At German Chancellor’s Side, a New Political Power Broker Emerges

At German Chancellor’s Side, a New Political Power Broker Emerges
By NICHOLAS KULISH and JUDY DEMPSEY
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: September 28, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/world/europe/29germany.html?th&emc=th


BERLIN — The politician everyone was talking about in the German capital the morning after national elections was not Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose party won the most votes, but the small-party kingmaker set to solidify the chancellor’s hold on power. And soon, the rest of the world will become acquainted with the new leading figure, the Free Democrats’ Guido Westerwelle.

If longstanding German tradition holds, Mr. Westerwelle will be named vice chancellor and foreign minister in the new government, his reward for steering his free-market, pro-business party to its best result yet in a federal election.

The role of statesman, with the prospect of mingling with the likes of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and France’s foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, is one Mr. Westerwelle, 47, has spent the past several years preparing for. He has worked hard to transform his image from the fun-loving clown prince of politics, who once appeared on the German version of the reality show “Big Brother,” to that of a serious policy maker.

To judge by Sunday’s election, the operation was a success. Mr. Westerwelle’s Free Democrats emerged as the biggest winners of the day, watching their share of the vote rise by the largest amount of any party, to 14.6 percent, an increase of 4.7 percentage points over the previous election in 2005. The party rose even as Mrs. Merkel’s conservative bloc lost ground slightly with voters, pulling in just a third of the vote.

Mr. Westerwelle met with Mrs. Merkel on Monday as part of negotiations to form the anticipated new center-right government, a partnership that the chancellor had told voters she needed in order to repair the country’s economy. In a news conference, Mr. Westerwelle refused to discuss the division of top positions, including his own, saying, “It is about the right policies for our country and certainly not about these posts.”

He went on to emphasize his “very good relationship” with the chancellor. Indeed, Mr. Westerwelle, who is gay, came out in 2004 by bringing his partner to Mrs. Merkel’s birthday party, while she was still in the opposition and the year before she became chancellor.

Mrs. Merkel said that she expected the negotiations to move quickly and that she wanted the new government in place no later than Nov. 9, the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, when heads of state from around the world are expected to visit for the commemoration. But just because the two parties want to govern together does not mean it will necessarily be easy to reconcile their proposals.

“Mr. Westerwelle will strike a hard bargain when it comes to tax reform,” said a prominent conservative legislator, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the negotiations over forming the new government.

The Free Democrats’ campaign platform called for more than $50 billion in tax cuts, more than twice what Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democrats promised. Yet, even the more modest figure could be hard to achieve without deep and unpopular reductions in social spending; deficits have soared as a result of the economic crisis and the government stimulus plan meant to combat its effects.

For many of the postwar years the Free Democrats were a swing vote in a Parliament dominated by the country’s two major parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats. But the Free Democrats were out of power for the last 11 years, a stretch in the opposition that allowed the party to sharpen its stands for lower taxes and against bureaucratic red tape.

It also gave Mr. Westerwelle, the youngest leader in the history of the party, time to grow up. Before the 2002 election he set his sights on winning 18 percent of the vote, and to drive home the point he wore a pair of shoes with “18” emblazoned in the party’s trademark yellow on the soles. He also rode in a bright yellow bus he called the Guidomobile. The party fell far short of his target, earning itself just 7.4 percent of the vote and Mr. Westerwelle a reputation as a joker.

Mr. Westerwelle learned his lesson and cultivated a more serious image. His antics may have had a positive effect as well, broadening the party’s appeal beyond its traditional base among business owners by attracting younger professionals.

In addition to emphasizing the party’s trademark positions in favor of liberalizing the economy, Mr. Westerwelle also studied foreign policy, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Hans-Dietrich Genscher, a former party leader and current adviser whose two decades as foreign minister included German reunification.

“In the past few years, he has clearly been preparing himself for this role,” said Jan Techau, director of the Europe program at the German Council on Foreign Relations, where Mr. Westerwelle gave a lengthy foreign-policy address in May. But Mr. Techau described the appearance as cautious, emphasizing continuity in German foreign policy and reminiscent of the passive role for Germany favored by Mr. Westerwelle’s mentor, Mr. Genscher.

“Not living up to the country’s size and responsibility in the world is just not a sustainable foreign policy for Germany anymore,” Mr. Techau said. Although the Free Democrats have supported Germany’s participation in the NATO mission in Afghanistan, Mr. Westerwelle spoke out more strongly than Mrs. Merkel during the campaign about limiting the length of the deployment of the more than 4,000 German troops there.

While talking about nuclear weapons at his news conference on Monday, Mr. Westerwelle referred to “rearmament” when he clearly meant to say “disarmament,” and shortly afterward apologized for his exhaustion after a long election night.