Word: chancellor
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the hostage crisis could hardly have come at a worse time. In the closing days of a re-election drive that he was expected to win handily, Kohl was forced to spend much of his time directing the behind- the-scenes effort to free the hostages. Bonn's strategy: to negotiate the release of the German hostages with the help of Middle East governments linked to Hizballah, including Iran and Syria. The Chancellor carefully consulted leaders of the opposition Social Democratic Party, the major challenger to his center-right coalition. SDP Candidate Johannes Rau declared that...
...West Germany's national election campaign drew to a close this week, the ) Chancellor's reception was ardent everywhere his helicopter touched down. Political analysts predicted that Kohl, 56, would ride his newfound popularity to a second four-year term when voters cast their ballots this Sunday. The Allensbach poll forecast that Kohl's conservative coalition of the Christian Democratic Union, the Christian Social Union and the Free Democratic Party would win 53% of the vote, compared with 36.7% for the Social Democrats and 9.5% for the environmentalist Greens...
...current strength, Kohl very nearly missed the chance to lead West Germany's new era of good feeling. Under his leadership the Christian Democrats lost ground in seven of ten state elections between October 1982 and June 1986. The Chancellor's political future seemed uncertain after he met President Reagan in 1985 at the German military cemetery in Bitburg, where 49 members of the Nazi SS are buried. Kohl was threatened with prosecution last year for allegedly perjuring himself during testimony concerning the suspected bribery of public officials by the Flick industrial group. Things began turning around for Kohl last...
Kohl nonetheless remains prone to the damaging gaffe. Party strategists winced two weeks ago, when he accused East Germany of holding 2,000 political prisoners in jails and "concentration camps." That allusion to the Nazi era, combined with some tasteless patriotic rhetoric, made some Kohl supporters nervous. The Chancellor's final campaign swing last week thus found him paddling back to safer shores. Said he: "Beyond all party political differences, we owe our friends, our allies and all our neighbors a clear, constant and reliable policy...
...likely to give him a large vote of confidence at the polls. Kohl may not be the most elegant or articulate of leaders, but if he wins as strongly as predicted, he could begin his second term with prospects for as much prestige and power as any Chancellor has enjoyed in the postwar...