|
German election on track after parliament vote
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-07-01 18:44
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder achieved his goal of losing a vote of
confidence in parliament on Friday to keep alive his plan for a September
election showdown with conservative leader Angela Merkel.
Schroeder needed to lose the vote in the German Bundestag to pave the way for
a dissolution of parliament and the early election he says he needs to win a new
mandate for his unpopular economic reforms.
The 601-strong Bundestag lower house voted 296-151 against the government,
with 148 abstentions.
For the election to happen, a number of hurdles still need to be cleared.
German President Horst Koehler, the only person with the right to dissolve
parliament, must now decide whether the confidence vote conforms with the
constitution.
He has 21 days to make his view known.
A former head of the International Monetary Fund who celebrates his one year
anniversary in the largely ceremonial post of president on Friday, Koehler has
given few clues about which way he is leaning.
Schroeder, chancellor for the past 7 years, shocked the nation on May 22 when
he announced plans to bring the federal election forward by a full year,
following a stinging defeat for his party in the large German state of North
Rhine-Westphalia.
If the election goes ahead, he faces a daunting challenge in the face of
opinion polls that put his SPD 17-21 points behind Merkel's conservatives.
Voter discontent stems from record high unemployment and government
pro-market reforms that have failed to revive Europe's largest economy.
Koehler will be taking his decision on whether to dissolve parliament in the
knowledge that an overwhelming majority of Germans, the country's main parties
and financial markets support Schroeder's early election plan.
There is also a precedent. In 1982 former Chancellor Helmut Kohl deliberately
lost a confidence vote to bolster his parliamentary majority -- a move upheld by
Germany's Constitutional Court albeit with reservations.
Several small parties and members of parliament have promised to file
lawsuits in protest at Schroeder's election scheme, which keeps him in the
running for a third term despite the lost vote of confidence.
Germany's Constitutional Court will probably have to rule on the matter. If
he endorses the election plan, Koehler runs the risk that the Court could reject
his decision.
|
 | | | Space shuttle Discovery launch delayed | | |  | | | Blair plans measures to uproot extremism | | |  | | | Pakistan train crash carnage kills 128 | | |
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top World
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
