Japan, Libya Crises Contribute to Crushing Election Defeat for Angela Merkel

Angela Merkel

From NPR: Merkel Suffers Historic Defeat In German State

German chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives have suffered a historic defeat in a state ballot after almost six decades in power there, partial results showed Sunday, in an election that amounted to a referendum on the party’s stance on nuclear power.

The opposition anti-nuclear Greens doubled their voter share in Baden-Wuerttemberg state and seemed poised to win their first-ever state governorship, according to calculations based on partial results published by public broadcaster ARD….

The Greens secured 24 percent of the vote, with the center-left Social Democrats down 2 percentage points at 23.2 percent, giving them enough form a coalition government in the state, the results showed.

Representatives of all parties said the elections were overshadowed by Japan’s nuclear crisis, turning them into a popular vote on the country’s future use of nuclear power, which a majority of Germans oppose as they view it as inherently dangerous.

The UK Telegraph explains:

Although overseeing a surging economy and falling unemployment, Mrs Merkel attracted withering criticism after she decided to reverse an unpopular decision taken last autumn to extend the lifespans of Germany’s 17 nuclear reactors.

Critics condemned the abrupt u-turn, and the decision to shut down seven of the oldest reactors pending a safety review, as blatant electioneering, claiming that Mrs Merkel hoped to capitalise from rising opposition to nuclear energy in Germany following the disaster engulfing the Fukushima reactors in Japan.

Libya was also an issue for voters:

the government’s refusal to support military intervention in Libya added to Mrs Merkel’s woes.

In comments echoing conservative disquiet with the decision Joschka Fischer, a former foreign minister, said Germany had lost “credibility” on the world stage and had blown its chances of getting a seat at the UN Security Council.

It’s interesting that many Germans apparently wanted to help the Libyan rebels, while so many “progressives” in the U.S. opposed the UN/NATO intervention because Libya is not of much strategic importance to the U.S. and because of the cost.

Germans saw Merkel’s unwillingness to support the intervention in Libya as an embarrassment that could prevent Germany from getting a seat on the UN Security Council.

Here in the U.S., progressives (IMO) missed the importance of the U.S. President making a decision that concurred with the wishes of most of the Arab world–might that not be a better use of our military resources than endlessly pouring them into Afghanistan and Iraq. Just my 2 cents…

Just a couple of quick updates–

Libyan rebels are marching toward Tripoli

The last time the rebels made it as far west as Bin Jawad, it ended in disaster: their fighters ran into a murderous ambush, lost 70 men, and were forced into a terrifying retreat that nearly ended their campaign.

But yesterday, after a stunning sweep across the territory for which they have fought so hard and for so long, they were back.

This time, with Western air power destroying almost all that is left of the regime’s armour and artillery, the mood was very different. The rebels’ eyes were cast towards Sirte, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s birthplace and the centre of loyalist resistance.

[….]

The shift in momentum is palpable. Rebels are now back in possession of the two key oil complexes of Ras Lanuf and Brega which handle a sizeable proportion of the 1.5 million barrels a day the country used to export before the uprising. The opposition’s provisional administration in Benghazi stated that Qatar, which had joined the Western coalition in sending warplanes to Libya, would be marketing the oil. However, restarting production will be extremely difficult until the return of the foreigners who ran the plants, but left after the uprising.

In Japan, a 6.5 magnitude aftershock triggered a new tsunami warning, and workers have again left the Fukushima nuclear plant because of dangerously high radiation levels. From the Independent:

It [earthquake and tsunami alert] came after emergency workers fled from one of Fukushima’s stricken nuclear reactors yesterday, after contaminated water in the cooling system was apparently found to be 10 million times more radioactive than normal, only for officials to later say that the reading might have been inaccurate.

The latest confusion in the battle to bring Japan’s nuclear crisis under control came as villagers near the plant complained that they were being kept in the dark over radiation risks.

The technician who took the reading at reactor No 2 yesterday was so alarmed by the numbers that the team fled the building before taking a second measurement. And later, a spokesman for Tokyo Electric Power Co, the operator of the Fukushima plant, said: “There is a suspicion that the reading … is too high, so we are redoing our tests… We are very sorry for the inconvenience.”

Highly radioactive pools of water have formed inside all four of the damaged reactors, officials said. After previously downplaying fears of a serious breach in any of the reactors, Yukio Edano, the cabinet secretary and the face of the government throughout the crisis, said it “almost certainly” had happened.

The world is changing very rapidly, despite our government’s attempts to maintain the status quo. I wonder what dramatic news awaits us tomorrow?