The SPD and the Neue Mitte in Germany

Abstract

When on 27 September 1998, Helmut Kohl, a Christian Democract, was voted out of office after 16 years and a Social Democrat, Gerhard Schroeder, took his place, many things pointed to this being an historic event. It was, for example, the first time a sitting Chancellor had been voted out of office and the previously governing coalition sent to the opposition benches.¹ After its biggest loss of support ever (6.2 percentage points), the CDU/CSU was left with their smallest share of the vote since 1949 at 35.2 per cent. By contrast, the SPD enjoyed its largest increase ever (4.5 percentage points) and became, at 40.9 per cent, the strongest party in the Bundestag for only the second time since 1972 (Forschungsgruppe Wahlen 1998). A parallel with Labour’s landslide victory in May 1997 under Tony Blair naturally comes to mind. And yet it was not only the scenes of jubilation comparable with those in London’s Downing Street on 2 May 1997 that were missing from the streets of Bonn and Berlin.² The more time passed after the federal election, the clearer it became that — despite pre-election vows to the contrary and subsequent attempts to appear as birds of the same feather (Blair/Schroeder 1999) — there remain substantial differences between Blair’s New Labour and Schroeder’s New Centre or Neue Mitte. What explains these differences? And what are the prospects that the Neue Mitte will move beyond a campaign slogan and become a real programme of progressive government?