The German Social Democrats’ (SPD) existential crisis can no longer be treated as a typical party crisis. The party captured a mere 9.7% of the vote in regional elections in Bavaria this month, and it is trailing the populist Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) and the Greens in national opinion polls.

With another important regional election next week in Hesse, polls indicate that the SPD will lose still more support, though not as dramatically as in Bavaria.

The SPD and the Christian Democratic Union/ Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) have stood as the twin pillars of German politics since the end of World War II. However, with the SPD declining, Germany is moving from a de facto two-party system to a multiparty system in which no single party plays a dominant role.

The German post-war consensus is collapsing in key areas: history (attitudes toward WWII); geopolitics (attitudes toward Russia); the economy (attitudes toward the car industry); and ethics (attitudes toward refugees).

This is reflected in the fracturing of the political scene.

German voters have rejected the longstanding CDU/ CSU-SPD “grand coalition”. Whereas smaller parties once functioned as mere subsidiaries of either the SPD or the CDU/ CSU, the bit players are now eclipsing the former stars.

Moreover, what was once “Red Munich” has now turned Green. Whereas cities had long been SPD strongholds, they are switching to the Greens and other smaller parties. Making matters worse for the SPD, the demographic profile of its core electorate amounts to a death sentence. Only 8% of SPD voters are under the age of 30, and 54% are over 60. By contrast, just 24% of Greens are over 60. And Die Linke, meanwhile, has become increasingly attractive to younger new leftists and ageing post-communists from the former East Germany.

Just as a two-party system ensures stability and predictability, so might its collapse contribute to radical social change. By definition, the fall of the establishment implies the rise of the anti-establishment, often in the form of populism.

Since 2005, the SPD has participated as the minority partner in three grand-coalition governments. As a result, it has come to be associated with the status quo, even though it hasn’t been able to claim direct credit for the previous governments’ successes.

Something similar happened in Austria, where the Social Democratic Party ruled either alone or in conjunction with the Austrian People’s Party between 1971 and 1999 (except for 1983-1986). Such long periods of grand-coalition rule allowed for the right-wing populist Freedom Party of Austria to present itself as an agent for change.

When a grand coalition is threatened, its members tend to panic. Those who toe the party line lose support, as German chancellor Angela Merkel has. Others thus attempt to appropriate populist language, as CSU leader Horst Seehofer has done in recent months, while still others will try to associate themselves with new political platforms.

Hence, Alexander Dobrindt of the CSU has promised a “conservative revolution,” while Martin Schulz, the erstwhile leader of the SPD, has promoted EU federation.

At any rate, when the constituent parts of a coalition start moving in different directions, things quickly fall apart. Still, it is worth noting that while the SPD and the CDU are currently losing support, their ideas remain popular.

Their problem is not that they are devoid of ideas, but that they lack political credibility.

This credibility deficit has created a vacuum for other parties to fill. Thus, the Greens have made gains in Bavaria by supporting an open-door refugee policy that actually originated with the CDU/SPD.

Likewise, the AfD has wrested the anti-refugee mantle away from the CSU and Seehofer, who went so far as to try to undermine Merkel’s government from within while serving as Minister of the Interior. The common thread connecting all of the parties that performed well in the Bavarian election is that they ran politicians who are at least consistent in their views.

Unfortunately for Germany, multiparty systems are generally unstable and less predictable, which explains why every other European country, Latvia is a current example, constantly struggles to establish a governing coalition.

Under such conditions, it is not uncommon for bizarre arrangements to arise, including coalitions between the far left and the far right, as we have seen in Greece, Italy, and Slovakia.

Germany’s best hope now is that its newly emerging multiparty system will impede the progress of the AfD, by nullifying its anti-establishment appeal. The AfD will take its place on the radical right as one party among many.

Its support will remain in the 10% to 20% range, but it will not go any further than that. In fact, this has already happened in Bavaria, where the AfD garnered 10.2% of the vote this month, down from the 12.4% that it received in last year’s federal election.

Another potential silver lining to a multiparty system is that it might lead to more political engagement. In the case of Bavaria, voter participation rose to 72.4% this election cycle, up from 63.6% five years ago.

Looking ahead, Germany may now end up with rotating coalition governments comprising multiple parties.

For example, one could imagine an arrangement between the CDU/CSU, the Free Democrats, and the Greens – the so-called Jamaica coalition.

