CNN Insight

Crisis In Germany's CDU Party

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BETTINA LUSCHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): .secret party accounts. In early November, just when the world honored Kohl for his role in the unification of Germany 10 years after the fall of the wall, the scandal broke. First, it looked like simple tax evasion by a former CDU Party treasurer. But then the stunned German public learned that millions of dollars had been channeled into secret accounts.

Former party officials pointed the finger at Helmut Kohl, but the former chancellor denied ever accepting money. He was outraged someone could even suggest he, who had done everything for Germany, might have been bribed.

But then Kohl admitted he had accepted some $1 million in secret donations in the mid `90s. The party pleaded with him to reveal the names of the donors. Kohl refused, saying he had given his word of honor. That triggered the biggest crisis in the CDU's 50-year history, half of which were under Kohl's leadership.

The German parliament launched an investigation into whether the former Kohl government had been up for sale, but worse was to come. German prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against the former chancellor, and every day new revelations came to the surface - bank accounts abroad in Switzerland, in Luxembourg, in Liechtenstein, some of them 30 years old; cash handed over by weapons dealers on Swiss parking lots; envelopes full of deutsche marks handed to CDU officials.

The scandal shocked German voters. 1999 had been such a good year for the Christian Democrats. They won election after election in German states. The government of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder seemed in danger of being toppled by next summer.

Now the CDU has record low levels of public support. While many Germans said they had grown tired of Helmut Kohl after 16 years in power, many also continued to trust him. To his countrymen, he was like family. He seemed so honest, many said, and young party members remembered how he warned them not to use official postage stamps for campaign work.

Now Kohl was accused of breaking the law, even the constitution. It was all hard to believe. The new party leadership under Wolfgang Schaeuble scrambled to get the crisis under control. When Kohl refused to cooperate, they asked the former chancellor to step down as honorary party chairman. It was the ultimate break with the Kohl era.

That step was not enough. When Schaeuble had to admit he, too, had taken a cash donation from a weapons dealer, it was the beginning of the end. Schaeuble contradicted himself, changed his story, lost the fight for damage control. In the end, Schaeuble gave up, or maybe his party colleagues gave up on him.

New leaders are being drafted to rescue the party. But who, many ask, who has the talent, the stamina and the honesty to lead this party out of its dismal situation?

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(on camera): And the CDU not only is facing a leadership crisis, it also has to come up with some $20 million in penalties that the German parliament has issued on the party. Jonathan?

JONATHAN MANN, INSIGHT: Bettina Luscher, thanks very much.

Helmut Kohl cast a very long shadow over German politics, even after his defeat at the polls in 1998. With his decision to give up the leadership of the CDU and now his successor's resignation as well, the party suddenly has a hole at the highest levels. Just a short time ago, we got in touch with a CDU member of the German parliament, Peter Altmaier.

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PETER ALTMAIER, CDU PARLIAMENT MEMBER: The party has lost in a very short time many of its most important political leaders like Helmut Kohl and Wolfgang Schaeuble, and this is, on the one hand, a risk because the public's image of the party is not really clear yet. On the other hand, it is a chance for fresh blood, for young leaders who have, of course, to do a lot of work to get the charisma to develop their public image.

But I would say there is a chance for doing this because people feel that a clear-cut alternative is needed in the German politics in our society. So I'm quite optimistic that we could manage to restore the position of the party within the next couple of months.

MANN: What is Helmut Kohl's moral obligation to the party? Does he have to do more? Does he have to say more to help the party through this?

ALTMAIER: Well, the tragedy is that Helmut Kohl has incredibly big historic merits for the country, but he has, to a big deal (ph), destroyed his own party. Helmut Kohl has refused now for months and weeks to help us to overcome the crisis. He has not contributed to clear the scandal. And I'm afraid he will continue staying away and letting alone his own party in this very difficult crisis.

His moral obligation would be to give us the names of the donors of the black money. His moral obligation would also be to confine himself to a more moderate role in public discussion in Germany, to resign perhaps from his function as member of parliament in order to make it easier for us to overcome the crisis.

