Election Outcome Hinged on Third Parties

Joschka Fischer had good reason to gleam on Monday. His party had set out to get a modest 8 percent of the vote, but even that seemed ambitious considering the Greens were hovering at around 5 percent in several polls only a few months ago.

The dismal performance of the liberal Free Democrats and the defection of supporters of East Germany's former communist party to the Social Democrats and Greens ultimately secured a second term for Chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s government.

"Many considered it unrealistic, but our goal was to achieve over eight percent … and we've certainly managed that," German Foreign Minister and leading Greens candidate Fischer said as results showed his party would win 8.6 percent of the seats in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament.

Though it was only a 1.9 percent gain over the party’s 1998 election result, it was the greatest showing in the party’s 22-year history and it proved to be the decisive factor in Schröder’s reelection.

Analysts attributed the party’s success to Fischer, Germany’s most-popular politician, the party’s swift and effective response to severe flooding in Eastern Germany in July and its stance against a U.S.-led military invasion of Iraq. Both of the latter issues helped the Greens and Social Democrats win the support of dovish voters who otherwise might have turned to the Party of Democratic Socialism.

For the first time ever, the Greens tied their campaign to a single candidate -- Joschka Fischer, the wildly popular politician who enjoys a popularity rating of 81 percent. The German polling firm Wahlen attributed the Greens' gains to the Fischer-focused campaign.

The party’s reinforced standing provides it with a strong edge as it begins negotiations with the Social Democrats to enter into a second-term government. News agencies are reporting Green party sources saying that the party will seek greater responsibilities for the ministries it already runs – the foreign ministry, the environmental ministry and the consumer protection and agricultural ministry -- and possibly a fourth ministry posting.

But the Social Democrats were less committal. “One more post for the Greens won’t be automatic,” SPD General Secretary Franz Müntefering told the radio station Berlin Inforadio on Monday. But he didn't ruled out the possibility, either. He said he hoped to wrap up negotiations for a new government within three weeks.

A dark day for liberals, former communists

There were no cheers to be heard at the campaign headquarters of the Free Democrats and the Party of Democratic Socialism on Monday.

Despite its creative "18 Percent" campaign and charismatic chairman Guido Westerwelle, who made campaign appearances in a blue-and-yellow mobile home he called the "Guidomobile,“ the party only managed to gain 7.4 percent of the vote. Even though the party secured 1.2 percent more votes than in the 1998 election, it was far below the 12 percent the party had reached in polls just a few weeks earlier.

The party had been badly damaged by anti-Israeli comments and a vicious personal attack on the head of Germany’s most-influential Jewish organization made by the party’s deputy chairman, Jürgen Möllemann. Möllemann, who is also the party’s state leader in North Rhine-Westphalia, accused Michel Friedman, vice president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, of fueling anti-Semitism with his "intolerant, hateful style" last May.

His spiteful words angered many Germans, drew undesirable international criticism and led the party to fall in popularity polls. Möllemann stunned Germans again last week when he sent a campaign mailing to voters in North Rhine-Westphalia critical of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Friedman. Senior party leaders distanced themselves from Möllemann and on Sunday demanded his resignation, which he tendered a day later.

But the party’s honorary chairman also criticized Westerwelle for the party’s poor showing, noting that the FDP had slipped in the polls prior to Möllemann’s latest outburst.

Leadership changes expected for PDS

With its very survival on a federal level now in question, Monday could hardly have been grimmer for the PDS, the successor to East Germany’s communist party.

The PDS neither gained the 5 percent nor the three direct mandates that ensure a party with official representation in parliament. The PDS has been in a downward trend since the resignation of its intellectual leader, Gregor Gysi, earlier this summer in the Lufthansa bonus miles scandal. And it’s dismal 4 percent showing on Sunday ensured it would not be represented in the Bundestag.

Support for the PDS dropped sharply in the eastern states, it’s traditional stronghold. In 1998, the party secured 21.6 percent of eastern Germans’ votes, but this year support fell to 16.9 percent.

Two PDS members did win seats in the Bundestag through direct mandates, but their powers will be limited. As members of parliament of a party that is not officially represented, neither Petra Pau, who is currently the PDS’s deputy chairwoman, nor Gersine Lötzsch will have the ability to submit legislation, to introduce issues for debate on the floor or to vote on drafts of legislation when they are still at committee level. In other words, they will have literally no chance of putting their fingerprints on the laws passed during the Bundestag’s next legislative period.

Speaking in Berlin on Monday, Roland Claus, who is head of the PDS’s parliamentary group, said the party is considering calling for changes in leadership as a result of the poor showing. However, PDS chairwoman Gabi Zimmer has said she will not offer her resignation.

The loss dealt a particularly heavy blow to the more than 200 employees of the PDS in the Bundestag, who will now become statistics in Germany's swollen unemployment roster.