The Evolution of Electoral Technologies in Germany and the Bundestag Elections of 1998

Ageev Rostislav Evgenevich Postgraduate, Department of Modern and Contemporary History, Lomonosov Moscow State University 119192, Russia, Moscow, Lomonosovsky Prospekt str., 27, building 4 nwpoint@ya.ru

1. Professionalization and "Americanization" of political life in GermanyThe use of professionals in political struggle leaves an imprint on the results of inter-party competition, the functioning of the political system as a whole.

A deeper study of this factor in the political life of Germany could shed light on the causes of unexpected changes in public opinion, the rotation of party cadres, the results of election campaigns, the correlation between the success of parties in elections and the amount of their funding.

Certain elements of professionalization of political life in Germany have always existed. This includes the presence of numerous paid party apparatuses under the leadership of general secretaries, and regular appeals to advertising agencies for the creative expression of proposed political solutions, and the widespread use of public opinion polls in internal party work, and the involvement of public relations specialists at all levels of the government apparatus.

The professionalization of the political life of Germany was constrained by the traditional political culture, which determines the usual forms and methods of political competition. The principle of the priority of ideology and political issues over election and advertising technologies in the activities of parties has remained unchanged for many years. There was a standard set of election technologies accompanying each campaign, which corresponded to the expectations of voters, party members, party staff and politicians. 

In addition, a stable system of party preferences of the population has developed in German society. The standard of living, belonging to a certain social stratum, religion, family political traditions largely determined the ideological priorities and opinions of voters on all issues of current political life, which corresponded to the palette of existing political forces from the extreme left to the extreme right.

With the accelerated social development of the late 1990s, the collapse of the communist system, the emergence of vast groups with changeable electoral behavior, conditions arose for increasing the professionalization of political struggle.

The parties faced the tasks of managing the political agenda in the media and public opinion, redirecting public attention to the problems that are most beneficial to the party at the moment.

With the changing role of the media in the political system and the emergence of a new information environment, the Internet, it became possible to create socio-political discussions on predetermined topics and divert the focus of public attention from discussing economic or foreign policy state problems, if this discussion was unprofitable for the party. A side effect of the professional management of public opinion was the erosion of the party identity of the main acting political forces, followed by the loss of party loyalty of a significant number of voters.

There was an increase in the importance of election campaigns due to the fact that an increasing part of the electorate changed their political preferences under the influence of intense advertising on the eve of the upcoming elections. The quality of the election campaign and the effectiveness of the parties' use of election technologies have become more determined by the outcome of the vote and the number of seats in parliament, and therefore play a more prominent role in the political history of both individual parties and the country as a whole.

This process, originated in the United States of America, has become widespread around the world.

Election campaigns have turned into grand national shows with an abundance of expensive mass events, aggressive television advertising and close media attention.   

It was the United States that became the center of the development of new election technologies. The industry of political consulting arose here, a layer of specialized literature was created, and many well-known political consultants appeared. A brief sketch of the development of electoral technologies in the United States in the description of the French political scientist F.Maarek can be found in T.Y.Lebedeva's book on the elections in France ^[1].

At that time, the term "Americanization" of political life appeared in European journalism, bearing a negative connotation and meaning the emasculation of the essence of political discussion and its replacement by personal confrontation of candidates, the widespread use of criticism and attacks on opponents, the active involvement of highly paid professionals from various fields – from commercial advertising to work on the Internet.

The processes of "Americanization" have gone far in many developed European countries - and were accompanied by the erosion of the traditional political system, either by changing ideological orientations by leading political parties, their transition to the path of "opportunistic" existence, adaptation to the changing social reality (Great Britain), or by the emergence of new political forces and their complicity in power in changeable coalitions (Italy, France).

The "Americanization" of political life in Germany was slowed down by the presence of a rigid party structure and political culture, in which negative conduct of the election campaign, too much spending on political advertising and the performance of electoral activity by hired professionals, instead of party functionaries, was not welcomed.  The main deterrent element remained the SPD, in which, after going into opposition in 1982, a stubborn struggle broke out between the left, radical democratic and right, technocratic wings ^[2]. The preservation of left-wing phraseology, flirting in the landtags with the Greens and the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) prevented the change of power by transferring a significant part of the new middle strata to the side of the SPD.

The year 1998 marked a significant milestone in changing the established traditions of campaigning in Germany and the introduction of an Americanized system of democracy in Germany. The traditional concept of the inter-camp struggle used by the CDU has failed due to its incompatibility with the new image of the SPD embodied in the candidate for the post of Chancellor G. Schroeder.