But I'm not very optimistic that he is prepared to help us. This is a tragedy of perhaps all great men in history that they cannot really accept that their time is over and that a renewal is from time to time unavoidable.

MANN: Peter Altmaier, thank you so much for talking with us.

ALTMAIER: Thank you. Bye-bye.

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MANN: We have to take a break. But when we come back - what do the German people need from the party now? A look at the crisis and the country. Stay with us.

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MANN (voice-over): German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has had more than his share of troubles - divisions inside his Social Democratic Party and, as we've heard, a string of defeats for it in state elections. The CDU's problems lighten his load at least a bit. And Wednesday, he said Wolfgang Schaeuble's resignation was inevitable, but not, he said, without a sense of tragedy.

(on camera): Welcome back. There are two German state elections in the months ahead. There are other stakes as well in all of this. Joining us now to talk about how Germany and its people are likely to be affected is political scientist Manfred Goertemaker of Potsdam University.

Professor, thanks so much for being with us. We keep hearing about how this is a crisis for the CDU. Is it a crisis for Germany and for its people as well?

MANFRED GOERTEMAKER, POTSDAM UNIVERSITY: No, I think we have to be very careful to blow this out of proportion. It is clearly a crisis of the CDU, but it is not a crisis of the country. For the CDU, however, this is the beginning of a fundamental generation change, and therefore, the era of former chancellor Helmut Kohl only now comes to an end.

MANN: What does it mean for Germany to see this kind of transformation? Is it a normal and healthy thing, or is the country going to be weakened and preoccupied a little bit by this?

GOERTEMAKER: Well, first of all, fortunately I should say, the CDU is now in opposition. So this means that the policy of the federal republic as such is not at stake at this moment. But for the CDU, it is a very difficult and also painful process to go through this transition.

After 16 years of chancellorship of Kohl, after 20 years of Helmut Kohl as party leader it was absolutely clear that this change would be difficult and now proves that it is very difficult, indeed.

MANN: It doesn't have a party leader. It doesn't have any immediate way, I gather, to find the money that it has to pay back to the German government. When it comes to that, how much trouble is it going to have coming up with all of the cash that it has to give back?

GOERTEMAKER: Well, I think, first of all, we have to say that this is, of course, a fine of $20 million. The overall budget of the CDU is $125 million. So I think it should be possible for the CDU to pay this fine without going bankrupt. But there is more to come, and therefore, the party could get into financial trouble in the future. But this remains to be seen.

MANN: How much has the credibility of German political life suffered? Did Germans expect this kind of thing from their leaders, or were they surprised when all this news about Chancellor Kohl and about others within the party became public?

GOERTEMAKER: Well, this has, of course, a legal dimension and a political dimension. There is much talk here about the political credibility of the entire party system. First of all, I would say that this can also be a chance to prove that the system is working. So therefore, I think we should not be too concerned about what is going on right now. There have been mistakes. There have been violations of law, but the system should be able to correct that. If that has happened - is happening, then, of course, the outcome may be not as bad as it seems at the moment.

But in general, I would say that the system is working and that foreigners should not be too afraid about the functioning of the political.

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PETER CONRADI, SUNDAY TIMES: Maybe a belated realization in Germany that the German political system and the system of party financing is, in fact, just as corrupt as that in Italy, in France, in Spain and in almost every other European country.

MANN: Is the nature of the problem, the kinds of scandals that come to light, the same all through Europe, or is each case particular to each individual country, do you think?

CONRADI: Obviously, there are differences, cultural differences, political differences between the various countries. But I think there is a strand which runs through most of the continental European countries. I think Britain is a slightly distinct case for various reasons.

But certainly as far as the continental countries are concerned, I think what we have in all these countries is political parties which are very strong, which have large apparatuses, which also through the system of political - proportional representation and party lists also have a lot of control and a lot of influence and a lot of patronage. And I think this is just a combination of that and maybe press, TV, newspapers in particular which are not quite as probing as they should be just opens the way for corruption on what is now becoming clear has been on a massive scale.

MANN: Is there any European country that comes to mind or, for that matter, any country anywhere where these kinds of things cannot happen, where there is a system that successfully prevents it?

