BY CARL-ERIK ISACCSSON
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - The conservative Christian Democratic
Union (CDU) won 44 percent of the vote in the central German
state of Hesse February 7, defeating the coalition of the
Social Democrats (SDP) and Greens that has governed in the
state the last eight years.
This was a surprise blow to the federal SDP-Greens coalition government, which came into office last October after 16 years of rule by CDU chancellor Helmut Kohl. The Hesse election is among the recent signs that the leftward shift in bourgeois politics registered in the federal election is a relatively short-term phenomena.
Although the Social Democrats increased their vote by 1 percent compared with the last state elections in Hesse, winning 39 percent, the Greens dropped sharply from 11 to 7 percent. The conservative Free Democratic Party (FDP) was able to get more than 5 percent of the vote and is negotiating to form a coalition government with the CDU.
One result of the Hesse election is that the social democrats no longer control a majority in the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament, which is based on representation from the 16 federal states. The CDU and its sister Christian Social Union (CSU) party will be able to block proposals from the coalition government.
In the weeks leading up to the elections in Hesse, the CDU and CSU campaigned heavily against a proposal for a new citizenship law that the social democratic coalition government was to submit to parliament. The new law was supposed to make it possible for many of the 7 million immigrants in Germany to get German citizenship and keep their original citizenship.
The current law, based on blood lineage, denies citizenship status to millions of residents, including second- , third-, and fourth-generation immigrants who do not renounce their nationality. This has become a central polarizing issue in politics in Germany.
The CDU/CSU claimed to get 1 million petition signatures opposing the change in immigration law, half of them in Hesse. Their campaign continues, and opens space for the ultraright in Germany to campaign and organize. The ultraright Republicans increased their vote in the Hesse elections from less than 1 percent to about 2 percent in many constituencies. In this context, SDP chancellor Gerhard Schroder is seeking a compromise with CDU/CSU.
Instead of offering dual citizenship for about half of the immigrants in Germany, the compromise proposal would initially give citizenship to all those born in Germany, with dual citizenship allowed up to the age of 23. Adults would not be able to keep their dual citizenship more than 10 years. It is unlikely that Schroder will get agreement from the Christian Democrats on even a very watered down version, however, as this question is at the heart of the cultural war waged by the right wing there.
Tensions are mounting within the federal coalition government, as the Greens are rebuffed on their key platform issues, particularly the proposed citizenship law and the decommissioning of nuclear power plants. In late January Schroder reversed a coalition agreement to halt contracts to reprocess nuclear waste in France and Britain, following complaints by Paris and London, as well as capitalists in the nuclear industry.
On February 12 Schroder had to publicly deny that he planned to break up the coalition with the Greens and seek the support of Free Democratic Party, which has served both in CDU/CSU and social democratic coalition governments in the past.
Carl-Erik Isacsson is a member of the metalworkers union in Sodertalje, Sweden.