The SPD campaign, conducted in a new way, on the contrary, proved successful. It was in it that the standard set of techniques of "Americanized" campaigning was worked out: personification, active involvement of professionals, creation of a parallel headquarters separated from the party, show events, aggressive advertising, etc. The first stone was laid in the system of flashy election campaigns, with the difference between competitors only in the form and language of the solutions presented and in the personalities of the candidates.

A more detailed analysis of the two fundamentally different campaigns of the main opponents, the SPD and the CDU, can show which features of the professionalized, marketing, "Americanized" conduct of the election campaign became decisive for the success of the Social Democrats in the national elections of 1998. Particular attention should be paid to the role of external election technology specialists and specialized firms in order to ultimately answer the question whether there has been a transition in the main parties of Germany to such a degree of professionalization when specialists in the field of management, political advertising and public relations began to play a guiding role in the work of the party, not serving.

Sources for studying the behavior of parties during the 1998 campaign are reports of party secretariats, newspaper and magazine journalism covering the course of the campaign, campaign materials, election platforms and instructions, interviews with campaign managers, transcripts of congresses and recordings of speeches of leading candidates, video reports on party rallies and much more. Additionally, legislative acts, reports on the outcome of elections, party program documents are involved.

The issue of professionalization of political life in Germany has been raised more than once over the past two decades. Especially noteworthy are the works of Werner Wolf ^[3], Peter Radunsky ^[4], Monica Betschneider ^[5]. In their research, they come to the conclusion that professionalization is an inevitable process, but in Germany it is constrained by a number of factors. Its outcome and rate of development are unknown. Professionalization is evaluated in different ways: from an obstacle to a normal democratic expression of will and the first step to the loss of legitimacy of the chosen government (Betschneider) before the process that increases the effectiveness of the activities of political actors and the responsiveness to the processes taking place in society, to the quality of feedback.

The 1998 election campaign for the election of the German Parliament immediately attracted the increased interest of German researchers. Until the next Bundestag elections in 2002, she remained in the spotlight of German political scientists. Dozens of articles and several comprehensive monographs were devoted to her.

From the point of view of the analysis of the evolution of electoral technologies, a number of works can be noted on the increasing role of mass communications and political advertising in the political system of Germany. First of all, this is a collection of articles edited by Kristina Holtz-Bacha "Media campaigns in campaigns" ^[6] and her monograph "Advertising in elections as a political culture" ^[7]. They raised the problem of excessive media influence in modern conditions, the rebirth of German democracy into a media democracy, when the activities of the main electronic and printed mass media determine the outcome of the party-political struggle.

A significant contribution to the study of the history of electoral technologies during the 1998 campaign was Knut Bergman's monograph "The Bundestag Election Campaign of 1998", published in 2000, in which he tried to give a comprehensive analysis of this event in German political life ^[8]. At the same time, the author himself admitted that his work is rather descriptive in nature and aims not to contribute to the "creation of social scientific theories", but "to show the complexity of political communication in a modern society permeated by various means of mass communication."

In the Russian literature, the topic of the evolution of the political culture of Germany in terms of changing the practice of using election technologies was touched upon only indirectly and was not singled out as a special research problem.

2. The SPD election campaignThe 1998 campaign was extremely important for the SPD from the very beginning.

The sad date of her 20-year stay in the opposition was approaching. The two previous campaigns ended unsuccessfully, despite good starting positions. This time, the Social Democrats hoped to finally get the chancellor's chair and interrupt Helmut Kohl's long-term rule.

For the 1998 election campaigns, the party collected 124 million marks, despite the fact that its main opponent, the CDU party, collected only 111 million marks (although it is worth noting that together with the CSU, the total budget of the bloc for the 1998 campaign was still higher – 145 million marks) (Deutscher Bundestag Drucksache 1412508, Unterrichtung durch den Pr?sidenten des Deutschen Bundestages. Bekanntmachung von Rechenschaftsberichten der politischen Parteien f?r das Kalenderjahr 1998 vom 14. Januar 2000.//[Electronic resource]: https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/14/025/1402508.pdf (accessed 03.05.2022).

Internal party work was rebuilt - all members were reminded at every convenient moment of the significance and epochality of the ongoing elections, which should have led to discipline and unconditional faith in the rightness of the governing bodies of the campaign.

