Paradoxically, both main candidates in the German election on September 22 – incumbent Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union Premier Edmond Stoiber – have every reason to be pleased with the result.Stoiber came extremely close to rendering Schroeder the first Chancellor since the 1960s to be overthrown after only one term in office. Schroeder, for his part, defied the fallout from mass unemployment (four million adult Germans are jobless now, just as …
