Was der Wähler nicht will (What the voter does not want) Der Spiegel Online - 09/06/09 In his provocative article published in Der Spiegel on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009, Henryk M. Broder outlines a severe opinion about the responsibility of the media in the outcome of the EU elections. The author defends the idea that the final results of this year’s elections were not completely unpredictable, particularly after the relative victory of the Dutch extreme-right "Partij voor de Vrijheid” led by Geert Wilders, which made it to the second place in the Netherlands on Thursday. Broder considers that there is a clear link between the results of the EU elections and the general comments and views expressed in the media right after these first results, suggesting that “right-radicalism” and “right-extremism” were about to come into power. Through their reports, which were often inadequate if not completely out of context, journalists made the wrong conclusions. According to Broder, the political reality in Germany is not marked by a “shift to the right”, but on the contrary by a clear progress of social democracy. In the current context of crisis, social-democratic themes have become common for almost all German parties in Parliament. Therefore, the current “right-swing” phenomenon is nothing more than a step back to reality and the sign that minority parties have now taken over the issues that the big parties do not have the time to deal with anymore. Finally, Broder draws a very severe picture of the European Parliament, defining it as the institution where national politicians are sent to, either as a sign of gratitude for their loyalty, or as a way to escape a lack of national success. To resume, Broder considers the result of the EU elections rather positively and argues that, although it might well be that the “people” does not always know what it wants, it clearly knows what it does not want, and this might be a very good thing. Henryk Modest Broder is a Polish born German journalist and author, known for polemics, columns and comments in written and oral media, amongst others in the magazine Der Spiegel. Broder is especially interested in Vergangenheitsbewältigung, Islamism, Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To read the full Der Spiegel article click here. Back to German Press on Europe