BONN : Shoo-In or Squeaker?
The Bundestag, Germany’s Parliament, will elect Germany’s next chancellor today. It is virtually certain that Helmut Kohl, chancellor since 1982, will be reelected on the first ballot for his fifth term.
But given the public’s lukewarm feelings for Kohl and his Christian Democrats, some analysts have been floating the possibility that Kohl could lose the chancellorship on a fluke.
It would take the absence of five pro-Kohl parliamentarians for the chancellor to fall short of the majority-plus-one vote that he needs to win on the first or second ballot. “Two get stuck in a traffic jam, two oversleep, what then?” chortled the lowbrow daily Bild.
Kohl’s party won more than 40% of the vote in the last election, but he has said that he will not accept the chancellorship if he doesn’t win on the first or second ballot.
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