Press split on Schroeder confidence tactic

A steady hand on Germany's tiller?

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's decision to link Friday's parliamentary vote on the deployment of troops in Afghanistan to the question of confidence in his government has prompted much editorial discussion on his motives and the possible implications.

One positive view of Mr Schroeder's prospects came from the centrist Sueddeutsche Zeitung, which saw the tactic as a greater threat to his coalition partners in the Greens than to the chancellor himself.

Whichever way potential Green defectors voted, this would threaten their own survival, making them feel "like an eskimo who falls through thin ice: if he stays in the water he will live another 30 seconds, and if he climbs out he will live 10 seconds more than that".

Mr Schroeder, on the other hand, could view either outcome with equanimity, it suggested.

Organised irresponsibility was on the rampage in his own party

Berliner Zeitung

If the Greens back him, the public will be relieved that the popular duo of Mr Schroeder and his Green Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, has survived.

If not, he will have to seek a new coalition partner or call fresh elections, a prospect which he "does not need to fear in the present climate of public opinion", the paper says.

Ruffling party feathers

But the Berliner Zeitung was among several papers to question Mr Schroeder's tactics.

By initially hinting that a majority for deployment - even by relying on the opposition - would be enough, Mr Schroeder encouraged doubters in his own ranks.

"Organised irresponsibility was on the rampage in his own party," it commented.

It saw the sudden change of heart as an over-compensation which would damage Mr Schroeder in the run-up to next year's general election.

Even if the Greens can be brought into line... this means the end of the Red-Green coalition's political life

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

"Regardless of the result, the impression will survive until the election that this chancellor chops and changes impulsively and doesn't always have a steady hand," it said.

The whole episode would also damage the coalition, even if it survived in the short term.

"The confidence issue shows how fragile the Red-Green coalition is, and this will stay in the memory right up to the election," the paper said.

Coalition doomed?

The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung likewise saw the writing on the wall for the coalition.

"Even if the Greens can be brought into line by the whip-wielding chancellor, this means the end of the Red-Green coalition's political life," it pronounced.

Dynamic duo at risk?

"What people remember most about a vote of confidence, even if it is won, is that somebody forced the chancellor to ask the question in the first place."

The paper sympathised with Mr Schroeder's motives, as economic setbacks compelled him to play the international statesman ahead of next year's election.

"For this he needs a reliable team behind him, not a bunch of mutineers who declare more or less openly that they have no faith in a war chancellor," it noted.

The opinion of another conservative daily, Die Welt, was clear from the headline of its editorial: "Chancellor in crisis".

A mandate extorted by blackmail

Frankfurter Rundschau

It too condemned Mr Schroeder's change of tactics in turning the vote into a confidence issue.

"He is putting the broad parliamentary support for deployment in jeopardy, for the opposition can hardly be expected to tolerate this kind of Machiavellian blackmail," it declared.

Guns to the left

"The German Government is discredited and fighting for its survival," it concluded.

Criticism of the chancellor also came from his left flank, the liberal Frankfurter Rundschau accusing him of stifling debate.

Forcing dissenters into line merely "proves that Schroeder does not enjoy a majority within the coalition on the issue", it observed.

What kind of mandate?

If he was trying to engineer fresh elections, this could easily backfire, it suggested.

"Schroeder would go into the election campaign as a failed chancellor."

The paper also said Germany's soldiers would have "a mandate extorted by blackmail", a theme picked up by the leftist Die Tageszeitung.

The paper, which has links to the Greens, summed up their dilemma in the face of "a constitutionally secured instrument of blackmail".

"Fresh elections under war conditions could prove fatal for the Greens, but if the dissenters vote for Schroeder because of this danger, they will be devaluing their own arguments," it said.

"The only choice facing the Green dissenters is between standing by their principles, which will finish their party, and being flexible, which will destroy them themselves."

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