However, this scenario would likely produce political paralysis, because politicians from competing parties within the coalition would constantly undercut one another other while pandering to the popular will. Moreover, the chancellorship will always be weaker in a patchwork government.

Most likely, the fall of the CDU/CSU-SPD duopoly will undermine German hegemony in Europe, even if no other country can replace Germany in that role. At the same time, the weakening of the SPD will diminish the socialist faction in the European Parliament, where a similar eclipse of two-party rule could be in the offing.

Yet without the twin pillars of the European People’s Party and the Party of European Socialists, the parliament will be incapable of making even insignificant decisions.

As Germany and the SPD go, so goes Europe.

Slawomir Sierakowski, founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement, is director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw and a fellow at the nRobert Bosch Academy in Berlin.

Source: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/views/analysis/the-end-of-germanys-two-party-system-is-on-the-horizon-881213.html

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 Andrea Nahles (L) and Olaf Scholz of Social Democratic party (SPD) give a press statement in Berlin. Photograph: Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters

When Dietmar Nietan, treasurer of the German Social Democrats, takes the stage at the party’s Berlin headquarters at 9am today, the world will be watching closely – but the thoughts of his fellow functionaries will already be wandering to the challenges of the weeks ahead.

If Nietan announces that members of Germany’s centre-left party have voted against a coalition with Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the country will be plunged into political chaos and questions will arise over the future of a chancellor who can no longer organise political alliances.

If, as expected, Nietan reports a yes vote, it will end five months of political paralysis in Europe’s largest economy, but also pile pressure on the Social Democrats to reverse the party’s freefall in the polls and stop the erosion of one of the two central pillars of Germany’s postwar order.

Both of the SPD’s previous coalitions with Merkel as a senior partner have ended in the party recording historically poor results in national polls. This time around, senior members want to try a different, more aggressive formula. They hope to have found a suitably combative new figurehead in Andrea Nahles, a former leader of the Young Socialist youth wing. She has a leftwing slant, a reputation as a forceful orator, and once mocked Merkel by singing a version of the Pippi Longstocking theme song in the Bundestag.

Nahles, who is likely to take over leadership of Europe’s oldest social democratic party from Martin Schulz at a summit in April, faces the challenge of taking the fight to a conservative CDU that shares the government benches with her party colleagues.

A former labour minister, she is not expected to take up a role in the next cabinet, and would therefore have a freer rein to use her rhetorical skills in a parliament shaken by the arrival of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the first overtly nationalist party in the Bundestag for half a century.

While the AfD will become the biggest opposition party in the event of a grand coalition, the presence of the rightwing populists has also encouraged liberal and leftwing parties to up their game. Clips of verbal sparring acts are now going viral in a way that used to be rare in the staid world of German politics.

The SPD is already priming its first weapon for the fightback: last Friday the party submitted a draft law to scrap paragraph 219a of the German penal code, which currently criminalises the “advertising” of abortion services. The proposal is likely to be opposed by a CDU with strong Catholic support, and could see just the sort of public clash that Nahles needs to raise her profile.

But if the success of the German centre-left’s new strategy is up in the air, it’s because the challenge is nothing short of existential. Weeks of coalition talks have seen the AfD overtake the SPD to claim second place behind Merkel’s Christian Democrats in some polls.

The former Social Democrat finance minister Peer Steinbrück said last Friday: “Like the Socialists in France, the SPD is in danger of caring more about anti-discrimination and lifestyle issues than the concerns of the majority of the population.” Among its working-class base, the SPD is haemorrhaging votes to the far right. In the town of Cottbus, near the Polish border, the Social Democrats were the strongest force as recently as 2014. But tensions between locals and refugees have harmed the SPD more than the CDU: in a poll last week the party lost 17 percentage points, and the AfD came top with 29%.

“Every recent grand coalition has weakened the SPD and strengthened the far right”, said the Cologne-based film-maker and SPD member Steve Hudson, who led a campaign for a no vote. “The next one could end in the death of the Social Democratic party in Germany.”

Support for the centre-left among young and middle-class voters also seems to be draining away, either to leftwing Die Linke, which topped a recent poll for the 2021 Berlin state elections, or to the Green party, which is remaking itself under a new liberal-centrist leadership.

“The SPD’s problem is that it is no longer the strongest party in socially relevant circles,” said political scientist and SPD expert Gero Neugebauer. “It has ceded ground to Die Linke and the AfD among the workers, and is losing votes to the Greens amongst the bourgeoisie.

