I just watched Tagesthemen at ARD. Ulrich Deppendorf, program director of WDR commented on the election Chancellor Schröder's strategy to advance the national election is somewhere between ingeniousness and harakiri. I think it's the former not only because there's simply no alternative: Since it will be harder to run the country, the government would go down in flames and slowly lacerate itself - a political stalemate is the worst that can happen to any government. Also, Chancellor Schröder challenges the opposition, they have to act now and show that they're fit for government. First they'll have to agree on one candidate: Germany might elect its first female Chancellor (Mrs. Angela Merkel) this fall, but there's still the possibility that one of her rivals tries to take over (as happened before the last national election). Another side effect is that people won't be talking long about the election in NRW and more about the upcoming national one. A risky move, but the SPD is cornered.

updated extrapolation at 10:44 p.m.:
CDU 44,8% +7,9% and 89 seats
SDP 37,1% -5,7%            74
Green 6,2% -0,9%          12
FDP 6,2% -3,7%             12
others 5,7% +2,4%

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 22, 2005 at 5/22/2005 10:42:00 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.