The main body leading the campaign was, like other parties, the Central Office headed by Federal Governor Franz Muntefering (58 years old, from 1975 to 1992, a member of the Bundestag, from 1991 to 1992, the head of the faction's staff, from 1992 to 1995, the Minister of Labor, Health and Social Work in the Government of North Rhine-Westphalia, since 1995 the federal manager of the SPD, since 1998 the head of the Westphalian branch of the SPD). A year before the elections, in October 1997, the first employee of the separately located election headquarters began working, which in itself was supposed to symbolize the independence of campaigning from the traditional apparatus. More than three hundred local party organizations were connected by an internal dedicated computer network.

Special attention was paid to the creation of a unified database of statements of party leaders and arguments against opponents, which was supposed to reinforce the party's propaganda work, to help expose the propaganda of competing candidates. Many experts competent in electoral matters, in particular, Schroeder's consultants on campaigns in Lower Saxony, Bodo Hombach and Uwe-Karsten Heye, were pulled into the "Kampu" (the party's electoral headquarters was briefly named - in contrast to the "barrack", the "House of Erich Ollenhauer", where the SPD apparatus had been located since 1975). 8 professional agencies were involved in the work, helping to advertise in the media, prepare speeches of candidates and hold events ^[9].

In addition to creative work on the development of campaign materials, the agencies were responsible for the preparation, technical equipment and holding of mass events. The professional activity of event agencies has acquired particular importance in the context of the need to organize Schroeder's pre-election tour in Germany. It began on August 31 in Bremen and ended on September 25 in Berlin. The tour passed through 38 cities in Germany and was accompanied by mass rallies and other events. Agencies also played a significant role in the production and placement of television advertising. The variety of commercials launched by the Social Democrats on the air demonstrated the economic creditworthiness of the party.

It became widely known that the SPD campaign strategy involved the staff of Bill Clinton's campaign headquarters, Americans Dow Sean and Henry Scheinkopf, as well as the organizers of Tony Blair's campaign, Philip Gould and Peter Mendelssohn ^[10].

The main issues on which consultants were involved were the following: which propaganda tools are most effective in the modern society of mass communications, what role telephone agitation plays, what importance direct street actions have, what value polls have, how to properly represent individual topics and how to respond to the actions of opponents. In accordance with the recommendations of the consultants involved, along with traditional public opinion research, the Muntefering headquarters began to widely practice telephone and other forms of rapid surveys, which, although they did not have representativeness, however, made it possible to quickly adjust the conduct of the campaign.

Two factors favored the transfer of the center of gravity to a specially created party body to ensure the conduct of the election campaign. Firstly, the focus on unconditional victory. Secondly, the negative experience of 1994, when during the campaign the initial advantage of the SPD over its opponent completely melted away, which clearly demonstrated the inexpediency of transferring the levers of control to the party management vertical and to the candidate himself.

The SPD strategy was based on a personalized campaign.

Instead of the chairman of the party since 1995, the permanent head of the Saarland (since 1985), Oscar Lafontaine, although he had already lost once, in 1990 it was decided to nominate the Minister-President of Lower Saxony since 1990, 54-year-old Gerhard Schroeder, a representative of the right wing of social democracy, who is with mid-eighties in the minority. Leading party functionaries came to such a decision only after the elections to the Lower Saxony Landtag on March 1, 1998, when, after eight years of Schroeder's rule, the SPD showed an improvement in electoral indicators.

The nomination of a right-wing figure to the post of the main candidate could scare off a large stratum of the left part of the party's electorate. In order to prevent this, immediately after the elections in Lower Saxony, Schroeder announced the possibility of concluding a coalition agreement with the Green Party in case of victory ^[11].

The concept of the party's participation in the election campaign was, on the one hand, the rejection of ideologization, maximum personalization, leading to the replacement of the main candidate's statements in the minds of voters with the statements of the main candidate of the pre-election party program, the involvement in Schroeder's team of two candidates for the posts of ministers from among major managers and lobbyists - Roland Bereger and Werner Muller (this was supposed to lead to growth trust in the middle class and contribute to the conquest of the "new center"), on the other hand, constant contacts with the "greens" and the PDS, aimed at proving their continued adherence to the ideals of "democratic socialism".

The substantive part of the campaign consisted in bringing to the fore those topics where the Social Democrats found themselves in a more preferable position. The state of affairs favored this - these same topics turned out to be the most significant for voters at the moment.

The key topics of the election campaign were economic issues, in which Schroeder had the image of a competent politician – reducing unemployment and the tax burden on enterprises, social justice, long overdue pension reform.

