The election that made Friedrich Merz Germany’s soon-to-be Bundeskanzler was hardly the stuff of dreams. But the worst of the nightmares, for the country and its new chancellor, did not come true either.
The far right AfD, with nearly 21% of the vote and 152 seats, are emboldened and ready to pounce, but still locked out of power – Merz having told its leader, Alice Weidel, in a final-week debate: “I will do everything to prevent you from ever getting political responsibility in this country.” And Merz doesn’t have to form a coalition with two centre left parties, the defeated Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens. He only needs one of them. The bad news: he doesn’t get to choose which.
With 316 seats needed for a governing majority and Merz’s CDU/CSU on 208, only the SPD’s 120 puts him over the top. The Greens got 85 seats.
Although this was always Merz’s declared preference, it’s not exactly what you wish for when entering negotiations: he has limited leverage over the SPD, which is diminished to half its previous size in parliament after Olaf Scholz’s chancellorship and traumatised by the most devastating result in the party’s proud history.
In addition, Merz’s own Christian Democrats achieved their party’s second worst result ever.
They had aimed at 30% plus, but only arrived at 28.5%, inviting criticism that the leader’s anti-immigration focus in the last weeks of the campaign had backfired. We will never know, however, how much AfD would have taken advantage of the latest Islamist attacks if Merz hadn’t gone “all-in”, as he put it.
Merz also went all-in on a changed Europe after Donald Trump’s withdrawal of support from Ukraine. After Trump congratulated Merz on his win (naturally crediting himself with having secured it), the victor did not reciprocate. Instead, he said: “The absolute priority will be to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can achieve real independence from the USA step by step.
“I never thought I would have to say something like this… but after Donald Trump’s statements last week… it is clear that the Americans, at least this part of the Americans, this administration, are largely indifferent to the fate of Europe.”
It is not just at European level that speed is now the magic word for Merz. He intends to have a new cabinet up and running by Easter at the latest because he knows that German sluggishness is no longer an option. Not for us. And not for Europe either.
No one can afford to be left hanging while a novel-length coalition agreement is worked out in every detail with German Gründlichkeit (thoroughness). Merz’s team will try to push for 10 major projects for the first year in office, tackled swiftly and efficiently, with room to adjust as needed.
The trouble is, Merz can try to set the pace – but if the SPD isn’t willing to keep it, there’s little he can do. On the contrary, it very much looks as if the SPD will yet opt for a membership vote on any coalition deals – which takes time, of course, and may yield unwelcome results. Especially as Merz is seeking “more for the country” out of an SPD that promised “more for you” during the campaign, despite the dire economic situation.
Furthermore, no other issue caused more discontent between the Christian Democrats and the SPD than Merz’s plans to turn away asylum seekers. Many top Social Democrats stressed the need for compromise on election night; while the centre right insisted that the solution to the problem at hand, not the compromise, should be the priority.
Then there’s the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, which may not always act in a sisterly manner. There’s no telling for Merz when loyalty could turn into friendly fire from Munich.
The only certainty is that the AfD is waiting to pounce on every mistake – they don’t believe the CDU/CSU is capable of delivering the promised Politikwechsel (political shift).
True, East Germans only make up one-fifth of all the country’s voters, but when the results from the eastern states came in on election night, the mood at the CDU headquarters in the Adenauer House took a hit. The AfD finished ahead of the CDU, even securing 40% of the vote in Saxony. Weidel, who also won the working-class vote, will remind the public at every turn that a coalition without the SPD would have been, and still is, possible.
It doesn’t end there: the German election followed a trend already seen in France. The fear caused by the prospect of a far right party is boosting left wing populists.
Newly founded far-left-but-nationalist BSW and its founder, Sahra Wagenknecht, may not have reached the 5% threshold, but the original far left party Die Linke, and AfD, both with more regard for Russia than for Nato, have enough seats to block initiatives requiring a two-thirds majority, such as changing the strict fiscal rules to secure funding for urgently required increases in defence spending and modernising the crumbling German infrastructure.
This adds another layer of complexity for the next government. The far left (“let’s abolish billionaires”) could demand a price in exchange for not blocking constitutional amendments. And this price would be quite the opposite of the CDU agenda.
But no matter how many obstacles there are in the way, a CDU/CSU and SPD coalition is doomed to success. Otherwise, the AfD will be triumphant.
No pressure, Merz and SPD, but get a move on. And always remember the words of the author and playwright Max Frisch: “Crisis is a productive state. You just have to take away the taste of catastrophe.”
