West Germany: Kohl Wins His Gamble

To Washington's relief, the voters choose continuity

Dominated by a host of fears, it was an election that inevitably took on the dimensions of a historic turning point. For nearly a quarter of a century, West German political contests had been fought out on the familiar ground of a broad national consensus on defense, foreign policy and economic management. This time it was different. The 43.4 million voters were split as rarely before over a spectrum of choices for the country's future, ranging from newly activist radical forces advocating drastic change f to a conservative coalition bent on ref turning to some of the virtues of a bygone era. How to remedy a flagging economy with a record 2.54 million unemployed provoked sharply different ideological approaches. The defense issue was equally divisive. Torn over the consequences of either deploying or refusing to accept a new generation of NATO missiles on their soil, West Germans were threatened by Moscow and exhorted by Washington to the point where they bitterly called it the superpower election.

Against this background of unrelieved divisiveness, it seemed natural that, almost instinctively, West Germany's voters turned to the burly, folksy, reassuring figure of Helmut Kohl, 52. Less than two hours after last Sunday's polling ended, computer projections showed Kohl's Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian ally, the Christian Social Union, gaining an estimated 49.3% of the popular vote. Kohl's Social Democratic rival, Hans-Jochen Vogel, 57, ran second with 38.2%. The environmentalist, antinuclear Green Party polled around 5%, possibly gaining a disruptive foothold in the Bundestag. The small Free Democratic Party, Kohl's old coalition partner, defied predictions of its demise and bounced back with 6.7%.

Although the result may have left the Christian Democrats just short of an absolute majority in the Bundestag, Kohl's return to power as Chancellor was assured by the survival of the Free Democrats, who once again resumed their role as the balance of power in West German politics. Kohl's risky gamble in holding national elections six months after the collapse of the coalition, led by Social Democrat Helmut Schmidt, had paid off. Despite the existence of a widespread and vocal peace and protest movement, spearheaded by the Greens, Kohl had always maintained that there was a "silent majority" in the country in favor of his pro-NATO, free-enterprise policies.

In Washington and the capitals of West European allies, the outcome of the election was bound to be greeted with a palpable sense of relief, if only because Kohl unequivocally supports NATO's 1979 decision to install U.S. cruise and Pershing II missiles at the end of this year unless there is a breakthrough in U.S.-Soviet arms negotiations in Geneva. A victory by the Social Democrats under Vogel, it had been feared, might have brought into government in Bonn the currents of pacifism now churning in West German society.