Now Kohl Seems Unbeatable in Bonn as Rau’s Fortunes Take a Fall

Late last summer, Johannes Rau appeared to be the new golden boy of West German politics.

Rau, leader of the Social Democrats, had led his party to an impressive, absolute-majority victory in the May election in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in West Germany.

On an otherwise gray political scene, Rau seemed a popular, magnetic figure, and he was soon chosen as the Social Democratic candidate to run against Chancellor Helmut Kohl, a Christian Democrat, in the national elections scheduled for next February.

The opinion polls indicated widespread support for Rau, a bluff man of 54 years with a ruddy face and an outgoing manner. Political seers thought he would have little difficulty in defeating Kohl, who seemed like yesterday’s politician--a huge, lumbering provincial with a knack for saying and doing the wrong thing.

Cemetery Visit

Kohl was accused of botching President Reagan’s visit to Germany last year, particularly the controversial visit to the German military war cemetery at Bitburg, with its graves of SS (elite force) soldiers killed in World War II. He was criticized as party leader for being lax about accepting campaign funds from questionable sources.

Kohl seemed to be playing second-fiddle in the governing coalition to the Bavarian strongman, Franz Josef Strauss, head of the Christian Social Union, and he was thought to be unable to control the more fractious Cabinet members of the Free Democatic Party, the other partner in his coalition.

But this month, as the campaign began to take shape, the political fortunes of Rau and Kohl have turned completely around. According to the polls and other forecasts, it is now Kohl who has established a comfortable lead. And Rau’s image seems to be somewhat tarnished.

Why the sudden shift? Political observers in Bonn point to several factors, foremost among them a rapid improvement in the national economy.

Consumer Benefits

A recent government report indicates that 1986 will see the highest West German economic expansion in six years, with real growth exceeding 3%, a decline in unemployment from 9.3% to 8.5% and a decline in inflation from 2% to 1.5% or even less.

“Just as in the United States and Western Europe, the German voter votes on how the economy affects him,” a local political observer commented.

Another factor on Kohl’s side, as many analysts see it, is his very dullness.

“There’s nothing slick about him,” a German political editor said not long ago. “He comes across as a stolid but solid political burgher. In Germany, that is not necessarily bad.”

Even the Bitburg affair is now looked upon by some Germans as a demonstration of Kohl’s independence from Washington.

On the other hand, Rau in the past few months has had to stand up and answer questions for the Social Democratic Party at the national level. It has not always been easy, nor has he been particularly good at it.

Issue of Security

Rau’s bedrock problem is that the Social Democrats are divided, particularly on what is perhaps the No. 2 issue in the country, national security.

The left wing of the party wants to see intermediate-range nuclear missiles removed from West Germany, a reduction in the U.S. military presence here, even West German withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

Rau says that in the party as a whole “there is no question about the NATO alliance; we belong to this alliance and we need it.” Not everyone in the party leadership agrees with him.

Asked about the party position on intermediate-range nuclear missiles, Rau has said: “If I were elected chancellor, I would try to get negotiations going in order that we could be rid of the cruise and Pershing missiles--and of Soviet counterparts.”

View of Soviet Threat

Rau opposes President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the “Star Wars” research program, as do his party and many other Germans. Also, he does not perceive the Soviet threat in the terms used by Reagan.

“I think we in Europe see things more realistically than they do in America,” he says.

But unlike the last Social Democratic chancellor, the internationalist Helmut Schmidt, or Schmidt’s predecessor, Willy Brandt, Rau has had little experience in foreign affairs.

As chief executive in North Rhine-Westphalia since 1978, he has presided over a highly industrialized region that includes the Ruhr. Unemployment in the state is among the highest in West Germany, and Rau has not been spectacularly successful in dealing with this problem or with any of the others that are endemic in the aging smokestack industries.

Rau is trying to find the center ground in the West German political terrain, for this is traditionally where winning campaigns are based. But in past elections, the Social Democrats have never won a majority of the total vote; in the last general election, in 1983, they received only 38.2% of the total. This means that to govern they will almost certainly have to form a coalition with one of the two minor parties.

Free Democrats’ Shift

The Social Democrats’ rule came to an end in 1982 when the Free Democrats walked out on a coalition to join with the Christian Democrats and Social Christians. The present coalition shows no signs of coming undone. This leaves the Social Democrats with the possibility of having to form a coalition with the Greens, the radical environmental group, something that Rau opposes.

“I consider they have taken the wrong path in politics,” he said recently. “How can I form a coalition with the Greens and then conduct business with NATO?”