The German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rightly suffered a terrible defeat in the 2017 German federal election (article in German). Nevertheless, she can most likely stay in office as head of Germany’s next coalition government, which will most likely be formed by her Christian Democrats (CDU) and their sister party, the Bavarian Christian-Social Union (CSU), as well as the economically liberal Free Democrats (FDP) and the center-left Green Party (Grüne).
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) lost 8.6% in comparison with 2013 and ended with only 32.9% of the vote. When has to go back to the first post-war federal election in 1949 to find a worse result for the Union with 31%. Despite this catastrophic outcome, nobody (half-way important) within the Union questioned Merkel’s leadership claim.
The CSU alone did not really fare better than her sister party CDU. The CSU lost 10.5% and ended up with 38.8%, its second worst result since 1949. The Bavarian party has dominated its region (Bundesland) almost in the entire post-war period, mostly governing alone with an absolute majority. For the CSU, the 2018 regional election in Bavaria is even more important than the September 2017 Bundestagswahl. Unlike Merkel in the CDU, its equally volatile, opportunistic leader, Horst Seehofer, has rightly come under criticism. So far, he has managed to stay on because the party heavyweights agreed to postpone the leadership debate until the CSU party congress in November 2017.
The Union’s coalition partner, the Social-Democrats (SPD), did not fare better. In 1949, the SPD had won 29.2% of the vote. In the last federal election in 2013, they had finished with 25.7%, a small plus of 2.7% in comparison with the catastrophic 23% of 2009; minus 11.2% in comparison with 2005. The 2017 federal election result of 20.5% (minus 5.2% in comparison with 2013) is its worst ever post-war result.
Like Merkel in the CDU and Seehofer in the CSU, its party and election campaign leader, the former President of the European Parliament from 2012 until 2017, Martin Schulz (*1955), has not been forced to step down after the catastrophic election result. In his case, this made sense in so far that he had been elected party chairman and chancellorship candidate on March 19, 2017 by all (100%) party delegates.
After Martin Schulz became the SPD’s chancellorship candidate, the party rose up to 10% in the poll’s, from 23% up to 33%. A red-red-green coalition, formed by the Social-Democrats, the hard-core Left (Die Linke) and the Greens seemed no longer out of the question.
For all who like a little after-shock: In 2013, the SPD, the Greens and the Left could have ousted Merkel and formed a center to far-left coalition. They could have gone on a German public money spending spree, and they could have tried to “europanize” the national debts of the eurozone countries, that is turn the national debts of eurozone countries into eurozone debt. Luckily, they disagreed on foreign and military policy. In addition, the conflicting history of the Social-Democrats and The Left, especially in the GDR, as well as the fact that the former SPD-leader Oscar Lafontaine had moved to The Left, prevented this nightmare coalition from materializing.
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Back to Schulz: As quickly as he had risen in the polls, as quickly Martin Schulz (and his SPD) fell back to “normal” and even below, as people realized that he was no German Corbyn or Sanders. On the contrary, he is a centrist who has been around forever — he is the longest serving member of the SPD party leadership (since 1999). Politically, he is relatively close to Merkel. Furthermore, he is a man with no executive experience.
In the one and only, boring TV duel with Chancellor Merkel, Martin Schulz appeared more like Merkel’s future junior partner than a serious leadership contender. He agreed to often with Merkel and, indeed, he and his party (together with the Greens) had been a vital Merkel support during the ill-managed migrant and refugee crisis, during which the chancellor came under pressure, last, but not least, from the right-wing of her own CDU (with some good and many bad arguments).
This leads us to some of the reasons why Merkel rightly lost the 2017 federal election. Many critics rightly argue that the CDU has been “social-democratized”. Merkel moved her party more to the center and even to the left to the point that many rightly argue that the CDU, the SPD, the Greens and the Left are four center left parties. The only alternatives are the FDP, which is advocating the free-market, at least as long as the interests of their core party base are not touched. But they are not Conservatives. This leaves the door on the political right wide open for the Alternative for Germany (AfD); the name stems from Merkel’s preposterous claim that many of her decisions are without alternative (alternativlos).
