Germany

Hans-Gerd Öfinger, from the editorial board of the German Marxist magazine Der Funke looks to the prospects for the upcoming elections in September. With Schröder's uninspiring Blairite policies, voter absention could well open the door to the Christian Democrats who were so sounded defeated four years ago.

In Germany, the new millenium has been ushered in by a party financing and corruption scandal which was more exciting than many thrillers and caused a political earthquake of unprecedented dimensions.

Things are changing fast in Germany. In September 1998, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) scored a big victory in the Bundestag elections, ousting the bourgeois coalition under Kohl which had held power for 16 years. The new "red-green" coalition government under chancellor Schröder was greeted with great hope by millions of workers, unemployed, old age pensioners and youth. Now the SPD as well as the Greens are stumbling from defeat to catastrophe to disaster.

A historic defeat for chancellor Kohl and a clear victory for the left are the most outstanding features of the German election on September 27. After exactly 16 years of Kohl in office, German workers and youth said: enough is enough. German is now likely to be governed by a coalition of Social Democrats and Greens. Hans Gerd Ofinger analyses the implications from Germany.