On Wed, 30 Jun 1999, Seth Ackerman wrote:
> It's shocking that Lafontaine's resignation -- at a time when his power was
> rising within the government, if I understand correctly -- singlehandedly
> doomed the party's left-wing. The instability of one guy has ruined the
> prospect of Germany being running from the left???
That seems to be *exactly* it. And still no one's given a good explanation of why. A pol his whole life, and suddenly he quits when he's finally hit the top. And quits in the worst possible way, leaving all his allies hanging. Inexplicable.
Schroeder, on the other hand, has now presented exactly the policies he was expected to push in the beginning, but was prevented from pushing because he got a red-green coalition instead of the grand coalition he wanted and expected. And because Lafontaine was beating him in the leadership battle. But now the loss of Lafonataine has allowed him to consolidate his power in the SPD, and the War in Kosovo looks like it might split the Greens and making the dominate rump into the new Liberals of German, complete with their own Genscher. Which would might end up even more secure than a grand coalition would have been. Herr Tony Clinton ist endlich hier.
Michael __________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com