“They say they need to deal with the threat of the new right, but their problem is less the AfD than a lack of answers on the issues the AfD is thriving on. The SPD, like the whole of German politics, is still struggling to identify what the challenges of globalisation really are.”

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/mar/04/germany-social-democrats-grand-coalition-cdu-merkel

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“It is clear to everyone that the chancellor is going into a last term,” European Commissioner Guenther Oettinger told Deutschlandfunk radio, adding that she would “skillfully set in motion the succession in these four years”.

But with dissatisfaction growing in her conservative bloc at having to cede the coveted finance minister slot to secure the Social Democrats’ (SPD) backing for a renewed “grand coalition”, some think the succession could come sooner than expected.

While Oettinger and the 63-year-old chancellor herself lean toward a final Merkel term that lasts into the 2020s, others are straining for a swifter handover.

Following is a list of groups and individuals who could be instrumental in precipitating the end of Merkel’s 12-year-old leadership.

THE BUSINESS WING

The fabled “Mittelstand” of medium-sized exporters is the backbone not just of Germany’s economy but also of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian CSU sister party. Lawmakers representing Mittelstand interests have long been among her critics.

Parliamentary Mittelstand Circle (PKM) leader Christian von Stetten, 47, was a loud opponent of Merkel’s policies on bailing out Greece during the euro zone crisis and of her decision to open Germany’s borders to over a million migrants in 2015.

Carsten Linnemann, head of the Mittelstand Association of the CDU/CSU (MIT), went as far as to abstain in the party leadership’s vote on endorsing the new grand coalition.

But other powerful interests, including the women‘s, social policy and senior citizens’ wings of the parties are all strong backers of Merkel.

THE YOUTH WING

Jens Spahn, the 37-year-old arch-conservative state secretary in the finance ministry, has long been seen as one of the conservatives’ rising stars and has long been rumored to be eyeing the succession.

“The chancellor should have the courage to make ministers of critical people as well,” his ally Paul Ziemiak, head of the conservative youth organization, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, urging Merkel to find senior jobs for the next generation.

Daniel Guenther, 44, the more liberal – and more popular – premier of the state of Schleswig-Holstein, fresh from a shock victory in regional elections last year, is seen as a less threatening possible successor.

OLD RIVALS

Friedrich Merz, 62, and Wolfgang Bosbach, 65, who once vied with Merkel for the party leadership, are freer than most to criticize the chancellor, but their age means none could offer the kind of generational handover many are pushing for. The same goes for Roland Koch, 59, former premier of the state of Hessen. All three are regarded as more uncompromisingly conservative than Merkel.

THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATS

Despite the SPD’s dismal poll showing – an INSA poll has them on 16.5 percent, barely ahead of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) – the party holds Merkel’s future in its hands.

If the more radical members follow their hearts and vote against party leadership to reject a new grand coalition, fresh elections, a minority government, or renewed negotiations with smaller parties on a three-way coalition could ensue. In all those scenarios, the price could be Merkel’s departure.

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Merkel is just the latest leader at Davos to criticize a protectionist and isolationist stance towards the world’s problems.

Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, delivers a speech during a plenary session on day two of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2018. World leaders, influential executives, bankers and policy makers attend the 48th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos from Jan. 23 – 26.

German leader Angela Merkel said that multilateralism was under threat and said that protectionism is not the answer to the world’s problems.

“Frankly speaking, the country I have the honor to represent and where I am chancellor has difficulties. And polarization is something that we see in our country as well, which we haven’t had for decades,” Merkel said.

She attributed increasing populism and polarization to both the euro zone crisis and migration crisis seen in Europe over the last few years following an influx of refugees, but said Germany would not shrink from the world stage.

“Germany wishes to be a country that lends its contribution in the future to solve the problems of the world together, we think that shutting ourselves off and isolating ourselves will not lead us into a good future. Protectionism is not the proper answer,” she said.

Merkel is just the latest leader at Davos to criticize a protectionist and isolationist stance towards the world’s problems. Such comments appear to be directed towards President Donald Trump who has adopted an “America First” stance in his foreign and economic policies.

‘Not learned the lessons from history’

In contrast, Merkel said the answer to the world’s problems was to see multilateral solutions instead of a “unilateral, protectionist course” of action.

At the start of her address, Merkel referenced both world wars in the 20th century, saying that the “political actors involved had almost sleepwalked into a horrendous situation.” She said there was a danger that the world had not learned the lessons from history.

