The Federal Election of 2002
In: German politics and society, Band 21, Heft 1, S. 1-14
ISSN: 1558-5441
During the summer of campaign year 2002, the election alreadyseemed lost for the SPD/Green government. Public opinion pollssaw the governing coalition trailing by several percentage points,whereas the CDU/CSU, together with the FDP, looked like the surewinner. A central reason for the malaise of the red-green governmentwas the ailing economy. Unemployment rates hovered at the 4million mark and would have been even higher if governmentfundedjobs had been added to the official unemployment rates.Consequently, a substantial majority of citizens considered the creationof jobs Germany's most important problem.1 This constitutedan especially severe burden for Chancellor Schröder. In 1998 he hadpromised to push unemployment rates below 3.5 million or, hestated, he did not deserve re-election. Thus, many observers andvoters expected the September 2002 election to be a referendum onthe governments' handling of the economy. Since the chancellor hadnot delivered, voters were about to vote the incumbent governmentout of office.