Word: barzel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Opposition Leader Rainer Barzel, by contrast, is not as popular as his party. He is a deft political infighter who impresses many West Germans as being too clever by half. Barzel was busy delivering statistic-laden speeches calculated to convey the impression of an issue-oriented thinker. His major campaign issue will likely be inflation, which is running at 5.45% so far this year. Now Barzel's attack has been immensely strengthened by Schiller. A brilliant economist but always a prickly political bedfellow, Schiller was Brandt's "election locomotive" in 1969. Now he is steaming at the Chancellor...
...bipartisan Bundestag resolution on West Germany's understanding of the pacts. On the eve of the scheduled vote, however, the C.D.U.'s conservative Bavarian wing, Franz Josef Strauss's Christian Social Union, decided to vote against the treaties. Faced with that threat to party unity, Barzel reversed course, and only three hours before the final Bundestag vote, ordered the C.D.U. Deputies to abstain from voting. By opting for party unity instead of statesmanship, he earned the widespread condemnation of the West German press and reinforced his reputation as a political opportunist...
...vote dramatized Bonn's present crisis of leadership. Both Brandt and Barzel had seen the impasse coming at least three months ago, but did little to head it off. Brandt, the brilliant idea man, remained characteristically aloof. He knew that his unstable coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats included some potential defectors on the treaty votes; they were treated like traitors, which simply strengthened their resolve to defect...
Moment of Truth. Barzel, the reputedly clever tactician, was shortsighted and defiant, and helped paint his party into a tight corner by adamantly opposing ratification. The C.D.U. leaders repeatedly charged that the treaties were a sellout of German interests to Moscow. Privately, though, they hoped that the treaties would pass, so that the party should not bear the onus of holding up detente. Thus both sides procrastinated until the moment of truth arrived-and the result was what one Bonn political observer describes as "a grade-B performance-Brandt and Barzel...
...that "Both sides have a chairman, but neither has a leader." In the wake of the vote, the quip seemed fully justified. Recognizing that his government could be brought down by a no-confidence vote at any time, Brandt asked the opposition to agree to hold interim federal elections. Barzel replied that his party would agree to elections-but only after Brandt had resigned. Despite the ploys and counterploys, it seemed likely that elections would be held in the fall...