Germany’s knife-edge general election campaign took an extraordinary new turn this week when the conservative candidate, Edmund Stoiber, pledged himself to the deportation of 4 000 alleged Islamist militants if he is voted in as chancellor on Sunday. ”There always has to be a difference between tolerance and stupidity,” he declared.
Behind in most polls, the Bavarian governor appeared to be making a last-gasp effort to tap into fears over a link between immigration and terrorism in Europe. He told a rowdy crowd in Werne that there were 30 000 identified Muslim fundamentalist extremists in Germany.
Stoiber added: ”Among these 30 000 so-called Islamists, there are 4 000 who are ready for violence. The police know that. I say to you: these 4 000 — I will expel them from the country.”
Stoiber made no reference in his speech to any kind of judicial process.
It was not clear how Stoiber intended to carry out the deportations under existing legislation. His undertaking can be expected to provoke indignant criticism from representatives of Germany’s Muslim minority, coming as it does only two days after he and his lieutenants pulled the issues of race and immigration into the election for the first time.
The Bavarian governor, who is trailing by up to three points in the polls after Chancellor Gerhard Schröder staged a remarkable comeback, said that with four million unemployed it would be ”irresponsible to open the market to everyone”.
Stoiber’s home affairs spokesperson went much further, declaring that immigrants should not only be made to take integration courses, but should also be made to pay for them.
Wednesday’s pledge is likely to be depicted by Stoiber’s opponents as an attempt to jump on the right-wing populist bandwagon that has been successful in the Netherlands. — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002