Strauss Party Blamed for Fall in Coalition Vote

Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s Christian Democrats blamed their Bavarian sister party Monday for the reduced parliamentary majority in Sunday’s federal election that returned the ruling coalition to power.

They accused Bavaria’s Christian Social Union of taking an overly tough and confident line during the campaign that drained support for Kohl’s Christian Democratic Union.

But the Bavarian leader, Franz Josef Strauss, refused to accept any blame for the disappointing showing. He noted that his party did slightly better in Bavaria than the Christian Democrats did nationally.

“Nothing is more dangerous than spreading cheap and easy myths about the causes of a setback,” Strauss said in Munich.

The Christian Democrats and their Bavarian partner together drew only 44.3% of the vote, down from 48.8% in the last parliamentary election four years ago. In the new Bundestag they will have 223 of the 497 seats, down from 244.

Kohl Not Entirely Unhappy

Still, Kohl was said to be not entirely unhappy with the results. A really strong showing by the Christian Democrats, at the expense of the Free Democrats, the junior partner in the coalition, might have brought Strauss to Bonn as foreign minister, a post long held by Hans-Dietrich Genscher of the Free Democrats. And it is an open secret in Bonn that Kohl would much prefer that the tart-tongued Strauss, who is premier of the state of Bavaria, stay on in Munich, the state capital.

The campaign was marked by bitter fighting between the Bavarian party and the Free Democrats, with Strauss repeatedly criticizing Genscher’s policies on foreign affairs.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” Heiner Geissler, secretary of the Christian Democrats said in reference to the coalition infighting. Kohl, without mentioning names, also noted that “certain comments from within the coalition” cost votes.

The big winners in Sunday’s voting were the Free Democrats, whose leaders had counseled moderation. The voters responded by increasing the party’s vote by 2.1% to 9.1%, increasing the number of their seats in the Bundestag from 34 to 46.

This means that the Free Democrats’ two main leaders, Genscher and Economics Minister Martin Bangemann, will stay on in Kohl’s Cabinet and that Kohl may even feel pressure to give the Free Democrats additional Cabinet ministries.

In any case, the Free Democrats will be able to emphasize that the election reflected a need for a less strident tone toward the Soviet Bloc in foreign affairs than that advocated by conservatives like Strauss.

Bangemann, the economics minister, said that the important issues for Free Democrats in the new government will be a sensible foreign policy, tax reform and care of the environment.

‘A Brake on Strauss’

The liberal newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau commented, “The voters have put a brake on Strauss’ influence on Bonn politics and, one hopes, curbed the reactionary chatter which penetrated deep inside the conservative camp.”

On the opposition side, the Social Democratic candidate, Johannes Rau, declared that he does not wish to take over as chairman of the party when Willy Brandt retires next year.

The Social Democrats’ share of the vote declined from 38% four years ago to 37% Sunday, yet the total was better than many commentators and some polls had foreseen. Thus Rau, a moderate, was not disgraced. Editorial writers complimented him for conducting a gallant campaign.

Still, Rau’s decision to forgo the party chairmanship and to concentrate on his job as premier of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia opens the door for a possible shift to the left in the Social Democrats’ leadership. Acording to several political observers, Brandt would like to see the party move to the left after he steps down.

A likely candidate to succeed Brandt is Oscar Lafontaine, 43, the premier of the Saarland. Lafontaine is an articulate left-winger who has urged that West Germany withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. He advocates joining with the Greens, the radical environmentalist party, in an alliance that Rau firmly rejected.

Greens Increase Share

The Greens increased their share of the vote from 5.6% in 1983 to 8.3% Sunday, increasing their number of seats in the Bundestag from 27 to 42. The Greens candidates were buoyed by a negative reaction to the nuclear disaster last year at Chernobyl and the chemical pollution last year of the Rhine, as well as by a shift of young voters from the Social Democratic Party.

The Greens’ leaders are still at odds over whether to remain an opposition group or to join the Social Democrats in a “red-green” alliance.

Some Greens argue that such a coalition, with a platform of no nuclear power, withdrawal from NATO and unilateral disarmament, could have strong voter appeal in the next elections, in 1991.