A Critical Election
The September elections were certainly the most exciting in post-war German history. The Greens experienced a huge rise, in some polls they even broke out in the first place, only to be grounded by a series of clumsy moves in the campaign of Annalene Baerbock, who was the first official green candidate for chancellor. In the end, they went far below the expected twenty percent of votes or more. Nonetheless, with just under 15 percent, they achieved the best result in history. In contrast, the Christian Democrats, who were to win about a third of the vote according to opinion polls in March, scored their worst result in history, finishing second for the first time since 2002, with 24.1 percent. A historically bad result was also recorded in their traditional stronghold, Bavaria, where the CSU narrowly crossed the electoral threshold, winning 5.2 percent of the vote. At the end of the campaign, the Christian Democrat chancellor candidate Laschet scared voters with the possibility of a red-green-red coalition, which was reaffirmed at the provincial election in Berlin.
The Left also crashed in the elections and re-entered the Bundestag through the back door, thanks to the alternative electoral threshold, i.e., by winning three direct, district seats. The Liberals have only minimally improved their score compared to 2017, but even that is enough for the FDP to be counted among the election winners. The alternative for Germany has not lost dramatically, but its growth has stopped, and it is increasingly becoming a specific phenomenon related to the southern parts of the former East Germany, i.e., the constituencies in Saxony, parts of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.
In the end, the Social Democrats came out on top with an unimpressive 25.7 percent, effectively repeating the 2009 result. Chancellor Olaf Scholz is most responsible for their comeback. By calmly appearing and projecting an aura of continuity and reliability from the Angela Merkel era, he managed to put aside the deep divisions in the party between more moderate members and the left wing led by party youth Jusos (Young Socialists), and the party co-chairs Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans. While the Greens took much of large urban areas, the SPD seized the east of the country from the Christian Democrats and ended up in front of the Union in almost all districts outside Bavaria and some black forts in Rhineland, Westphalia and Lower Saxony, mostly in traditionally Catholic areas.
Although the former suffered a heavy defeat and the latter won with an unimpressive result, both the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats actually experienced (final) dethronement from the position of large, catch-all people’s parties (Volksparteien), and woke up the morning after the election in a whole new party system constellation, in which there are two slightly larger and three middle parties, and the formation of a parliamentary majority requires more than two partners, which leads to cooperation beyond the division into “left” (Greens and SPD) and “bourgeois” (CDU / CSU and FDP) camps. After a decade of stability, and even boring predictability, after Angela Merkel, but also the long-lasting grand coalition, resulted in the numbness of politics and the political, a new time is looming in Germany.
Pre-explorations and Combinations
Since the election result left open various possibilities for post-election coalition, this process also experienced innovations from the very beginning. Considering that both the parties and the citizens are already fed up with the grand coalition, in fact two options have crystallized, the government led by Laschet, and the government led by Scholz, and in both cases the Greens and the FDP would sit as smaller partners. Since the possible “Jamaican” (black-yellow-green) coalition failed in 2017 precisely because the FDP withdrew after failing to find a common language with the Greens, the two parties decided to hold a pre-exploration, i.e., preliminary talks to establish mutual trust but also to search for possible points of agreement and programmatic content that could be the biggest problem in the negotiations themselves.
The pre-explorations took place in a generally friendly atmosphere, again showing how the two parties are connected by a desire to change the status quo and their strong popularity among young voters, as well as a commitment to personal freedoms, but are divided by deep divisions regarding the question who should, and by what means, finance the confrontation with climate change and take measures to combat growing social inequality in Germany. Pre-explorations also showed that after a disappointing result, Chancellor candidate Baerbock moved into the background, and Robert Habeck, the Greens’ co-leader, took over the leading position and openly sought the position of Vice Chancellor. The youth wing of the Greens immediately emphasized that after the pre-exploration they wanted triple explorative talks (and then the coalition negotiations themselves) with the SPD, and not something that would lead to a Laschet cabinet, while the young Liberals a little less openly showed their preference for the “traffic light” (red-yellow-green) instead of the Jamaican coalition.
Before announcing the decisions made by their parties’ executive bodies, both the Greens and the FDP publicly complained that the Union’s interlocutors were indiscreet and blabbered out the details of the preliminary talks to the media. It was just a good excuse, as it became clear day by day that quarrels among Christian Democrats and the shaky position of Laschet as head of the CDU and Chancellor candidate diminished the chances of starting talks in the Jamaican format. Liberals would certainly find it easier to negotiate with Christian Democrats on financial and economic issues, and some Green provincial leaders, such as Baden-Württemberg Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann, saw the Union as a better interlocutor on climate issues. However, ultimately what prevailed was the fact that on the one side stood SPD as the first-ranked party and the calm-looking Scholz (who did not stand out in public during the pre-explorations, unlike his counterpart from the Union who constantly gave public statements), and on the other Laschet in conflict with his party, which, as time went on, began to publicly process and come to terms with its historical defeat.
The Union in Search of Unity
In the first days after the election, Laschet pretended that nothing dramatic had happened and that he and Scholz had an equal chance of forming a government. However, accusations soon began to amass. Söder, whom even the sparrows on the Berlin linden trees know would have achieved a better result than him, has publicly expressed his doubts in the possibility of forming a Jamaican government. Former contenders for the post of party leader, Friedrich Merz, Norbert Röttgen, and also Jens Spahn, clearly pointed their fingers at Laschet. The now former Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia achieved a small victory when he managed to push Ralph Brinkhaus to remain the head of the parliamentary group, but only until the spring, and not for the usual one-year term. Laschet’s weakness as a candidate was evident even during the candidacy phase of the election. Namely, contrary to the usual practice of a chancellor candidate submitting a direct constituency candidacy (although often with a reserve variant, i.e., simultaneous list candidacy), Laschet decided to appear only on the provincial list, justifying it by not wanting to stand in the way of young candidates on the ground. The real reason more likely lies in the fact that he feared that in his home district, in the city of Aachen, he would not be able to fight the green candidates, who eventually won not only there, but also in a number of other city constituencies.