The topics of foreign and European policy, which were not so favorable for the SPD, were of much less importance in the election agenda.

On the issues of unemployment, it was proposed to finance "Work instead of unemployment", to stop the abuse of the right of 620 vintage works, to reduce and make the schedule more flexible and thus create a number of new jobs. On issues of tax legislation, the Social Democrats promised to unload families with two children by 2,500 marks per year. The income tax was to be between 21.9 and 49 percent and the property tax was to be reintroduced. For pension problems, the way out was seen in a return to a reduced level of pensions, however, the retirement age should be increased and stricter control over the payments of all employees to pension funds should be established ("Arbeit, Innovation und Gerechtigkeit" SPD-Programm fur die Bundestagswahl 1998 Beschluss des ausserordentlichen Parteitages der SPD am 17. April 1998 in Leipzig. // [Electronic resource]: https://www.spd.de/fileadmin/Dokumente/Beschluesse/Bundesparteitag/wahlprogramm_bundesparteitag_leipzig_1998.pdf (accessed 03.05.2022).

The main focus of the campaign was on winning the center of the electorate, who found themselves facing a difficult alternative on the eve of the elections - either to vote for the CDU and lose the opportunity to fulfill their long-standing desire to replace the country's leader who has been in this post for 16 years, or to go to a change, but end up with a coalition government of the Social Democrats and the Greens", also supported by the PDS. In this regard, most of the propaganda events and materials of the SPD somehow played up the theme of the SHIFT. It was necessary to strategically strengthen the already noticeable, favorable trend. For example, the pre-election congress in Leipzig on April 17, 1998 had a widely advertised name - "The Power of the New" (Kraft des Neues), the main slogan for political agitation was "Kohl must go" (Kohl muss weg). In advertising products, the image of a speed switch in a car was often used, where a Shredder and a Stake were designated respectively at the place of forward and backward movement.

A special role in the SPD campaign was acquired by Internet agitation, which at that time was innovative in content and volume. This emphasized the modernity of the party's campaign. A modern website design was developed, many party events were broadcast live on the Internet. Numerous online editors of SPD websites worked.

By the time of the election, the site traffic figures reached 2.5 million users per day, which was 2 times higher than the CDU figures. The equipment and the leased broadband channel made it possible to ensure the operation of all party resources without delay. The site was filled with materials necessary for conducting a campaign on the ground and satisfying the curiosity of ordinary voters. Here it was possible to get acquainted with the program of the party, documents of congresses and conferences, biographies of party figures, propaganda products. There was an active conference where campaigning and political issues were discussed. Party events were broadcast live. The apotheosis of this process was the extensive coverage of the SPD election congress in Leipzig.

The activity of the Social Democrats on the Internet in 1998 strengthened their image as an innovative party focused on the technological renewal of German industry and society.

Separately, it is necessary to note the increased attention to the distribution of the first votes, which is an innovation in German campaigns, where traditionally little attention was paid to the struggle in single-mandate districts, and where such well-known candidates as Kohl often lost to newcomers in politics, since the main motive for voting was party preferences, which differ greatly geographically. In this campaign, Muntefering decided to allocate 32 of the most significant single-mandate districts in order to provide targeted organizational, methodological and financial assistance to SPD candidates. On a special account were the districts where G.Kohl went (district No. 157, as a result, G. Kohl lost to Doris Barnet, who scored 47.9% of the votes), M.Kanter (district No. 80, M.Kanter also lost to H.-B.To Bruckman, who scored 59.0% of the first votes) and H. Seehofer (district No. 202 X.Seehofer won against H.Byuttner, gaining 55% of the vote) ^[12].

The general focus on thorough work for single-mandate districts has borne fruit - of the 299 mandates won, 213 fell on candidates who passed the first votes.

Summing up, we can say that the SPD campaign was led by a professional team consisting of both full-time specialists of the party apparatus and consultants from abroad, as well as political consultants who worked with G. Schroeder in Lower Saxony. The organizers managed to create a mood in Germany of inevitably approaching changes and the end of the Kohl era, impose a favorable socio-economic agenda, and attract a significant part of CDU voters to their side (according to various estimates, from 1.15 to 1.67 million CDU voters switched to the SPD) ^[13].

