Is it a self-goal?
Let's stick with Germany for a bit. The dust kicked up Sunday last refuses to settledown in Berlin - Dresden not withstanding.
Quite like in India, the mandate of the people, which is broadly leftwards, might be subverted in the post-elections haggling.The hapless population, having done its job, will continue to be at the recieving end. That's the way 'democracy' works.
The media make light of such machinations. They'd rather be emotional about Fischer's exit. But about what afflicts the fun-loving (read excellent beer drinking), beautiful country? Is it Haretz? Is it the social security system? Is it the attitude of the people? Is it the burden of carrying the East along? Those are tough questions to answer? Too much hard work!
You will not find much in the English language media. DW and Speigel, which I visit often, need to do much more to their English language operations to get us up to speed with what is happening there. I am sure a vibrant media such as the one in Germany can offer more than what is available online. I finding it hard to lay my hands on the text of Haretz VI and other reports that will help me understand the debates better.
Anyway, coming back to politics. There is talk of the Jamaica or Traffic Light coalition as a possiblity. Whatever the final outcome is, this grand left upswinging is not really what it is made out to be. Gerhard Schröder, Joschka Fischer, Oskar Lafontaine and Gregor Gysie, do they constitute to the left?
My God! That's a joke. Schröder and Fischer have spent the past two terms faithfully implementing neo-liberal policies. Lafontaine is an old SPD hand, another barely-differentiable shade of red. Gysie, where does he stand with his pragmatism. You might seen him lead the Left Party.PDS to merge eventually with the SPD. So that's the left for you.
I pity the people. Really.
9/21/2005
9/18/2005
An election without real choice
An election without real choice
Germans go to the polls today. A premature one thanks to the slight of hand that Gerhard Schröder played on German democracy -- the betrayal was complete. Yet opinion polls have been predicting that he cannot be written off. Such is the fate of the people who have borne the burden of political mismanagement stoically. They might just end up with both the villians getting together to destroy what is left.
Not much has been told about what has been wrought on the people by misrule of the two main parties in the recent past. The media didn't really project the conditions prevailing in the country. They enhanced the notion that these elections where about personalities. Very little was said about issues.
One party that calls itself the Social Democratic Party (SPD), spent two terms merely reinforcing the right-wing policies of the previous Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Helmut Kohl. Now the CDU is lead my a lady, Angela Merkel. She is from the east of the country - an Ossie. That's as much as her a value goes. A personality pitted against Schröeder. In such a state I guess mainstream media are expected to falter. They did! So where is the story of these elections. In purely electoral politics terms it was meant to be on the Left. The charismatic leaders Oskar Lafontaine and Gregor Gysi of the Left Party.PDS where, initially at least, to make a significant impact. But opinion polls have shown a steady slide in their fortunes. The story lies there for sure.
If the people are not moving Left are they then moving to the Right? Alarm bells should be ringing. Or, is there a general apathy. Which means that people are loosing fate in the political process, in democracy. How much of it has to do with the established parties and how much does it have to do with the inability of alternatives to emerge, especially on the Left. The hasty coalition of the Lafontaine and Gysi, on hindsight, looks like a mistake. The differences, if not in the personalities themselves, between the two parties in terms of their idealogies is quite significant.
In fact, Sahra Wagenkneckt, the 36-year-old deputy of the European Parliament and speaker of the Communist platform in the PDS is a bitter critic of this marriage. She said:"[O]ne shoudl not renounce a good name that we have earned ourselves in the 15 years." Of course, her criticism is not merely about the PDS giving up it name but also of Gysi spoke about: the need for the PDS to be the spokeperson for the East. Lafontaine after all is a former SPD bigwig.
If the combination does not make much headway this time, Gysi, at least is done for. But more importantly where do the 5 million unemployed go? Where the thousands of under-employed go? Where do the retirees go? And, of course, where does the East go?
Germans go to the polls today. A premature one thanks to the slight of hand that Gerhard Schröder played on German democracy -- the betrayal was complete. Yet opinion polls have been predicting that he cannot be written off. Such is the fate of the people who have borne the burden of political mismanagement stoically. They might just end up with both the villians getting together to destroy what is left.
Not much has been told about what has been wrought on the people by misrule of the two main parties in the recent past. The media didn't really project the conditions prevailing in the country. They enhanced the notion that these elections where about personalities. Very little was said about issues.
One party that calls itself the Social Democratic Party (SPD), spent two terms merely reinforcing the right-wing policies of the previous Christian Democratic Union (CDU) led by Helmut Kohl. Now the CDU is lead my a lady, Angela Merkel. She is from the east of the country - an Ossie. That's as much as her a value goes. A personality pitted against Schröeder. In such a state I guess mainstream media are expected to falter. They did! So where is the story of these elections. In purely electoral politics terms it was meant to be on the Left. The charismatic leaders Oskar Lafontaine and Gregor Gysi of the Left Party.PDS where, initially at least, to make a significant impact. But opinion polls have shown a steady slide in their fortunes. The story lies there for sure.
If the people are not moving Left are they then moving to the Right? Alarm bells should be ringing. Or, is there a general apathy. Which means that people are loosing fate in the political process, in democracy. How much of it has to do with the established parties and how much does it have to do with the inability of alternatives to emerge, especially on the Left. The hasty coalition of the Lafontaine and Gysi, on hindsight, looks like a mistake. The differences, if not in the personalities themselves, between the two parties in terms of their idealogies is quite significant.
In fact, Sahra Wagenkneckt, the 36-year-old deputy of the European Parliament and speaker of the Communist platform in the PDS is a bitter critic of this marriage. She said:"[O]ne shoudl not renounce a good name that we have earned ourselves in the 15 years." Of course, her criticism is not merely about the PDS giving up it name but also of Gysi spoke about: the need for the PDS to be the spokeperson for the East. Lafontaine after all is a former SPD bigwig.
If the combination does not make much headway this time, Gysi, at least is done for. But more importantly where do the 5 million unemployed go? Where the thousands of under-employed go? Where do the retirees go? And, of course, where does the East go?
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)