Although Merkel has caught up with her mentor Kohl in terms of her staying in power, and even though the first woman to head the European Commission also comes from the CDU, the party is actually not following the signs of the times. There are fewer women in the Christian Democratic caucus than in in the Green and Liberal parliamentary groups taken together. Furthermore, the party does not have a clear value profile or clear public policy ideas, and in addition to the lack of women, it also lacks young cadres. Still, some of the party veterans decided to encourage rejuvenation by setting their own examples. Her close associates, Peter Altmeier, the still incumbent Minister of Economy and Energy, and the Minister of Defense, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, short-lived party president and would-be chancellor candidate, both from the Saar, have relinquished their seats and left seats in the Bundestag to younger colleagues.
The new leader of the Christian Democrats should be popular in both the east and west of the country and someone who can bridge the gap between the market-oriented and social wings of the party, as well as between more socially conservative and liberal members. The question is, is there such a person in the CDU? Laschet announced that he did not want to be the one to stand in the way of a possible agreement on the government majority (in case the traffic light coalition fails to find common ground), but also stated that the new president should be found in an alternative way and that he would like to moderate the process. Those who want greater involvement of ordinary members in the election of the party leadership saw this as a call for behind-the-scenes agreements, while it is more likely his desire to retain some informal influence, but also to reach a preliminary agreement within party elites on a compromise candidate who would then serve to build consensus. This would prevent new divisions in the party that would be provoked by a fierce race of many candidates, either at the party convention or at a general intra-party election.
The CDU rulebook provides for the polling of members’ opinions, but its results are not binding, and the party leadership is elected at a regular party convention. What is already clear is that an extraordinary electoral party convention will be held soon, to be preceded by consultations among leaders of party organizations at the district level. Whether and to what extent ordinary members will be involved in the process of shaping candidacies for the party convention is not yet entirely clear, but it is uncertain that party elites are ready to radically expand the inclusiveness of intra-party elections.
How Will the Traffic Light Flicker?
Scholz was relieved to see the Left’s poor result thwarting the need to enter post-election talks with them. The Greens are natural partners for him, while he will genuinely try to find common ground with the Liberals, although the two parties have not cooperated at the federal level since September 1982, when Genscher and three other Liberal ministers left Helmut Schmidt’s government due to insurmountable differences in their positions on budgetary and employment policies.
In addition to the position of vice chancellor, Habeck openly cast his eye on the position of finance minister. However, the first man of the FDP, Christian Lindner, is also seeking the position of finance minister. Budget and tax issues will be the main stumbling blocks in the deeper exploration and coalition negotiations of the traffic light trio. The Reds and Greens would loosen constitutional borrowing restrictions to encourage public investment in dilapidated infrastructure and housing due to shortage of affordable real estate in big cities. The FDP, on the other hand, considers fiscal responsibility an important part of its policy. There is no two-thirds majority for changing the Constitution, nor will there be, but through extra-budgetary investment funds, a similar goal could be achieved by a detour. If Liberals agree to such a thing, they will in turn seek to cut public spending, especially in subsidies that go to the car industry. Greens and Liberals agree on the need for stronger investment in education. In addition, in contrast to the SPD, they want full legalization of cannabis, without additional restrictions. However, the Liberals are getting goosebumps from announcements of new and higher taxes, while the SPD and the Greens agree quite nicely on the idea of reintroducing the wealth tax and increasing the tax burden for the highest incomes. The Liberals would also completely abolish the solidarity contribution of 5.5 percent (on either income or company revenue), which was initially introduced to finance the unification of Germany, and from this year it only affects highest salaries and according to the red-green plans should be used to finance social programs. Greens and Liberals agree on the need to digitize public administration and reduce unnecessary bureaucracy. According to the CDU, the SPD systematically hampered that reform during the grand coalition. The Greens want a general speed limit on the Autobahn of 130 per hour, which would bring the Germans, fans of fast and powerful cars, in line with the rest of the EU, but Liberals see this as confirmation of their argument that the Greens are a “party of restrictions” and not a “party of personal freedoms,” as the FDP defines itself.
Although calm, seemingly mild, and uncharismatic in his performance, Scholz is actually a tough negotiator who will in various ways try to push through most of what the SPD wants, which means he will have to offer something to the FDP to swallow perhaps the biggest and symbolically most significant controversy, and that is raising the federal minimum wage to 12 euros gross, something that the Social Democrats see as the core of their policy and a way to reduce the growing social disparities. On the other hand, the Liberals interpret it as a top-down redistribution policy that bypasses tripartite negotiations and setting of the minimum wage via committees made up of employers and trade unions, but also of independent experts, i.e., representatives of the academia.
German parties, as well as the public, are not prone to snap elections and prefer to put the state ahead of party interests. Already in the election night, all the actors said they wanted to agree on a new government majority by Christmas. While this may not materialize, it is certain that there is no room for failure. All three sides will have to make compromises and all three sides want this new story to succeed. Lindner learned Müntefering’s old teaching that “it sucks to be in opposition,” and the Greens think the time has come for them to set the tone for a new government that will take climate change seriously. For the Social Democrats, this is an opportunity they cannot miss after almost two decades of crisis. It is to be hoped for Europe that the traffic light compromises will not be too rotten and that the reforms will be designed up to level, in order to bring much-needed winds of freshness to the faltering European Union.
