Schroeder plots cours for vote of confidence

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder met today with his party and legislative leaders to smooth out a strategy for tomorrow’s vote of confidence – a tricky constitutional manoeuvre intended to bring about early national elections.

Schroeder must juggle two moves: deliberately lose a vote of confidence by having his own legislators abstain, and simultaneously launch a re-election campaign, hoping to convince voters to renew his mandate for tough economic reforms.

He already faces an uphill fight, with his Social Democrats trailing the opposition Christian Democrats led by Angela Merkel in the polls by 17%.

Schroeder met with leaders of his Social Democratic Party and their junior coalition partner, the Greens, to work how the government will pull off the vote, increasingly a subject of constitutional debate.

Legally, Schroeder must convince President Horst Koehler that the Social Democratic-Green coalition no longer has the support in parliament it needs to govern. The proposal has met with some scepticism, since the coalition retains a majority – although a thin one of 304 seats in the 601-seat house.

The solution has been to propose that Social Democrat legislators abstain, bringing down the government while avoiding having them join the conservative opposition in voting no confidence. As few as four abstentions would suffice.

Schroeder will publicly reveal his exact justification for holding the confidence vote just before tomorrow’s vote. Once a no-confidence measure has passed, Koehler has 21 days to decide whether to hold new elections, which would come in September.

Polls suggest that German voters, fed up with high unemployment and little growth, are eager to have their say; some 71% approved of the idea of elections this year instead of next. Twenty-four per cent were opposed, according to the poll of 1,001 people for the Forsa organisation.

The poll gave no margin of error.

Schroeder’s plans to ask legislators to abstain has led to grumbling within the ranks of his own party, where many members are uncomfortable with the decision to cut short his – and their – term of office by one year.

The chancellor called for new elections after his party lost a key regional election on May 22, saying he no longer had the mandate he needed to push through economic reforms.

He has tried to spur the sluggish economy and reduce unemployment by trimming costs to business from Germany’s welfare state and extensive worker protections, but the moves have provoked resistance within his party.