West German federal election, 1980

Peter the Lefty
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	West German federal election, 1980 « on: December 22, 2013, 09:58:23 PM »
	« edited: December 25, 2013, 01:27:39 PM by Peter the Lefty »

   Helmut Kohl's CDU suffered significant losses during the election of 1976. Having lost the CSU as an election partner, Kohl's center-right party was unable to broaden its appeal to the center, and in fact lost ground to the SPD and FDP. It remained the largest party in the Bundestag, but only barely so. Kohl was perceived by some as incompetent and unfit to deal with the economic crisis, whereas Helmut Schmidt was seen as competent and well-trained economically to face the crisis. On the other hand, the CDU lost the votes of millions of Bavaria's CSU voters as well as many other right-wing conservatives who found Franz-Joseph Strauss's party, which was now running in all states (against the CDU), a more attractive alternative. Strangely, the NPD also made gains (though it still fell short of the 5% threshold for the Bundestag) in spite of the existence of a mainstream and viable party to the right of the CDU. The general explanation put forward by pundits was that Strauss's rhetoric seemed to legitimize the far-right.
   Meanwhile, the SPD managed to win over many moderate voters who had been attracted to Kohl last time. They now decided that the other Helmut was a better choice, as Kohl had had a difficult time dealing with the kidnapping and hostage crises which had occurred during the past two years. Kohl's economic policies had also been widely perceived as going too far in the way of spending cuts. Schmidt's more moderate approach to dealing with inflation was widely preferred. High unemployment had also created a perceived need for a more socially conscious government.
   The FDP lost much ground to the SPD due to its perceived rightward shift (even though Genscher had made clear his preference for the SPD). Some moderate CDU voters, who'd had enough of Kohl but didn't want to vote directly for the SPD, went to the FDP, but it wasn't enough to make up for the losses sustained by the exodus of left-liberal voters.
   The CSU made a splash as an independent party. Franz-Josef Strauss pointed to Kohl's refusal to rip up treaties with the Eastern bloc and to roll back Brandt's entire domestic legacy as reasons for conservatives to vote for the CSU, and many did. A right-of-the-CDU alternative now looked viable.
   The SPD made large gains from both the CDU and the FDP due to Schmidt's moderate leadership, but there was a trade-off: many of the SPD's left-wing voters now opted for the DKP, which had successfully distanced itself from the RAF. As a result, the DKP managed to cross the 5% threshold for parliamentary representation for the first time.

   The CDU was still in first place, but it had taken a huge hit. Even with the CSU, it would not be able to attain a majority. An SPD-FDP-DKP coalition, while mathematically possible, was politically unthinkable, as the DKP was unashamed of its links with the SED regime in the East.
   Kohl originally wanted to avoid a "deal with the socialists," as such an alliance might send even more right-wing CDU voters to Strauss. He first began talks to form a CDU-FDP-CSU coalition, holding both roundtable talks between the front benches of all three parties, and simple three-man meetings between himself, Genscher, and Strauss. Genscher refused to tolerate any of Strauß's ultra-socon policies, and the talks soon soured. A number of spending cuts and workfare programs were agreed upon by the three men, but they met opposition with the FDP's left-wing, which was already hostile to Genscher. Kohl now realized that a tripartite coalition would be futile, and ended the talks. He then decided to opt for the third grand coalition in West German history.
   His talks with Helmut Schmidt proved constructive and workable. Schmidt assured him he could keep the SPD's left-wing in line, and not having Strauss to deal with was a relief for Kohl. Some SPD members wanted to see Schmidt take the Chancellory, but Schmidt allowed Kohl to keep it so long as he got a "superministry" of Foreign Affairs and Economics. The deal was agreed upon, and what the media soon dubbed "the Helmut-Helmut coalition" took office.
A number of social reforms in the way of retirement pensions were carried out, but other benefits, including unemployment allowances, were frozen. Spending cuts for the handicapped and single mothers which Kohl's first government had taken were partially reversed, but the SPD was unable to have the impact upon government policy which it had hoped for. Schmidt clashed with his party's left-wing at party conferences, and was angered by the refusal of the party's Chairman, Willy Brandt, to side with him definitively.
   The Red Army Faction undertook a number of new kidnappings during Kohl's second government, and, partially influenced by Schmidt, Kohl now took a much tougher line with them and refused to give in to their demands. The families of the hostages were quite critical of the government for obvious and understandable reasons. Meanwhile, unemployment remained high in spite of jobs programs carried out by the "Helmut-Helmut" government. To deal with the energy crisis, nuclear energy was promoted by the government as a means of independence from Arab oil.
On foreign policy, Schmidt managed to improve relations with France and its president, Valery Giscard d'Estaing, with whom he formed a strong personal friendship. West Germany and France soon began, as the "motors of Europe's economy," to lay the foundations for a monetary union within Europe. During Kohl's second government, there was also a great deal of controversy over how to respond to the placement of new Soviet medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles in its Eastern European satellite countries, including the DDR. On December 12, 1979, the European members of NATO, including the BRD, took the decision to allow the United States to build new land-based missiles to counter those of the Soviets in order to continue the policy of Mutual Assured Destruction unless the Soviet Union withdrew her missiles from all Warsaw Pact countries. It made little news at the time, and did not become a major issue during the campaign.

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