Adenauer's Victory in Munich
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1959.tb01935.x |
| Date | 01 September 1959 |
| Published date | 01 September 1959 |
| Author | K. Panter-Brick |
| Subject Matter | Article |
ADENAUER’S
VICTORY
IN
MUNICH
K.
PANTER-BRICK
London
School of Economics
and
Political Science
THE FEDERAL ELECTIONS
OF
SEPTEMBER
1957
IN MUNICH
THE
federal elections of September 1957 continued the struggle for power
between the Christian Democrats (CDUICSU)’ and the Social Democrats
(SPD).
It was a hard-hitting struggle, for more was said to be at issue than
a simple change of government, than the swing of the pendulum. The
SPD
spoke of the Adenauer regime, of single-party rule, and of one-man dictator-
ship, a state of affairs threatening democracy itself. The CDUICSU on the
other hand, and in particular Adenauer himself, prophesied Germany’s
extinction should the
SPD
be returned to power. An impartial observer
can say that there was little substance
in
either contention: they were
in
the nature of ‘scares’, but scares which undoubtedly reflected genuine fears
among both the articulate party members and the general electorate. It
may
be regretted that such issues were introduced
to
treat Adenauer’s very
firm
political leadership as
a
personal dictatorship is to cry ‘wolf‘ when one day
there may, alas, be a real danger; to allege that the main Opposition party
has
no
capacity to govern is equally a short-term
view.
But fascist dictator-
ship and marxist totalitarianism are evils with which the West German
electorate has closest acquaintance; it is not surprising, therefore, that they
were used in the course of the electoral campaign.
With attention concentrated upon this bitterly fought struggle between
the two
major
parties, minor parties risked being squeezed out. Their
position was made all the more difficult by certain changes introduced into
the electoral law. Basically the electoral system remained
as
before, a form
of proportional representation superimposed upon
a
majority-system. Seats
are allocated to parties in proportion to the number of votes cast for the
The Christian Social Union (CSU) is the Bavarian counterpart to the Christian Demo-
cratic Union (CDU). Two works which provide useful introductions to the system
of
government
in
Western Germany are:
A.
Grosser,
La
DPmocratie
de
Bonn
1949-1957
(Armand Colin, Paris, 1958), and R. Hiscocks,
Democracy in Western Germany
(Oxford
University Press, 1957). The
Revue francaise
de
science
politique,
vol. vii, no.
4,
contains
two articles on the 1957 elections: Maurice Robin, ‘Le systbme tlectoral de la Rtpublique
ftdtrale allemande’, and Alfred Grosser, ‘Le pltbiscite du
IS
septembre 1957’. The
Clarendon Press will shortly
be
publishing a volume on the
1957
elections by
U.
Kitzinger.
Political
Studies,
Vol.
VII,
No.
3
(1959.246-268).
K. PANTER-BRICK
241
separate party lists, but half the Members of Parliament are elected by
simple majority vote in single-member constituencies, the voter having
a
separate vote for this purpose. Seats won in this way are taken into account
when distributing the other half of the seats among the party lists. Thus
one party may be
so
successful in the single-member constituencies that
very few, if any,
of
the seats due to it proportionately are filled from the
party list, whereas another party may win very few constituency seats but
qualify for
a
considerable number of list seats. A party, in order to qualify
for an allocation
of
seats in proportion to its share of the vote, must, how-
ever, fulfil certain conditions. It was in respect of these qualifying condi-
tions that changes were made for the 1957 elections, to the advantage
of
the major parties and to the disadvantage of the minor parties. Previously
a
party qualified for an allocation of seats in proportion to its share of the
total vote, provided that it obtained either one constituency seat or
5
per
cent. of the vote in any one Land. In 1957 a party had to obtain either
three
constituency seats or 5 per cent. of the
total
vote, that is, the vote through-
out the whole Federation. This new 5 per cent. clause was challenged as
unconstitutional before the Federal Constitutional Court but held valid,
on the ground that in the interests of parliamentary democracy splinter
parties should not
be
encouraged.
Two minor parties, the Free Democrats (FDP) and the League
of
Refugees and Dispossessed
(BHE),
felt sufficiently confident
of
obtaining
the necessary electoral support.
The other minor parties were all too weak to stand on their own feet
and were forced to seek some
ad
hoc
arrangement. This was not difficult
for the German Party (DP). It made its appeal to right-wing votes; it had
considerable local support in and around Lober Saxony; and it had formed
part of Adenauer’s Bonn coalition throughout the first two Parliaments.
It toyed with the idea of playing an independent role electorally, but in the
end quite sensibly accepted Adenauer’s offer of an arrangement whereby
the
PP
would be helped to win the necessary number of constituency
seats.
The Christian People’s Rarty (CVP) in the Saar, the Bavarian Party in
Bavaria, and the Centre Party, which was still managing to survive in North
Rhine-Westphalia, all found themselves in a much more difficult position.
Like the
DP,
they needed the help
of
another party in order to secure any
seats at all. The CVP found no help in the Saar itself because of its earlier
opposition to reunification with Germany, but in the end it found a saviour
in Bavaria; it became the Saar branch of the CSU.
The Bavarian Party had to resort to even more desperate measures. In
1953 it had had an electoral arrangement with the CSU and there were
protracted negotiations for a similar arrangement in 1957, but without
To continue reading
Request your trial