She said the foundation of the United Nations (UN) was a multilateral and cooperative solution that was borne out of World War II, adding that a multilateral response helped to resolve the global financial crisis of 2008-2009.

Check out the world leaders and celebrities who are at Davos this year

Larry Busacca | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

German coalition talks

Merkel’s comments come amid continued speculation over Germany, and indeed Merkel’s, political future after months of negotiations aimed at forming a coalition government. This after no one party gained a majority in last September’s election.

Merkel’s conservative alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Christian Social Union (CSU) first attempted to form a coalition with the Green party and pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), but it failed after the parties couldn’t agree on various policies ranging from immigration to euro zone integration.

With no prospect of an alliance, Merkel’s coalition partner in several former governments, the Social Democratic party (SPD) led by Martin Schulz, did a U-turn on an earlier pledge to voters not to go into government with the CDU-CSU again and began talks with Merkel’s conservative alliance in January.

The decision could backfire on the SPD which performed badly in the last election due to its supporters’ disapproval of its alliance with the CDU-CSU. As such, the SPD is likely to extract many concessions from the CDU-CSU during upcoming negotiations in return for its support in government.

There is also doubt over whether Merkel, known as “Mutti” (mother) in Germany, will see out the whole of what will be her fourth term as chancellor and there is speculation on who her successor might be.

Merkel said Wednesday that she would continue to hold talks aimed at forming a government “as quickly as possible.” Speaking on Germany’s economy, she said it had enjoyed 11 years of consecutive growth but needed to modernize and make more progress in terms of digitization.

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Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/24/germany-has-difficulties-and-polarization-that-we-havent-seen-for-decades-merkel-tells-davos.html

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After five days of talks, SPD leader Martin Schulz agreed a framework deal with Merkel and Bavarian conservatives on Friday. But before he can start official negotiations he needs the backing of his party in a vote at a conference on Sunday.

Convincing them is proving difficult. Two regional branches have already said they do not back his deal. Many rank and file members accuse Schulz of selling out to Merkel and failing to win a signature policy to take to coalition talks, such as a major healthcare reform or tax hikes for the rich.

Speaking to reporters before meeting SPD members in the western city of Duesseldorf, Schulz said the coalition blueprint had enough “political substance” to start detailed negotiations.

“We want to put the SPD into a position … in which it can make our country better,” Schulz said. Two dozen young SPD members protested against another grand coalition, or “Groko”, government with Merkel’s conservatives, holding up placards reading “Groko is rubbish” and “Groko never again.”

In a live Facebook broadcast, Schulz said the party had a duty to look at how it could improve the life of people.

“We are living in the world of (U.S. President Donald) Trump, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, (Turkish President Tayyip) Erdogan. We live in a world of dictators who make the world’s breath pause with their crazed ideas … And we have the chance to make Europe a bit more social, peaceful and just.”

Defeat would also almost certainly mean the end of Schulz’s leadership of the SPD.

Uncertainty over the shape of the government in Europe’s biggest economy is worrying investors, nearly four months after an election in which the conservatives had their worst result since 1949 and the SPD their worst since World War Two. Both of the parties that have dominated Germany for generations bled support to the far right AfD, which joined parliament for the first time, becoming the third biggest bloc.

Many in the SPD are wary of a re-run of the grand coalition which ruled under Merkel between 2013 and 2017. A junior role leaves them in her shadow, unable to win credit from voters.

The SPD had vowed to go into opposition after its dismal election result but was forced to reconsider in the interest of national stability after Merkel was humiliated by the collapse of three-way talks on a coalition with other parties.

Coalitions under Merkel – tmsnrt.rs/2AdhTpO

STRONG FEELING

Highlighting the strength of feeling, regional party branches in Berlin and the state of Saxony Anhalt have already signaled their opposition to the deal.

“A renewed grand coalition cannot be the result of talks. We reject the start of coalition negotiations with the conservatives,” said the motion by Berlin’s SPD chief Michael Mueller which was passed.

It said proposals on home building, rents and migration and integration were unsatisfactory, and expressed disappointment over the absence of plans to shake up the health system.

The SPD’s youth wing, Jusos, opposes the deal and its head, Kevin Kuehnert, is undertaking his own “NoGroKo Tour”.

However, it is difficult to predict the outcome of Sunday’s vote as the regional results are not binding. At the Bonn congress 600 delegates are free to vote how they wish.

