No confidence at the Bundestag

Gerhard Schroeder has lost a confidence motion in the Bundestag, the German Parliament, apparently, just as he had planned. This means that Germany will have early elections – probably in September of this year. It had a lot to do with the recent victory of the Christian Democratics (CDU) in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), which was traditionally a strong hold of Herr.Schroeder’s Social Democratic Party (SPD). I for one, was just glad when the NRW elections were over coz they removed the life-size (no, a 10-times life size) cut out of one of the candidates from the path outside my home.

If you don’t follow German politics, heres the low down: the main contestants will be SPD (German Schroeder’s party) vs CDU, led by Angela Merkel – a woman and a physicist. A main point of discussion during the campaigns will be Germany’s high unemployment rate of over 11%. Will Germany have its first woman chancellor in the Sep elections? Only time will tell.