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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, OCTOBER 15, 1982
PAGE 6
Secondly, Strauss disdains the perfidious manner in which the FOP acted.
He even called them "traitors" to the former government they were a part of.
They are therefore not to be trusted, in his view.
Strauss, nevertheless, deferred to Kohl in the latter's bid for power now.
But the Bavarian strong man, Germany's shrewdest politician by far, still
had the last laugh. He backed off on his demand for early elections but
induced Kohl and Genscher to put off the no-confidence vote from September
24 to October 1. By doing so, Strauss forced the FOP to test its strength-
or the lack of it as it turned out--in the Hesse state election.
The Uncertain Months Ahead
So where does West Germany stand today, politically? A number of factors
immediately come to the fore.
1. The CDU/CSU is once again in power, but rather shakily so. Until the
next elections the conservatives must rely on the discredited FOP for
parliamentary support.
2. The Socialists, under former Chancellor Schmidt and his predecessor,
Nilly Brandt, are searching for their proper role as the opposition
party. Brandt wants to keep the more conservative Schmidt from run
ning as SPO chancellor candidate again.
Brandt wants to move the
party further to the left where he feels its true constituency now
.1ies.
He would 1ike to corral many of the so-called "Greens"-
environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists--back into the fold.
Schmidt, however, believes this would be a big mistake, that it would
alienate the large number of blue-collar SPO voters.
These might
desert the SPO for the COU much as their counterparts in the U.S.
dum?ed President Carter for Mr. Reagan in 1980.
3. The Greens themselves, organized as a loose anti-establishment party,
are becoming a formidable block in their own right. They supplanted
the FOP as the third party in Hesse (as they had in other states
earlier) and barely missed doing the same in conservative Bavaria.
Leaders of the Greens turn off older Germans--with their beards some
of them look like characters out of the old Snuffy Smith comic strip-
but they appeal to many young Germans under 30. The Greens will pre
sent an increasingly severe challenge to the normal functioning of
government.
4. Political instability is on the rise in Bonn. One already sees a big
cloud over the next federal elections. Suppose Herr Kohl cannot set
the economy right and the CDU/CSU does not gain a majority, even
though they gain more seats than the SPD. The FDP will be out of it
entirely. In the middle (actually far to the left) will likely squat
the Green movement--as an indigestible lump. What then? Will there
be a minority CDU/CSU government dependent for its survival upon votes
from conservative SPD delegates on crucial issues? Or will there be
(worst of all) an SPD-Green government?
Or another ineffective
CDU/CSU-SPO "grand coalition" as in 1966-69? It is possible that the
next elections, whenever they are, could provide the ultimate test for
West German democracy.