD.) Yet, a sizeable bloc of voters simply
could not conscientiously support Herr Strauss, whom they considered to
be too far to the right. Thus many Germans, including at least 500,000
regular CDU followers, cast their votes (or more correctly their second
votes) for the FDP. In doing so, they believed the moderate Free Demo
crats would act as enough of a brake on the Socialists, without taking a
risk on Mr. Strauss, whom they believed to be unpredictable.
(In West Germany, each voter casts two ballots in the national election,
one directly for a representative to Parliament from his local constitu
ency, the second for a list of candidates put up by each party in the
land, or state, in which he lives. Half of all Bundestag members are
directly elected via the first ballot, the other half are drawn from the
party lists proportional to the votes cast for each list. The FOP
strength comes entirely from this second ballot; it has no directly
elected members. What happened in this election was that many CDU
voters, loyal to their party but suspicious of Strauss, split their
votes, sending a CDU representative to the Bundestag on the first ballot,
while voting for the FDP list on the second. Anticipating this factor,
the CDU had printed campaign posters appealing for voters to cast both
their ballots for the CDU, but obviously this didn't work.)
The result was the worst showing for the CDU/CSU sister parties since
the first West German election in 1949. Nevertheless, the CDU/CSU
alliance, with 44.5 per cent of the vote (down from 48.6 in 1976) and
226 seats in the Bundestag remains the single largest party in parlia
ment, retaining their edge over the SPD, which pulled 42.9 of the vote
(almost the same as their 42.6 tally in 1976) and 218 seats. Thus
Schmidt's Socialists continue to govern only with the help of the Free
Democrats, who upped their seats in the Bundestag to 53 from 39.
"Hardest Period" Ahead for Chancellor Schmidt
Herr Strauss found out how hard it is to unseat a successful incumbent
riding at the crest of his power and prestige. He found himself in the
same shoes as Adlai Stevenson in 1956 running opposite President Eisen
hower. Yet Herr Strauss was right when he said after the election that
Mr. Schmidt "is now faced with the hardest period of his political life
time."
Structural problems are beginning to appear in the West German economy.
For the first time in 15 years the Federal Republic has chalked up a trade
deficit. In foreign relations, Bonn faces severe problems from Eastern