Federal Republic of Discombobulation

The moment you think it can't get worse, it does. During the last week, political careers went down the toilet by the dozen. It started when Mr. Franz Müntefering, the designated Vice Chancellor, lost a political gamble in his Social Democratic Party (SPD) and with it the support of his party base. He will most probably not be available for a cabinet post in our new administration, which opens an entirely new can of worms for our designated Chancelorette, Ms. Merkel, who should be elected by the Bundestag on November 22, this year. But till then it is a long way to go and nobody can predict what is going to happen.

After Mr. Schröder and Mr. Fischer were either disgruntled or intelligent enough to terminate (for the time being…) their political careers, the first probably going to Florida, the latter, having happily married for the fifth time, to Tuscany, Italy, where his new bride has a decent property, things looked quite clear for a while.

But after Mr. Müntefering lost his pet candidate for the SPD board, he lost more than just a position in a chess game. One of his worst adversaries from the left wing took the place and this will probably give the SPD a new course towards its socialist roots. He could but resign and will not be available to renew his SPD presidency at the party convention in mid-November. I leave the answer to the question who is going to take his place to astrologists, as he had caught the entire party trousers down with his sudden resignation.

Who is going to be our Vice Chancellor is equally clear, so the next few days will remain interesting.

To keep things from becoming too easy for Ms. Merkel, the Prime Minister of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber, Cristian Social Union (CSU), the temporarily designated Secretary of Economy, resigned from his candidacy, because he is safe in Bavaria, where he holds a comfortable majority, and does not feel the urge to cope with the more pronouncedly socialist SPD cabinet-mates who will take Müntefering's place.

I feel reminded of the worst period of the old and forgotten Weimar Republic, where the dissolution of a political body which had never been an integral thing in the first place, opened the way to National Socialism, war, mass murder and the destruction of "Old Europe," which has still not recovered from that period.

Some folks say a lesson in history must be repeated until understood, so the German flunkies will have to go through the worst again.

Any place to run to and hide left?

November 3, 2005