Unpopular Vote

The making of a President

West Germany's President is largely a ceremonial figure. During his five-year term, he is preoccupied with making speeches and state visits, signing treaties, handing out pardons and greeting other heads of state. Though the next presidential election is still more than two months away, the outcome may already have been decided--against the wishes, it appears, of a large majority of West Germans.

When the conservative Christian Democrats (C.D.U.) and Christian Social Unionists (C.S.U.) named Bundestag Speaker Karl Carstens as their presidential candidate last week, the popular incumbent, Walter Scheel, announced that he would not run again, thus virtually assuring Carstens' election on May 23. Under the constitution, the President is not chosen by popular vote, but by a special federal assembly composed of the 518 members of the Bundestag and 518 representatives elected by the ten state governments. While a coalition of Social Democrats and Free Democrats rules in Bonn, the C.D.U. and C.S.U. control the presidential electoral assembly, 531 to 505.

During his term, Scheel, a former leader of the Free Democrats and an able Foreign Minister in the early 1970s, won wide admiration for his poise: a recent poll showed that 77% of the electorate wanted him to serve a second term. But when Scheel realized that the electoral assembly was stacked against him, he declined to stand again. Last-minute efforts by the ruling coalition to dissuade the C.D.U. and the C.S.U. from nominating Carstens failed--despite earlier disclosures that he had been a member of the Nazi Party. Carstens, 64, admitted that he had joined the party in 1940 so that he could pursue his legal studies. In any case, he had been cleared by the Allies' postwar de-Nazification process. His backers pointed out that Scheel had also been in the party during World War II.

Potentially more damaging were allegations that as state secretary in the chancellery of the Kiesinger government in the late '60s, Carstens had approved illicit arms sales by West Germany to unnamed countries in Third World "tension areas." In testimony before a Bundestag committee in 1974, Carstens claimed total ignorance of any illegal arms deals.

Foremost among the critics of Carstens' candidacy is Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who has never disguised his dislike for the Speaker. Carstens' election would be "unfortunate," snapped Schmidt. "He is a politician of the extreme right in the democratic spectrum." Yet, unless Schmidt's coalition produces a candidate-Carstens will become West Germany's new head of state in May.

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