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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 March 1999 Issue No. 421
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Profile Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters The short goodbye
By Holger EhlingIt was a sunny afternoon on Thursday 11 March -- the first glimpses of spring in Bonn, Germany's small-town capital. Joschka Fischer, the foreign minister, had taken advantage of a gap in his diary to go jogging along the banks of the Rhine. But he had barely worked up his first sweat, when an aide stopped him and handed him a mobile phone. It was the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder calling. "Come here at once!" barked Schröder. "And don't bother taking a shower!"
When Fischer arrived in the chancellor's office, out of breath and still wearing his shorts and baseball cap, he discovered it would be a while before he had a moment to go jogging again: Germany's finance minister, Oskar Lafontaine, had resigned -- not only from his cabinet post, but also from the leadership of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), and even his seat in parliament. He had given no explanation, and was refusing to answer calls from ministers and party officials. Crisis loomed.
Lafontaine's resignation came as a complete surprise to everyone. True, the going for the government had been far from ideal since it had been elected six months ago, and relations between Lafontaine and Schröder had shown signs of strain. During a cabinet meeting the previous day, the chancellor had called on his ministers to get their act together, avoid any more public blunders, and especially the half-baked programmes that have so antagonised national industry. Schröder was even reported to have said that he was not willing to head a government that sought to hurt German business interests -- words which were interpreted as a veiled threat he might himself resign. Lafontaine publicly affirmed his agreement with the chancellor: "I support every single word," he said. The next day, he wrote a resignation letter consisting of two brief sentences, then headed for his south-western home town of Saarbrücken to return to private life.
Not that there have been too many tears shed over the departure of the politician who was dubbed the "most dangerous man in Europe" by the British tabloid press. Industry representatives publicly rejoiced, the Euro rallied two per cent against the US dollar, and the German stock market index, the DAX, leapt six per cent on the news. After six months in which Lafontaine had engaged in public wrangling with the European Central Bank, the captains of German industry and the international finance institutions, the business establishment's relief at seeing the back of him was palpable. The British government rushed to deny reports that champagne corks had popped in Downing Street. But whatever the reaction, the question on everyone's lips was still: "Why?" After all, political discord between leading members of a cabinet is nothing new, and Lafontaine is an old hand when it comes to fighting his turf -- and winning.
For days following his decision, the ex-finance minister holed himself up in his house, refusing to answer calls or speak to the press. Only on Sunday did he give a brief statement: he blamed his departure on the lack of "team spirit" in the cabinet -- leaving the public even more baffled than before as to the real reason for his quitting office.
Schröder with Lafontaine (above) and Fischer
(photos:Reuters and AFP)
Lafontaine's allegation that he lacked the cooperation of his colleagues has been widely interpreted as criticism of Schröder's camp, and especially the chancellor's close aide, Bodo Hombach, who is rumoured to have repeatedly briefed againts the finance minister's plans. Hombach has so far refused to comment. But immediately after the news of Lafontaine's resignation broke, the rumour mill started to grind out speculation. Had the minister been caught in a case of financial misconduct? Had a connection to the Stasi -- the security apparatus of the former GDR -- been uncovered? Had some unsavoury aspect of his avowedly colourful private life been unearthed? The latter seemed, in many ways, the least implausible -- Lafontaine is now married for the third time, and unsubstantiated allegations of links to organised crime were bandied around some years ago. But though entertaining in a trashy kind of way, nobody dared assert that any of these rumours might be true.
In the absence of any more exotic explanation, observers were forced to conclude that Lafontaine had simply realised that his position in the government had become untenable -- he had lost the power struggle with Chancellor Schröder. Despite the image of amicable collaboration both men sought to project, their relationship has never been easy. Both aged 55 years, they were rivals for the leadership of the party for over a decade, with Lafontaine having the better start. He was the SPD's candidate in the 1990 general elections, the first in the newly unified Germany. He lost them to Helmut Kohl, with one of the worst results in the party's history. Yet his comeback was formidable: nobody in the SPD will forget the 1995 party congress, when he challenged the incumbent party chairman, Rudolf Scharping, out of the blue to emerge with a sweeping victory.
Lafontaine seemed a natural candidate for the chancellorship in 1998 -- until it became evident that Schröder had by far the better chance of winning the elections. And winning the elections was what Lafontaine was dedicated to achieving at any cost -- even if it had to be paid in his own ambitions. So he stepped back, allowed Schröder to stand and, from behind the scenes, manoeuvred the party to a magisterial victory last October. "Oskar is the architect of our victory," said Peter Struck, the chief whip, expressing the whole party's feelings.
But the strain started to show when Lafontaine took over negotiating the coalition with the Green party and bolstered his finance ministry by annexing strategic divisions from the department for the economy. His ambition was to lay down a left-of-centre political framework which would redistribute wealth from business to the less well-off, following a Keynesian model of a demand-led society, rather than the supply-led model currently followed by every other major world economy. He publicly supported high rates of taxation on industry and advocated new levies. In response, some of the largest German corporations told the government they might choose to move core activities abroad if such plans went ahead. These threats, combined with an unexpected rise in unemployment, and a proposed tax reform that emerged in a state which could be most kindly described as "muddled", were enough to consecrate his final fall from grace with both the chancellor and the industrial establishment.
For Schröder, his minister's resignation provides an unexpected opportunity to have a second start, after the first six months of his government all but disappeared from view under a series of policy climb-downs and public relations disasters. The chancellor immediately took the reins of the party and seems certain to be elected its new chairman in April. And he immediately appointed a new finance minister: Hans Eichel, the 57-year-old outgoing prime minister of Hesse, who had been the first victim of the decline in the federal government's popularity when he lost the state elections in February. Eichel, described by Schröder as "not much of a Fred Astaire", is generally perceived as the safest pair of hands for the finance post -- bringing to the job a ferocious (if dull) commitment to detail and a sharp understanding of the needs of industry. For many, that will be a more than welcome change.
