Regards, Ivan
Posted on 01/25/2003 4:08:51 PM PST by MadIvan
WHEN Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, scraped back into office with a wafer-thin majority in last September’s general election, his victory was attributed partly to the role played by his wife Doris.
The petite former journalist not only provided him with invaluable behind-the-scenes advice, but was also popular among young female voters impressed by how she had combined a media career with bringing up her daughter from an earlier marriage.
Yet the woman known as the “chancellor whisperer” for her ability to influence her husband will not be on the podium with him this week when he returns to their home state of Lower Saxony to campaign in important state elections. For Doris Schröder-Köpf may be becoming an electoral liability.
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the country’s most respected newspapers, published a prominent attack on her last week. Under the headline The Nation’s Single Mother, it accused her of double standards. She used her husband and daughter Klara, 11, to make political points, it said, yet fought any attempt to pry into their private life.
“Protecting one’s private life is legitimate,” the newspaper said. “But Schröder-Köpf has always tried to use it for political purposes, too.”
The article was prompted by legal moves to rebut rumours that their marriage — his fourth — could be in trouble.
Far more than the Schröders’ reputation may be at stake. Despite the German media’s reluctance to delve into the private lives of the country’s leaders, evidence of infidelity could be seized upon by Christian Democrats, who tried to exploit Schröder’s past marriages in the general election campaign.
It is little surprise that Schröder-Köpf arouses strong feelings in a country where first ladies have traditionally been seen and not heard — as exemplified by Hannelore Kohl, whose husband Helmut was ousted by Schröder in 1998.
Schröder appears to enjoy the company of strong women. His third wife, Hilltrud, was notorious for bursting into cabinet meetings when he was state premier of Lower Saxony to express left-wing views on the environment and animal rights.
Schröder-Köpf is also forthright. Although she prefers to stay in the family home in Hanover rather than accompany her husband to Berlin, she is one of his closest confidantes, telephoning him several times a day. She often visits Berlin and has an office in the chancellery.
She has not been slow to defend him in public, whether in carefully placed interviews or in her own newspaper columns. Reports suggest she also lobbies former colleagues.
“Doris relies a lot on friends she made while a political reporter,” said Reinhard Urschel, political correspondent for Hannoverische Zeitung.
It is thought to have been Schröder-Köpf who persuaded her husband to sue a newspaper that claimed last year he dyed his hair. He won.
She has also taken the lead in a legal tussle that began late last year when Märkische Oderzeitung, a small local paper in east Germany, cast aspersions about the strength of their marriage.
She told the news magazine Stern: “We don’t have crises — we are happily married.”
Whatever Schröder-Kopf’s success in burnishing her husband’s image, it is unlikely to help him as he faces one of the most decisive tests of his career in next Sunday’s state elections in Lower Saxony and in the southwestern state of Hesse.
Voters have deserted the ruling Social Democrats since September, largely out of exasperation at their failure to reinvigorate the economy and cut unemployment, which has reached 4.5m, a five-year high.
A poll for ZDF, the state television channel, found support for the party was 25% — the lowest in more than a quarter of a century — against 56% for the opposition conservatives.
Unfortunately for Schröder, his opposition to war in Iraq, although as popular in Germany as it is unpopular in America, is not likely to translate into votes, as in the general election.
In Hesse, which includes the banking centre of Frankfurt, Roland Koch, the Christian Democrat premier, looks certain to pick up about 50% of the vote, compared with some 30% for the Social Democrats.
Matters look even more alarming for Schröder in traditionally left-leaning Lower Saxony, where Sigmar Gabriel, the portly Social Democrat state premier, could be defeated by Christian Wulff, a rising star of the Christian Democrats. Polls last week gave Gabriel 36% against Wulff’s 48%.
An end to more than a decade of Social Democrat rule in the state Schröder ran until 1998 would not only be a highly symbolic defeat; it would also condemn the chancellor to perpetual horse-trading over legislation with his conservative rivals by depriving him of his majority in the Bundesrat, the upper house of parliament.
Berlin is buzzing with rumours Schröder might stand down — perhaps in favour of Wolfgang Clement, the economics and labour minister — if the Lower Saxony poll goes badly. One thing is clear, however: he would first consult Doris.
Regards, Ivan
Holy Cow! A leader of a country in his fourth marriage? I say, that sounds like a strong-principled man!!
Inquiring minds, &c....
Anybody know anything about what Clement's policies would be?
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