Ex-Leader Kohl Returns From Disgrace

Home>>World

Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, June 17, 2002

Ex-Leader Kohl Returns From Disgrace

DISCUSSION

CHINESE

SEND TO FRIEND

Germany's main conservative party gathered Sunday for a key convention it hopes will pave the way for regaining power in the fall, with former leader Helmut Kohl invited to speak despite a slush fund scandal he has never fully resolved.

Polls showing the right ahead in the Sept. 22 election race have boosted the Christian Democratic party's confidence going into its Frankfurt convention, where delegates are due to anoint Bavarian governor Edmund Stoiber as the challenger on Tuesday.

Stoiber cautioned his side in a Sunday newspaper interview that "we still have a long road ahead of us" in the battle to unseat left-leaning Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Stoiber's speech Tuesday will be the most important in the 60-year-old's political career.

He is expected to send the conservatives onto the campaign trail with a message of mild economic reform, including lower taxes and deregulation, and firm rejection of government immigration plans he says will flood Germany with foreigners points highlighted in the election platform that delegates are expected to endorse Tuesday.

Kohl's high-profile return from disgrace signals his party's yearning to heal old wounds, and confidence that it has overcome a slush-fund scandal the former chancellor set off in 1999.

Kohl, 72, was listed among the first speakers when the congress opens Monday. As a chancellor who governed for 16 years and united Germany in 1990, Kohl is expected to offer his view of Germany's role in the world to the roughly 1,000 delegates.

Kohl led the Christian Democrats for a quarter-century until his election defeat by Schroeder in 1998, the same year he last addressed a party convention.

In late 1999, Kohl touched off a party financing scandal by admitting he accepted illegal campaign donations as chancellor and refusing to identify the donors.

The scandal sent the party into a tailspin and cost Kohl his post as honorary party chairman. The conservatives clawed back last year as economic problems and stubbornly high unemployment put Schroeder increasingly on the defensive.

But with three months until election day, some surveys indicate Schroeder's Social Democrats are reducing the gap in the polls. And Schroeder, breezy and unruffled, remains personally more popular than his rival.

Questions?Comments? Click here

Investigation Panel Opposes Ruling Against Kohl

Former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Wife Committs Suicide

Li Peng Meets Former German Chancellor

World-Class Dream for China's Railways ( 5 Messages)

Two S.Korean Girls Run Over by US Armored Vehicle ( 3 Messages)

China's Annual Mineral Exports, Imports Tops US$100 Billion ( 11 Messages)

Taiwan Media Reveals US Submarine Sale to Taiwan ( 47 Messages)

Japan Covets Southeast Asia, Diplomatically and Militarily: News Analysis ( 16 Messages)