Both states that have rejected the agreement so far are relatively small. Schulz is trying to woo delegates in the biggest state, North Rhine-Westphalia, which has more than a quarter of the votes, in a series of events this week.

Some leading SPD members argue Sunday’s vote is only on the blueprint for a final deal and details can still be negotiated. After any final coalition deal, the SPD’s 443,000 members will be balloted.

Some conservatives have expressed confidence that the SPD will back the blueprint. “I can only recommend moving at top speed,” said Bavarian conservative Alexander Dobrindt.

“I look forward to starting coalition negotiations on Monday,” he said, adding his only concern was the “masochistic way” the SPD had of talking down its successes.

Coaltion and election scenarios – tmsnrt.rs/2AjqF5m

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A visibily exhausted Mrs Merkel appeared before the cameras on Friday to announce that she had reached agreement with her old coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD), after marathon 24-hour talks.

“We will work earnestly, today and through the next term of office, to create the conditions so that we can live well in Germany for the next 10 years, the next 15 years,” she said.

But a recent survey found that more than half of Germans do not expect Mrs Merkel to see out a full fourth term as chancellor. Leading voices have started to say that it is time for her to start planning to hand over power to a successor.

“Angela Merkel is past her zenith,” Oskar Niedermayer of Berlin’s Free University told Handelsblatt newspaper.

“In the interest of her party’s electoral strength, she should not stay in office for the entire legislative term.”

“After the long night in Berlin, Merkel said ‘We have work before us’. For how long will that still apply to her?” Berholt Kohler, editor of the influential Frankfurter Allgermein Zeitung newspaper wrote.

“How long will the German desire for peace, stability and reliability, which brought Merkel such high levels of approval for twelve years, keep at bay the need to see new faces and constellations?”

Friday’s deal with the SPD comes more than three months after September’s elections, in which Mrs Merkel suffered damaging losses, and follows the collapse of coalition talks with smaller parties. It is already the longest it has taken to form a new government in postwar German history.

But Mrs Merkel is still not out of the woods. Friday’s deal is only an agreement to begin formal coalition negotiations, and it still has to be approved by delegates at a special SPD party convention next weekend.

If they vote in favour, the two parties will open talks on a detailed coalition agreement, which could take months. That too will have to be put to an SPD vote — this time of the full membership. Experts agree it could be months before Germany has a new government.

There is opposition to a new coalition within the SPD’s ranks, particularly in the party youth wing, the Jusos, who have led a vociferous No campaign.

Martin Schulz, the SPD leader, has staked his future on the deal, and most commentators believe his opponents will struggle to muster enough votes to block it — they only managed to get 20 per cent of delegates to vote against opening initial talks last month.

If the SPD does vote No, it will spell disaster not only for Mrs Merkel, but for the SPD leadership.

For Mrs Merkel, it will mean the only remaining option is to try to form a minority government and try to muster a majority on a vote-by-vote basis.

Mr Schulz would almost certainly be forced to resign, and the SPD would be thrown into chaos. The entire party leadership has put its weight behind a new coalition, including every likely candidate to succeed Mr Schulz.

Most observers believe it won’t come to that, and Mrs Merkel will get her new coalition. But so far it has received only a lukewarm reception from Germans. Spiegel magazine described it as “paleo-coalition” of political dinosaurs.

The parties have agreed to use Germany’s influence to reform the European Union — though the deal stops far short of Mr Schulz’s recent call for a “United States of Europe”.

But beyond agreement to limit the number of asylum-seekers arriving in Germany to 220,000 a year, there is little new in the way of domestic policy.

“It should be clear to all involved that this is the last hurrah of the era of Merkel,” Mr Kohler wrote in Frankfurter Allgemeine.

Commentators have noted that Mrs Merkel’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is already seeing a changing of the guard, after its leader Horst Seehofer agreed to step down as Bavarian prime minister and make way for the younger Markus Soder. Some have even suggested it may be time for Mrs Merkel to contemplate something similar.

Potential successors are already jockeying for position, prominent among them Jens Spahn, the junior finance minister, and Ursula von der Leyen, the defence minister.

Veteran Merkel watchers are keeping an eye on is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the regional prime minister of Saarland state — long known as “mini-Merkel” and increasingly seen of late as the chancellor’s preferred successor.

If she is brought to Berlin and given a cabinet job, they say, it means Mrs Merkel is getting ready to go at some time in the next few years.

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