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                            GERMANY HAS VOTED
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Yesterday  it was the time to  vote the new german  chancellor and what should I
say, it wasn't that thrilling since years anymore and I never was bound onto our
TV for such a long time anymore. There were minutes as I could bite my nails off
from the fingers but in the end all went well, at least in parts...

You know, our old chancellor  Gerhard Schröder from the  social democrats was in
fight with  Edmund Stoiber, the conservative fun robot  from Bavaria, staying as
chancellor candidate  from the  christian social/democratic union  and the  days
before the election promised a very close run, but that it  would end THAT close
surely no  one would  have thought  before, neither  me or anyone  else in  this
country.

Stoiber was close to win the run  but the last weeks helped  Schröder in the end
to survive, but burried  also the left socialistic PDS as fraction in the german
parliament. The reasons for the final result were quite clear...

1. The flood in Germany  brought a lot  of points  to Schröder since  he had the
   executive power  to bring help onto  the way, Stoiber hasn't  since he wasn't
   chancellor and hadn't this power, maybe  as prime minister of Bavaria but not
   beyond Bavarias frontiers. That  shows also  his  very good state  in Bavaria
   since nearly 6o% voted  there for  his party, the CSU... But, and  even if he
   forgets that always, Bavaria  isn't Germany  and german  politics aren't only
   made in Bavaria and even a bavarian prime minister has his frontiers...

2. Schröder was driving an anti-war campaign and has won a lot of points, points
   that surely were lost for the PDS as only  true anti-war party  while Stoiber
   was acting  like a child of George "I'm Boss Of The World" Bush and said that
   Germany should  search it's place  at the  American war drifter side, even if
   german soldiers must go to the Iraq... Surely this was one of the points that
   broke his  neck since  HE surely  don't goes  to the Iraq but a lot of german
   soldiers and HE surely wont loose  his life... After  all I can't  understand
   that he's now acting this way, in  former times the  german army was  yelling
   that it is on the frontiers of its  possibilities  with troups on the Balkan,
   in the Indic Ocean, in Afghanistan and esp. in the german flood regions where
   1othousands of soldiers were in fight again the water and nowadays working on
   the rebuild of streets, railways  and whole cities...
   Sometimes  Stoiber's acting reminded me a bit to Mussollini who decleared war
   to France in 194o as France was already occupied  by the  germans, just since
   he  thought  that he  needed  a few  thousand  dead soldiers  to have  a good
   position in peace negotations...
   Maybe I will explain my thoughts about this theme in a special article...

3. Stoiber is from  Bavaria and so he hadn't this popularity, esp. here in East-
   Germany since it is an open secret that the bavarian politicians haven't much
   left  for  the east of  Germany, telling stuff  like "The east german workers
   should wait  another 1o years  before they get the same pay as the workers in
   the west  since they must learn to work before..." and  this printed  on  the
   front pages of east german  news papers, doesn't helps... Furthermore Stoiber
   didn't has the same format as Gerhard Schröder  and sometimes I  think it was
   a fact of both  candidates as well  that the election went this way. Schröder
   is a lot more statesman  as Stoiber who  often acted like an up winded puppet
   and while Stoiber always searched the proximity to the United States Schröder
   was showing that Germany should and can find its own way in the international
   politics...

4. The fight between Stoiber and Schröder polarised  the masses and even if some
   people weren't the big fans of Schröder they  voted for him since Stoiber was
   the worst option and this is also a reason for the bad result of the PDS that
   was kicked out of the  german parliament now. The reason  is quite clear, the
   PDS was  announcing that Stoiber must be left out  by voting  for the PDS but
   after  all this  would weaken the  SPD of Schröder  and since  Schröder don't
   wanted to be voted for the german chancellor with voices of the PDS there was
   no other way than voting directly for his party just to avoid Stoiber...

After all we should be happy that the election ended this way since with Stoiber
as chancellor esp. East Germany would be kicked back into the stone age.
Not only the fact that Germany may come around another war now, no, I also don't
see a need  for a war  if we have  regions in our country after  the flood where
people  have  lost ALL they  had, where  it looks  like a  bombing in WW2, where
streets, bridges, railways, houses, installations  and fields  are destroyed. To
build  up those  regions will  cost so much  power, money  and time that we just
can't take part in a war now. I think no one in the flood damaged  regions would
understand why  millions of Euros  are spend to another  war path while they are
living in camps...

But anyway, I think Schröder survived with  a blue smashed eye now and I hope he
will make the best out of it. I  have to admit that I didn't voted for him since
I saw the bad results  of the PDS before the election and wanted to support them
as good as possible together with my girlfriend. In the end our voices were lost
now and  after seeing the result  that close  I sometimes  thought it could have
been better to vote for the SPD since in the end the PDS wouldn't have prevented
Stoiber as chancellor as written above  but weakened Schröder only... But untill
the very  end I had the  hope to see the  PDS in the  german parliament  even if
this  would have  made the  building of a  new governmemt  very difficult. But I
always thought and still think that we only can judge about a party and her work
if we give them the chance to work in  a governmemt. As we can  see it runs good
in the two german counties where  SPD and PDS are working together and we always
can only judge on the actions...

That's also the reason why the  CDU/CSU hasn't won this election since it showed
over 16 years before  Schröder that they were driving  the wrong way. Those four
million unemployed people here  in Germany are  a result of their governmemt and
you can't delete such numbers within four years, even if Schröder promised this.
But he had a hard stand and must bring a lot  of reforms to its way and now with
another 4 years social democratic/green politics  he may have the chance to show
us where his way will end.

After all this election  showed us as well that  Germany stepped a bit back from
the semi fascistic  movemements of the  last years. All  those nazi parties have
lost a lot of voices (since they sometimes showed in the county governmemts that
they haven't true plans to make the things better) and all of them gathered only
o,x percent each. This shows also that the germans are a bit more satisfied with
the way of the current  politics and  that the voters  can act a bit more mature
since with  slogans like "Germany for us Germans" and "DMark instead of Euro" no
one can win an  election since behind  those slogans there is nothing than empty
brains...

And, a bit problematic is the fact that  the Green Party has won some voices and
is still  the 3rd powerful  party in Germany. Ok, without  them we  surely would
have lost Schröder  as chancellor and  must live under  a bavarian dominated and
extreme conservative governmemt  now, but now they  can make bigger steps in the
new red/green governmemt and if you can remember to an article, but a german one
that I wrote  some issues back, I'm  not very satisfied with  their ideas of the
ecoligic changes in politics and  industry. They are going to skip nuclear power
plants, still want to  raise the ecologic tax on gasoline, gas, oil and electric
power and such things that maybe  aren't bad thoughts at all  but at the current
state of the german industry and people quite destructive and unsocial...

Those are  my thoughts  about the yesterdays election for the german parliament,
maybe  some other things will come  to my mind  too, but atm. I'm happy with the
things as  they are, at least  in parts... Therefore the highs and lows in short
again...

highs - again no Bavarian as chancellor... esp. no Stoiber grin face...
      - another chance for Schröder to show up where his way will end...
      - the liberal democratic 18% party ended up at 7,5 :)...
      - no chance to tip over the work of the last 4 years again to start from
        scratch with another idea...

lows  - the left socialistic PDS left its fraction state in the parliament...
      - the greens are a bit stronger in the new governmemt...
      - all those nazi/far right oriented parties didn't matched it...
      - the election ended a bit too close...

Ok... Now I'm looking forward to the  next election, 2oo4 here in Thuringia that
runs under  black flagg (CDU/CSU) since so  many years  now that  the provincial
connections are so hardened that it's time for a change...

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