The AfD was founded in 2013 in opposition to Merkel’s disastrous eurozone crisis management (with some good arguments). However, its original leader, Bernd Lucke, a professor of macroeconomics, lost his 2015 leadership battle against Frauke Petry. Since then, the party has become more conservative, more anti-EU, more anti-establishment, more anti-immigration. The 2015 migrant crisis turned the AfD largely into a one-theme party, opposed to migrants, refugees and Muslims in general.
Party chairwoman Frauke Petry who, after the 2017 federal election, has left the AfD together with her husband and a few others, is by no means a centrist, reasonable politician. She has repeatedly pandered to the ultra-conservatives, even the Nazis. She went as far as to demand that the Nazi term “völkisch” should again have a “positive connotation” (daran arbeiten, dass dieser Begriff wieder positiv besetzt ist). Although this word is closely related to the word “people” (Volk), the term völkisch reportedly appeared only around 1870 and is today almost entirely connected to the Nazi era.
One of the co-founders of the AfD is Alexander Gauland. He came from the conservative, right-wing of the CDU. He now presides the party together with the equally controversial Alice Weidel; she had some good arguments in the past when it came to criticism of Merkel’s and the eurozone’s economic and financial policies, together with many less convincing ones; she is by no means an acceptable, centrist politician.
Back to Alexander Gauland: He claimed before the election in front of supporters that the Germans had the right to be proud of accomplishments by German soldiers in the two World Wars (Deutsche hätten “das Recht, stolz zu sein auf Leistungen deutscher Soldaten in zwei Weltkriegen”). Two years ago, such a statement would have finished the political career of almost any politician. Instead, with people such as Gauland, Petry, Höcke (to name just one more), the AfD managed to win 12.6% (+7.9%) in the 2017 federal election. A proto-Nazi party is back in the German parliament. On the positive side, one has to mention that no other party wants to form a coalition with the AfD and that most voters voted for the AfD out of protest against the established political parties and not because the share the party’s program.
This leads us back to the question why Merkel rightly lost in 2017. She left the door wide open on the CDU’s right flank. She publicly ignored criticism of her handling of both the financial and the migrant crises although, in reality, she adapted some of her positions. Many on the conservative right as well as some in favor of more economic liberalism feel alienated by the chancellors policies, by her moves towards the political left.
A voter transition analysis (Wählerstromanalyse) by the Infratest dimap institute for the first German public television channel (ARD) shows that Merkel’s CDU mainly lost votes to two camps: 1.36 million votes towards the FDP and 0.98 million votes towards the infamous AfD.
In addition to the above mentioned AfD with a plus of 7.9% of the vote, the FDP managed to win additional 5.9%, bringing the party back to the Bundestag with 10.7%, making it the fourth largest party in parliament behind the CDU/CSU, the Social Democrats and the AfD.
As pointed out more than once in these pages, Angela Merkel is by no means the steadfast politician she claims to be. On the contrary, she has been more than once opportunistic and even populist, turning her position 180 degrees around, sometimes overnight.
Despite four largely social-democratic parties in parliament (CDU/CSU, SPD, the Greens and The Left), workers and the unemployed have moved to the far-right AfD. This is no accident. Mussolini was a Socialist before becoming a Fascist and the Nazis called themselves National-Socialists. In Germany in 2017, many workers and unemployed felt alienated, forgotten by the traditional parties. The reforms under former chancellor Schröder were partly right and necessary, but the creation of 400-euro-jobs and 1-euro-jobs are not just economic nonsense, they are socially unjust, simply anti-Social-Democratic. No wonder the SPD lost votes. The Union has not changed anything to this system which partly creates and cements a social-underclass. As for the Greens, they had been in favor of the Schröder reforms. The AfD has become the new party of the working class, the working poor and the unemployed, partly similar to the Front National in France.
