Simon Tisdall (The Guardian): Who will Germans trust?

[Jack Rabbit]

From The Guardian Unlimited (London)
Dated Tuesday September 20

Who will voters trust to change the country?
By Simon Tisdall

For all the talk of chaos, the message to the two main political parties from German voters in Sunday's federal election was clear enough: both received an unmistakable thumbs-down.

For Gerhard Schröder's Social Democrats, the outcome represented the party's poorest showing since 1990. For Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats, it was almost their worst nationwide result. The much-touted possibility that the SPD and CDU will form a "grand coalition", excluding smaller parties that fared better than expected, risks further alienating voters who have shown little confidence in either.

Yet the election amounted to much more than a protest vote or personality contest. So-called neo-liberal labour, welfare and tax reforms dominated a campaign focused on how to improve Germany's economic prospects while maintaining an adequate social safety net. That is a central issue for all western democracies beset by globalisation and increased market competition.

The outcome led some analysts to suggest German voters were allergic to reform. "Germans are very stubborn. They just don't want to change," one official commented. "The voters want reform and at the same time, they don't want it," said Constanze Stelzenmüller of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin. "It's like going to the dentist. You know you have to go. You know it's necessary. But when you get to the door, you stop."

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