Schröder's Last Campaign

At the end of May 2005, it seemed the (early) Bundestag election scheduled for September of that year would lead to a complete change of power in Germany. The Red-Green government's reforms came late and had been ineffective in the short run, and several setbacks during the first months of 2005 caused Chancellor Gerhard Schröder to call an early election. Yet, elections are won or lost on election day, and not in opinion polls. Thanks to an intensive campaign, the SPD and especially Schröder were able to mobilise and to activate their social and political support base better than expected, but they lost parts of their left wing to the Linkspartei formed by PDS and the SPD-breakaway WASG. The CDU/CSU and Angela Merkel ran a mediocre campaign, probably because some Christian Democrats thought the election would be won anyway. In addition, the Christian Democrats made the mistake of elevating taxation to the status of a major campaign issue by nominating Paul Kirchhof, a highly polarising law professor for the post of finance minister. This unwise move enabled the SPD to campaign negatively on the person and the CDU/CSU tax proposals that were anything but clear. In the end the SPD lost, but not as badly as previously expected. More surprisingly, the CDU/CSU lost votes as well. The winners were the small parties, especially the FDP and the Linkspartei. The losers, the major catch-all parties, were more or less forced to form a Grand Coalition. On the one hand, this coalition will make it more difficult for both CDU/CSU and SPD to regenerate and to sharpen their political profiles. On the other hand, the agenda powers enjoyed by the governing parties should not be underestimated in their effect. Therefore, predicting the end of the major catch-all parties would be pre-mature at this point

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