The Germans voted last September for maintenance of the status quo and that’s exactly what they got. In spite of the fact that Gerhard Schroeder and his Social Democrats have ushered in unprecedented economic decline and unemployment in Germany, and in spite of the fact that Schroeder has failed to deliver and each and every promise, the sheep like German electorate fell victim to his Mussolini-esque distractions and saw fit to give the Social Democrats almost an equal number of votes as the conservative Christian Democrats. The conservatives promised significant reform in an effort to jump-start the German economy. Conservative leader, Angela Merkel, was poised to become Germany’s next Chancellor, but something happened on the way to the ballot box. The Germans did what they have done many times since 1930 when an upstart Nazi party garnered 6 million votes in a German parliamentary election, they fell victim to a smooth talking politicians. As a result of Germany’s lack of foresight, the left and right were forced to form a collation government (another weakness of the parliamentary system), with leftists gaining several key cabinet spots and conservatives forced to abandon much of their reform minded agenda. Practically the only thing that did change is the fact that Germany now has a new Chancellor, the country’s first female leader, Angela Merkel (could her gender have been a factor in the electoral picture, this Germany remember…) But, aside from this nothing momentous can be expected from a coalition of left and right. Image, if the Democrats and Republicans were forced to rule as a team, how long do you think it would take before internal bickering brought down the government? Germany’s economy is in tatters and without bold action it will remain so. This is the inevitable result of socialist economic planning, it has failed France, it has failed Germany and it has failed many other nations in Western Europe, yet the blindness of Europe’s leaders and its electorate persists.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/11/MNGD2F6L0H1.DTL