CONRADI: I think "cannot" there's probably nowhere - given human nature, there's nowhere where a scandal of this sort couldn't happen. I think if one looks around Europe, certainly that the Scandinavian countries that there's obviously a degree of corruption there, but I think nothing like the sort that we've seen in the rest of Europe.

So I think maybe the Scandinavian countries, which are well known for their transparency, openness and I suppose kind of honesty in public life, would be an example to be held up. But I think the problem is that you just can't translate that necessarily to other countries where there are very different traditions which have developed.

MANN: When corruption is discovered - and the case of Italy comes to mind because politics there were in upheaval with revelations and accusations, very prominent people going to trial or going to jail - in Italy's case, have they managed to clean things up?

CONRADI: I'm sorry?

MANN: Has Italy managed to clean things up because Italy comes to mind as a case where so many scandals came to light and where there did seem like a public outcry against them? Have things gotten better there?

CONRADI: Yes. Yes, they have. But I mean, there's an awful lot of cleaning up to do there. It's been something that's been - you know, the scandal first broke at the end of the `80s, early `90s. Since then, there's been enormous upheaval. A lot of cleaning up has been going on, but I think again there are still these fundamental problems, these fundamental cultural problems, political problems, the whole power of the political parties which remains.

So I think one certainly couldn't say, unfortunately, that the Italian political system is squeaky clean today any more than one could say that of any of the other European countries.

MANN: And yet, they're all democracies. Why do you think people don't demand cleaner politics? Why isn't there more public pressure on political systems across the board to reform and move away from these kinds of traditions?

CONRADI: I think we are, obviously, seeing or we're likely to see growing public pressure as a result of the latest revelations that we've had in Germany and other countries. It's difficult I think for a number of reasons.

Firstly, if one has a situation where almost all the main political parties are in some way compromised by scandal, it's difficult then for the public to register their disapproval. I mean, for example, in Germany we're talking a lot about the scandal surrounding the CDU, but also the ruling Social Democrat Party has got its own smaller-scale scandals happening on a state level.

So therefore, if you're a German voter disgusted with corruption, it's difficult to know where you should cast your vote. It's the same situation in France, where an awful lot has been made of the corruption of the Socialist Party under the late President Mitterrand. But again, the Gaullists have had corruption scandals of their own as well.

And in fact, what does happen is quite an alarming tendency is that this does tend to open the way often for extreme parties very often on the right, such as the National Front in France of Jean-Marie Le Pen, also extremist parties in Germany which - and most notably the case of Joerg Haider, the leader of Austria's right-wing Freedom Party, who again has been swept to power if not because of clear corruption, from a resentment at the kind of patronage which - exerted by political parties which often leads to or provides scope for massive corruption.

MANN: Do you think that the people who do complain, the people who raise the alarm are, in a certain sense, being naïve or being less than entirely honest when they say how shocked they are. If this is the way politics is done, if this is the way it's always been done, if this in most countries seem like it's the way it's going to be done, shouldn't we just get used to it?

CONRADI: I think that would be a little bit defeatist just because that's the way things have always been done, I think doesn't mean to say that one should accept them. And I think there are - one shouldn't forget that there are moves afoot to change things.

I think a very important role is being particularly played by investigating magistrates in a number of the countries. If one looks at the history of the Italian corruption scandal and how it unfolded over the last almost 10 years it is now, magistrates who were determined to find out what was going on, who were strong enough to stand up to political pressure, actually did make a change. They did bring down the old system.

Again, we're seeing these same magistrates or equivalents of these magistrates in action in France, often very plucky, very determined individuals. And again, in Germany, if it hadn't been for some of these investigating magistrates who began to pick away at the party financing scandal unfolding there, things would have stayed unnoticed really.

So I think there isn't this complete defeatism. Things are beginning to change, and I think people are beginning to realize, as your former speaker mentioned, that there is a need to reform things, to bring more transparency in. Whether that actually happens, how successful people are in implementing these reforms remains to be seen.

MANN: Peter Conradi, deputy foreign editor of the Sunday Times, thanks so much for talking with us.

That's INSIGHT for this day. I'm Jonathan Mann. Stay with us. There's more news just ahead.

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