According to the Infratest Institute, the SPD received the largest increase in the groups of employees +7% and entrepreneurs +5%. The increase in votes compared to the 1994 elections amounted to more than 3 million votes, which gave the SPD 46 additional mandates. As a result of an effective election campaign, power in Germany passed to the red-green coalition led by SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

3. CDU election campaignFor the CDU, the significance of the 1998 campaign was existentially great.

Losing would mean not only leaving the federal government, but also, given that the CDU's indigenous electorate is shrinking every year, a real threat of becoming a "20 percent" party. However, the real alignment of forces in the party did not favor increasing the role of "external managers", as by analogy with specialists invited to enterprises in times of crisis, political consultants can be called outside and inside the party apparatus. Repeated victories in the parliamentary elections of the last twenty years have dulled vigilance. The traditional apparatus in Konrad Adenauer's House was ready to conduct a campaign relying heavily on its own strength. The main task was to retain the existing electorate and mobilize it.

The first problem that the CDU party faced was the objectively developed fatigue of the population from the city of Kohl. For this reason, his chances of winning were not considered too high, and the party began to discuss the possibility of nominating V. Schaeuble, the leader of the parliamentary faction, as a candidate for chancellor. However, the attraction to proven solutions and the undeniable authority of Kohl in broad party circles led to the rejection of this idea and his nomination for the sixth time as the main candidate.

Instead of a personalized campaign, CDU Secretary General Peter Hinze decided to conduct a "campaign of two camps" and to escalate the fear of the consequences that the coming to power of the coalition in the person of the SPD, the Greens and the PDS may have. It was a time-tested tactic that allowed to mobilize one's electorate and at the same time scare away a significant part of potential voters from the SPD (Bericht des Generalsekret?rs der CDU Deutschlands Peter Hintze // Protokoll 10. Parteitag der CDU Deutschlands 18.-19. Mai 1998 Stadthalle Bremen / CDU Deutschlands, Bundegesh?ftsstelle (Hrsg.). – Bonn : Union Betriebs-GmbH. – S.72-84. // [Electronic resource]: https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file ?uuid=aa74c192-5f83-89ef-c27f-d2d2c507ae21&groupId=252038 (accessed 03.05.2022).

Three things were required for the success of this tactic: a rather "left-wing" candidate from the SPD, his rash harsh statements and proposals, and strengthening the image of anti-systemism among the Greens and the PDS.

However, at the very beginning, voices began to be heard in the party warning against such a concept of the campaign, which called not to reject all the proposals of the "red-green" coalition, but to oppose their proposals to them, or even directly take them into service and prove greater competence in these issues. Nevertheless, the general concept has developed according to the traditional plan - intimidation of voters with imaginary or real dangers in order to lead them to the idea of leaving everything as it is. During the campaign, this position became even more acute and the parties of the "red-green" coalition began to be portrayed as having a fundamentally different political orientation - anti-democratic and populist, economically incompetent. This method of conducting the electoral struggle became known as the "direction campaign" ("Richtungskampanie") ^[14].

The implementation of the above line from the very beginning of implementation began to give serious failures, which were noted in the press and became the reason for incessant attacks on the CDU Secretary General with accusations of incompetence. The Eastern branches opposed the fierce attacks on the PDS and tried to prove that its growing popularity should be taken into account not as evidence of the growth of non-systemic sentiments in the east, but as a reason for a careful analysis of its requirements. These contradictions were particularly evident when the CDU apparatus held the "red hands" (Rote H?nde) campaign, which consisted in putting up posters similar to the visual materials of the party in 1948, which depicted the handshake of two red hands, one of which symbolized the German Communist Party, now the PDS, and the other the Socialist Party of Germany, now the SPD and the handshake itself evoked memories of the violent unification of the two parties in the SED. However, this caused a wave of criticism in local offices in the east and unwillingness to distribute such propaganda products.

A strong blow to the concept of an acute struggle of directions was inflicted by the nomination of Gerhard Schroeder as a candidate from the SPD in March, while the entire CDU strategy was designed to nominate Oscar Lafontaine. It took about two months to rebuild the campaign work against another candidate. The CDU lost the initiative and had to go on the defensive under the onslaught of the Schroeder campaign, symbolized by the addition of a new element to the concept: "for a meaningful campaign" (Bericht des Vorsitzenden der CDU Deutschlands Bundeskanzler Dr. Helmut Kohl // Protokoll 10. Parteitag der CDU Deutschlands 18.-19. Mai 1998 Stadthalle Bremen / CDU Deutschlands, Bundegesh?ftsstelle (Hrsg.). – Bonn : Union Betriebs-GmbH. – S.18-50. // [Electronic resource]: https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file ?uuid=aa74c192-5f83-89ef-c27f-d2d2c507ae21&groupId=252038 (accessed 03.05.2022).

