Word: vogel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...West German Bundestag had just confirmed Helmut Kohl as head of government, and the smiling Chancellor was surrounded by well-wishers. His allies rushed forward with hearty congratulations. Hans-Jochen Vogel, his Social Democratic opponent in the last elections, offered a friendly handshake. Then Newcomer Marieluise Beck-Oberdorf presented the Chancellor with a vibrant yellow forsythia branch...
...coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party, led by Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, 55, survived a potentially fatal drop in popular esteem to win 6.9% of the vote and 34 Bundestag seats, thereby providing Kohl with a sturdy governing majority. The opposition Social Democratic Party, led by Hans-Jochen Vogel, 57, received only 38.2% and 193 seats, its worst showing since 1961. West Germany's newest political movement, the environmentalist, antinuclear Green Party, rounded out the Bundestag tally by winning 5.6% of the vote and 27 seats. The Greens are the first left-wing opposition group in the country...
Under pressure from the left wing of his own party, Vogel had been expected to refuse or delay indefinitely the deployment of the missiles, thereby giving Moscow an easy victory in the political struggle over the defense of Western Europe. Throughout the campaign, Vogel had won roars of approval when he said, "Kohl has explained that he wants a mandate to move forward with the stationing of missiles. I am asking for the mandate to do everything possible in the name of Germany to make the stationing of missiles superfluous." Vogel and other Social Democratic campaigners made clear that "everything...
...Kohl had stressed pocketbook issues, warning voters that the country had been living beyond its means for too long. Industrial growth may reach no more than one-quarter of 1% in 1983. The combined federal, state and municipal government budget deficit for 1983 is projected to exceed $31 billion. Vogel had promised to cancel all the austerity measures that Kohl had taken during his five months as Chancellor prior to the election. Kohl's belt-tightening gospel was undoubtedly unpopular, but Vogel's vow to return to freer spending of dwindling government resources apparently turned...
...nation's declining economic fortunes. Branded as "traitors," by the SPD, the Free Democrats began a downward slide in public esteem, and for a while it seemed that they might not win the 5% of the vote necessary to hold seats in the Bundestag. If neither Kohl nor Vogel had won an absolute majority last Sunday, West Germans might have then been faced with a parliament in which the balance of power was held by the antinuclear, pacifist Greens. The latter would not support Kohl, and they had earlier declared that they would back Vogel only if he agreed...