Election Decision Day Looms for Germany

Those in the opposition hoping Gerhard Schröder would step down should Köhler reject the Bundestag's motion for early federal elections this fall, will be disappointed. The chancellor announced through his party's chairman that he planned to continue to govern.

Chairman Franz Münterfering told the Welt am Sonntag that "it would not be good for the country" should Köhler decide against new elections, but that Schröder would nevertheless continue to govern until scheduled elections in September 2006. Opposition to the Schröder government's economic reform agenda is widespread among Germans, and the lack of a majority in Germany's upper house of parliament will mean Schröder will spend his remaining year and a half as a "lame duck chancellor" should his call for new elections not go through.

Spiegel: Köhler will approve new elections

But he might not have to worry too much. According to a report in Der Spiegel, Köhler has already decided to approve the chancellor's call for new elections, a decision he will announced this Friday.

In the three weeks since Schröder intentionally lost a vote-of-confidence in the Bundestag, Köhler has been mulling whether to approve the chancellor's highly unusual and controversial move. According to the German Constitution, a chancellor can only call for new elections if facing a serious government crisis.

Constitution experts have spent the last few weeks debating whether or not Schröder is allowed to use the constitutional clause as an instrument to seek a new mandate for his government. Köhler, a member of the opposition Christian Democratic Union party, was not pleased with the way in which the German constitution was being manipulated -- with the approval of his own party -- to force new elections.

Population behind early elections

But he will likely decide to approve it, and the majority of the German population looks to be behind him. A poll released on Sunday indicated that 75 percent of the population is in favour of early elections, with only 18 percent against it.

Among those against is Green Party parliamentarian Werner Schulz, a lawyer who plans to file suit in the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe should Köhler approve the measure.

"This move angers me ... because our parliamentarian democracy requires … transparency, clarity and truth, and such measures are dishonorable," he wrote in the latest issue of Der Spiegel.

Experts say the court is not likely to agree with Schulz's call to stop the process.