The aggressive campaign of the SPD on the American model gave hope to play the card of the inconsistency of the methods of struggle with the German political culture. It was decided to criticize the lack of content and personification of the SPD campaign. However, this did not work, as the substantive element in the CDU campaign itself did not find a response from voters.

The CDU also lost in the struggle of subpoenas. Its traditional themes – stimulating economic growth by lowering taxes, a United Europe and security, have given way to discussions about pensions and unemployment. Polls have shown that, while recognizing the CDU's economic competence, the population does not believe that an economic recovery under the leadership of the CDU will bring a reduction in unemployment and the tax burden.

In the areas put forward by the efforts of the SPD campaign organizers, the CDU could counter the following considerations to the fore.

On the issues of unemployment, it was proposed to provide jobs for everyone by improving the investment climate after the tax reform.

On issues of tax legislation, the CDU promised to reduce income tax from 25.9 to 15 percent of the minimum and from 53 to 39 percent of the maximum, and at the same time there should be numerous tax relief, including for employees. The total reduction in tax payments to the budget was estimated at up to 30 billion marks. For pension problems, the way out was seen in self-care through the development of a system of capitalized pension funds, and all types of pensions should be gradually reduced (Wahlplattform von CDU und CSU 1998-2002//[Electronic resource]: https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file ?uuid=7f7482d3-0e0c-818a-3701-b78da7086c4d&groupId=252038 (accessed 03.05.2022).

The traditional approach of the CDU, aimed at retaining and mobilizing the center in the face of the danger of the system sliding to the left, practically did not work in the above conditions. The outflow occurred catastrophically, first of all in the new lands, where there was no indigenous electorate for historical reasons and the economic situation in which contributed to the strengthening of the position of the party that chose the eradication of unemployment as the central theme ^[20].

This situation was accompanied by panic in the highest echelons of power, some indiscipline of the grassroots units, constant criticism in the media of tactics and methods of campaigning.

It is characteristic of the entire CDU campaign and how campaigning was conducted on the worldwide electronic Internet. Against the background of the huge editorial office of the SPD, the coalition had two employees responsible for the party's website, who physically could not provide the necessary amount of information. The design of the site remained old-fashioned, characteristic of the first pages on the web. There was no broadcast of events and work on forums (Interview with the head of the CDU Internet editorial office Susanna Land // [Electronic resource]: https//www.wahlkampf98.de (accessed 23.09.1998).

The CDU, like all other parties, has traditionally worked closely with advertising agencies, but this work, in the absence of a single concept for building a campaign, has proved to be ineffective, and sometimes, as in the case of the "red hands" campaign, simply counterproductive - an effective creative solution equally strengthens both a good idea and a bad one.

Thus, assessing the CDU campaign, it is clear that during its organization there was no transition to a different level of professionalization, fundamental decision-making remained with traditional party structures that make decisions not based on efficiency miscalculations, but based on inertial, traditional ideology. The need to compete with the Social Democrats in the problems that are central to the left spectrum - social and environmental, this time required a more flexible reaction than simply rejecting all the solutions offered by competitors. The loss of initiative and internal strife led to the collapse of the image of Germany's leading political force.

The result turned out to be natural, the loss of 6.2% of the votes, the reduction of the electorate to 35%, and in some areas of the "new" lands up to 20%, the minimum number of candidates who passed in single-mandate districts. The transition to the opposition and the election of a new party Chairman, V. Schaeuble, and a new General Secretary, A. Merkel, at the congress on November 7, 1998, became the logical outcome of this one of the most unsuccessful campaigns for the CDU.

ConclusionsHaving traced the most significant moments of the 1998 campaign by the main German parties, the following conclusion can be drawn.

In the competition between the two models of the election campaign, a clear victory was won by a new scheme of work, involving an emphasis on the personal traits of candidates for chancellors, the imposition of an agenda in the media, the active use of the Internet, the use of professional services in all areas – from campaign management to holding events while reducing the role of party assets.

The traditional campaign, conducted by means of ideological and programmatic competition, faced with this type of campaign turned out to be ineffective.

It was especially striking that the initiative in the transition to new forms of electoral struggle belonged to the SPD, which carefully preserves the traditions of political work and is more dependent on the moods of ordinary party members, who often do not approve of such innovations. This laid the foundation for the further transformation of the political culture of Germany in terms of conducting election campaigns at the beginning of the 21st century under the influence of shifts in the social structure of society, the increasingly active use of the Internet and the changing role of the media.