"How Can We Trust You Politicians?"

It has been a rough few months for Germans.

The winter weather colors the country in all shades of gray. The economy is slumping, the unemployment rate climbing with no solution in sight.

To this mixture, politicians have recently stirred in sizeable doses of partisan one-upmanship and sleaze scandals. Last week, they added a staged-walkout to the pot.

After a heavily disputed yes vote on the government’s new immigration law last week, state representatives of the opposition Christian Democratic Union and Christian Social Union walked out of the chamber where the vote was held.

They held angry press conferences outside the Bundesrat, the legislative body representing Germany’s states on a federal level. They accused the Social Democratic Party of breaking the German constitution and threatened legal action in the constitutional court.

A few minutes beforehand the president of the Bundesrat, Berlin’s mayor and member of the governing social democratic party (SPD) Klaus Wowereit, chose to recognize a split vote in the state of Brandenburg as a vote in favor of the new immigration law. The vote gave Schröder’s government the needed majority to pass the law, sparking shouts of protests in the chamber and the eventual walkout.

A day later, Peter Müller, the Christian Democratic premier of the state of Saarland, said the walkout had been orchestrated by CDU head Angela Merkel, and CSU chancellor candidate Edmund Stoiber (both in photo).

"It was theater, but legitimate theater," Müller said.

Enough is enough

The Bild daily tabloid, the largest newspaper in Germany, didn’t think so.

"How Can We Trust You Politicians?" a Bild front-page headline screamed on Wednesday.

The headline was remarkable not least because of Bild’s decidedly conservative bent. After months of partisan election-year bickering between the SPD and CDU on every issue of national importance, it seems even the newspaper, whose ex-editor in chief serves as Stoiber’s media advisor, has had enough.

Close to 70 percent of Germans polled this week said they were unhappy with the way politicians were behaving themselves, according to the FORSA research institute.

Since the election campaign for both parties officially began in February, voters have had to put up with an earful of name-calling and verbal attacks between government and opposition politicians.

No issue untouched

Major issues like the budget, the purchase of military transport planes and banning the extreme right-wing National Democratic Party have all been mired in election year politics.

When, a few weeks ago, news broke that Schröder's SPD in Cologne had been accepting donations in exchange for political favors the political low sank deeper.

With the immigration vote, it finally bottomed out.

Changing their tune

Politicians seem to have realized this. After strong words following the Friday vote, Edmund Stoiber has decided to strike a softer tone this week.

Rather than threaten taking the vote to the constitutional court, Stoiber has chosen to calmly appeal to German President Johannes Rau, now faced with signing the bill.

He said he would treat Rau and his office "with respect" in light of the "difficult decision" ahead of the president.

The chances of the tone staying this agreeable for the rest of the campaign are slim. But Germans do have other things to look forward to.

Spring has started to show its face in parts of the country. And in two months, the German national soccer team travels to South Korea and Japan for the 2002 World Cup.

And for many Germans, these issues are much more important than political bickering and the election campaign.