The poor saw their welfare, their aids cut. For years, they had been told that there was no money for them. At the same time, there was plenty of money to save the banks. And when the refugees and other migrants arrived, there was suddenly enough money for them.
In addition, the workers, the poor and the unemployed suffer the competition from the new migrants for low-paid, low-skilled jobs, as well as for cheap accommodation. Furthermore, most migrants end up in poorer neighborhoods and send their children, who lack language skills, to schools of the workers, the poor and the unemployed.
We can debate up to which point all of this is true. However, it remains a fact that for a large majority of the workers, the poor and the unemployed, this is how they see it. And they are partly right.
There are other answers to why Merkel rightly lost the 2017 federal election. In the 2017 migrant and refugee crisis, she was by no means a hero. She helped the crisis to emerge by cutting aid to refugee camps in the countries neighboring Syria. Germany is no military, defense and foreign policy leader in Europe. Because of its Nazi past, Germany is reluctant to send its military abroad.
Although President Obama’s failed Syria policy is largely responsible for the 2015 migrant crisis, he was right to point out that the Europeans do not contribute enough to Nato, a claim later rightly repeated by President Trump. Syria is in fact in the area of responsibility of the Europeans. The Mediterranean is the mare nostrum, our sea. It matters for Europe to care about what goes on in the countries around the Mediterranean. Regarding the migrant crisis, Merkel and the Germans in general did not care about what was going on in Greece and Italy, where refugees had arrived even before the 2015 crisis. Merkel and others made sure that “Dublin” was not touched, that the refugees had to remain in the EU country in which they first had arrived. Logically, this was never Germany. There is a book in German by Robin Alexander documenting the events: Die Getriebenen (Siedler Verlag, 2017. Order it from Amazon.de).
Furthermore, once the Hungarians and others closed their borders and did the dirty job for Merkel, she did not complain to harshly. She could have asked those countries to send her more refugees. On the contrary, she suddenly discovered her love for all kind of autocrats and dictators such as Erdogan, whom she had ignored for years. Shortly before an important Turkish election, she went on a pilgrimage to Erdogan, just to make sure that refugees would no longer come to Germany. Obviously, she did nothing to tackle the fundamental problems leading to all kinds of refugee crises.
Furthermore, the way Merkel dealt with the European allies was appalling. As mentioned above, for a long time, she had ignored the refugees arriving in Greece, Italy and elsewhere. Once — in a unilateral move — she had decided to welcome them, she demanded the fellow Europeans to show solidarity. First, the Swedes had supported her move, but quickly, Sweden sought itself forced to reverse its policy. With 27:1 in the EU against Merkel, Germany demanded solidarity from the EU for its solitary, uncoordinated migrant and refugee policy move which led to an influx of roughly one million people into Germany without any border controls.
Angela Merkel likes to repeat that she would not change anything regarding the 2015 migrant/refugee crises (not all migrants were refugees, but that’s for another article) if she had to decide it once more. At the same time, she assures voters, that 2015 should and will never happen again. Dear physician, there is a „slight“ contradiction between your two assertions.
Merkel’s environmental policy is not any better. In 1986, the lady had obtained a doctorate in quantum chemistry. Therefore, one should assume that she perfectly understands nuclear energy. She had been a staunch supporter of this form of energy until the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. Overnight, she reversed her energy policy. Maybe partly, because she had learned something. But at least equally important was the fact that she understood that she could be attacked in the upcoming election for her longtime nuclear energy support.
Her entire policy on clean energy is not credible. Germany remained the number one producer of brown coal. Just the night before an important EU decision on car emissions, the German auto lobby met with Merkel and, overnight, Germany was no longer in support of stricter emissions.
