Vol. 21 · No. 1 · Issue 66 · Spring 2003

Robert Rohrschneider and Michael R. Wolf

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Abstract

During the summer of campaign year 2002, the election already seemed lost for the SPD/Green government. Public opinion polls saw the governing coalition trailing by several percentage points, whereas the CDU/CSU, together with the FDP, looked like the sure winner. A central reason for the malaise of the red-green government was the ailing economy. Unemployment rates hovered at the 4 million mark and would have been even higher if government-funded jobs had been added to the official unemployment rates. Consequently, a substantial majority of citizens considered the creation of jobs Germany's most important problem. This constituted an especially severe burden for Chancellor Schröder. In 1998 he had promised to push unemployment rates below 3.5 million or, he stated, he did not deserve re-election. Thus, many observers and voters expected the September 2002 election to be a referendum on the governments' handling of the economy. Since the chancellor had not delivered, voters were about to vote the incumbent government out of office.