Word: volkspartei
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...party has been hemorrhaging members for well over two decades, and this summer it lost its ranking as Germany's biggest mass-membership party, or Volkspartei, to Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), with which it governs in an uneasy grand coalition. The SPD continues to lose supporters to the upstart Die Linke (The Left), a party made up of former east German communists and disaffected leftists from the west of the country. According to the latest polls, just 21% of Germans now say they would vote for the party of Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt if an election were...
Paradoxically, the 11-year-old trend to Socialism took place under the rule of the free-enterprising Volkspartei; it was the price that Austria's leading party (which lacked.an absolute majority) had to pay for Socialist support. But last spring Austria's voters took a look at the immense reconstruction job done by private enterprise despite government hobbles and, for the first time, gave the Volkspartei a whopping vote, just one seat short of a parliamentary majority. It was a clear mandate to roll back government control...
Chancellor under Renner is Leopold Figl, of the Catholic Volkspartei (People's Party). The party is the direct descendant of Dollfuss' and Schuschnigg's Christian Socialists, though it now favors (still a little halfheartedly) nationalization of key industries and has been purged (at least officially) of fascists. Despite public political friendship, Figl does not get on well with Renner. Unlike Socialist Renner, who comes from a bourgeois family but has lived it down, Figl comes from peasant stock and tries to live up to it. He has a peasant's stubborn strength and stubborn limitations, along...
...Communist? During last year's Austrian elections, a quip was heard around the polls: "Nobody who owns a watch is Communist in Austria." When the returns were in, the Communists had managed to roll up only 5% of the country's vote (the Volkspartei polled some 50%, the Socialists some 45%). From their brief intermezzo of glory under Russia's exclusive occupation, they retained only one dull portfolio (Power & Electricity) and three seats in Parliament...
High Policy. The Volkspartei, middle-of-the-road party which has attracted many a former Nazi, is strongest in the Tyrol. Next come the Social Democrats, including almost all non-Volksparteiler. The Communists, though not considered important, somehov,' managed to have better offices and a better organizational setup than their stronger opponents. The biggest thorn in the Tyrolean toe is the force that shapes their lives, the French occupation troops. They have requisitioned the finest houses, the fastest cars, the most luxurious hotels. Once 35,000 strong, they reduced their total to 10,000, but helped make...