Germany’s military is a joke, it’s Nato contribution insufficient. Less known is the fact that, under Merkel’s watch, Germany ended the compulsory drafting in the military in 2011. In the long term, this could have disastrous consequences. Not only do all social classes no longer live together for some time, but the „citizen in uniform“ was one way of preventing the military from becoming once again a state within the state as during the Weimar Republic.
Other (often conservative) positions Merkel has given up over the years include the minimum wage, a quota for women in supervisory boards of major companies in Germany, an end of the German school system based on three pillars in 2011, the double nationality for citizens and, most recently, a yes to same-sex marriage; it is true that Merkel said publicly that she voted against same-sex marriage, but the change was quickly pushed through parliament in 2017, and Merkel allowed her parliamentarians to vote according to their conscience. Among us, regarding any matter that comes forward in parliament, all parliamentarians are free to vote for whatever they want too. Party discipline is no legal requirement. The list is long. Some changes were overdue. Others remain dubious. However, changes were generally hard to follow for the right-wing of the CDU/CSU, whereas the left was more or less served.
Angela Merkel is like Barack Obama no great leader at all. Merkel only looks „great“ to some because, around her, you have or had „leaders“ such as Sarkozy and Hollande, Berlusconi, Orban, Putin, Erdogan, Trump and others. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed woman is queen.
Regarding Germany’s economic „success“, Angela Merkel was lucky that her predecessor, Chancellor Schröder, made some fundamental reforms (some in the wrong-direction, with long term effects), that oil prices went down, that the ECB is flooding the eurozone with easy money, bringing down the interest rate on the German public debt, but creating long-term problems because the interest rate should reflect the underlying risk of any investment, be it public or private, and because the euro is too weak for Germany, allowing the country to export massively, whereas the „Club Med“ (Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain) suffers, because the euro is too strong for them.
In short, Angela Merkel rightly lost the 2017 election. However, because and only because there is „no credible alternative“ to her within her own party and within all the other German parties, she can stay on.
The next German government will most likely be a so-called Jamaica coalition. The term refers to the colors black, yellow and green in the Jamaican flag, which are the colors of the CDU/CSU, the FDP and the Greens.
In the 2017 federal election with a turnout of 76.2%, the CDU/CSU won 32.9%, the FDP 10.7% and the Greens won 8.9% (+0.5%) of the vote.
Coalition talks will be difficult, but should most likely succeed in the end. Nobody wants a snap election, which would be a success for the right-wing, populist AfD. Furthermore, there is „no alternative“ because the Social Democrats (rightly) came to the conclusion that the voter had said no to the Grand Coalition. On the other hand, one could ask why the SPD should bear full responsibility but not the CDU/CSU, above all Merkel?
The 2017 voter decision seems right insofar as the days of the paralyzing Grand Coalition are over, without allowing the extremes (AfD and Left) to be able to obstruct the creation of an innovative Jamaica Coalition, hopefully bringing a fresh wind to German politics.
Since May 2017, there is already a Jamaica Coalition in Schleswig-Holstein (article in German). In addition, yesterday, 87 out of 90 Green delegates said yes to Jamaica Coalition talks. Only 3 delegates abstained from voting. Not a single no was registered.
In any case, the days of the childless German leader dubbed „Mommy“ (Mutti) seem numbered. Merkel has to go. The faster, the better. If only there was a credible successor.
Could Ursula von der Leyen step in? She is not liked in her own party. More importantly, so far, as Minister of Defense, she has not been able to convince yet. Wolfgang Schäuble is too old and now decided to become the next President of the Bundestag. The Minister of Finance was a cornerstone of Merkel’s cabinet. His move gives Merkel more room in the upcoming coalition talks, but it casts a shadow of doubt over Germany’s future fiscal discipline. Hopefully, the FDP ministers will take over Schäuble’s role, who delivered balanced budgets from 2014 until today.
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The German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Photo: Sandro Halank / Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons.
Article added on October 1, 2017 at 00:01 Riga time. Updated at 07:24 Riga time.
