What next for Merkel and Germany?

Photograph: Bundestag by Hernán Piñera in 2011 (License)

When the exit poll for yesterday's German Federal Election was released, it provided a lot of expected answers. Angela Merkel will be Chancellor for a fourth time and the far-right has managed to be elected to the Bundestag for the first time since the war.

The numbers where not quite as expected though. Merkel's CDU and their traditional opponents, the social democratic SPD, both managed to underperform polls that had already suggested losses were to be expected. The CDU fell nearly 9%, the SPD 5%.

There were gains though for the Left and Centre parties. Die Grune and Die Linke, the Greens and the Left, both gained half a percent, while the market liberal FDP did better than expected to reach around 11% and will return from losing all their seats in 2013.

The far-right also made larger gains than expected, though they failed to breach what seems to be the West European threshold of 13% - in Britain, Netherlands, France and now Germany no far-right party has managed to get beyond that number.

What Next?

Once the calculations of seat numbers are completed, the next step will be to form a government. The most likely combination at the present time will be a Black-Gold-Green combination: CDU-FDP-Grune.

It has been said that the great difficulty there is in pinning down what Markel and the CDU actually stand for has played largely to their benefit. It will help them again in trying to form a government uniting conservatives, liberals and greens.

While the CDU and FDP have previously formed coalition governments with distinctly pro-market, pro-business, centre-right leanings, the presence of Die Grune in government would likely force the parties to at least stick in the Centre ground that the SPD and CDU grand coalition had navigated.

What that opens up if the possibility of progress on social issues. Both the FDP and the Grune care about sustainability, about human rights & civil liberties, and about Europe (though not without some Eurosceptics in the FDP fold).

With the social democrats and the radical democrats of SPD and Die Linke in opposition, socially progressive parties will have strong presence in government and hold a narrow majority in the Bundestag - not counting those numbered among the CDU.

Things will be unlikely to be that simple. The FDP has been somewhat erratic on policy in recent years - likely a result of their collapse after coalition with Merkel's CDU - and have been trying to find a distinct voice.

As far-right success in the UK - in the polls and at the ballot box though not in terms of seats - spooked the harder right of the Conservative Party, the predominantly conservative CDU may have the same struggle ahead of it.

Die Grune will also face a difficult few weeks ahead. Presented with the opportunity to push, a possibly very strong, environmental and sustainability agenda from government will be weighed up against the damage that an alliance with conservatives and pro-business liberals may do to their image in the long term.

Resist the Far-Right

As for the far-right, the narrative of a rising tide has failed to produce the sweeping victories predicted. The return of the far-right in Germany is significant, but it fits better with a broader Western European context than with an historical German context.

And that can be seen in where their support came from. Mirroring patterns elsewhere, three quarters of the far-right's voters came from other parties or where previously non-voters: disaffection, disillusionment and lost trust that follows a broader pattern.

It is also unlikely that the full 24% of those who are not first time voters for the far-right (approximately 1.5m) will be racists, fascists or otherwise broadly intolerant. As elsewhere, the far-right in Germany is visciously, bitterly, internally divided.

In the Bundestag they will be frozen out and they will face protests and public outcry everywhere they go. The far-right remains a long, long way from power and influence.

There is a chance in Germany to make progress in the next four yearsand a chance to repair the hurts born of a decade of crisis. Getting on with salving those wounds will sap the far-right's appeal. Greater exposure and scrutiny may do the rest.

References

'German election: Merkel wins fourth term, AfD nationalists rise'; on the BBC; 25 September 2017.

Alberto Nardelli's 'Germany – #BTW17 election – ARD exit poll'; from Twitter; 24 September 2017.

'German elections 2017: full results - Angela Merkel has secured a fourth term as German chancellor after Sunday’s election for a new Bundestag, the federal parliament. However, her authority has been diminished. Meanwhile, the radical rightwing AfD has entered parliament as the third-largest party. We analyse the official results'; in The Guardian; 24 September 2017.

Jefferson Chase's 'What you need to know about Germany's liberals, the Free Democratic Party: After four years without representation in the Bundestag, the FDP is back. Here's what you need to know about the small party that could hold the keys to power'; from DW; 24 September 2017.

'Also for context: far-right in WEur take votes from most parties & mix it with (usually) non-voters. Disaffection/lost trust factors. #BTW17'; from The Alternative on Twitter; 24 September 2017.

German Elections: Angela Merkel will be the stern, bleak but sturdy breakwater people accept amidst interminable turmoil

Photograph: Angela Merkel in 2012 from the European People's Party (License) (Cropped)

On Sunday, Angela Merkel leads her party to the polls looking to secure a fourth term as Chancellor of Germany. The polls suggest that she is on course to do it.

Despite her SPD rivals taking a poll lead for the first time in six years in February, Merkel's CDU now hold a fifteen point lead. But for all the hype, she is a problematic figure for progressives.

This certainly hasn't stopped her ascent. Merkel has arguably reached the apex of her political career, in the eyes of many even taking up the mantle of the leader of the free world (courtesy in part to the abdication of that role by a certain President of the United States).

Yet if Angela Merkel's way is the medicine for instability in Europe, then it is a bitter pill for progressives. Reform has been slow under CDU governments.

Merkel was late, and reluctant, to support a vote on equal marriage. While she conceded in allowing a vote to take place, she still voted against equality - a contest that she did however lose.

And though fiscal rectitude at home has steered away from slashing taxes in pursuit of debt reduction, for pro-European progressives Merkel's way is a doubled-edged sword.

While she is held as a key pillar in keeping the European Union standing, the rise of Merkel has coincided with the decline of Social Europe - in fact wolfgang schauble, her finance minister, has been the arch-enforcer of the austerity agenda that has Greece locked in a debt-spiral and the stern opponent of leniency.

The decline of a Social Europe, with a tendency toward long-termism and cooperation, has run opposite to growing instability, growing disatisfaction with globalisation and a wedge being driven between Northern and Southern Europe - typified in Greece.

Much of that decline and these growing problems have happened under the influence of conservative parties like the CDU hiding behind the symbols and offices of the EU to project their agendas.

Yet Merkel remains above these potential controversies. Caution leads her to an inoffensive and vague centre, where easy platitudes reign and moves are made only gradually - and only when the wind is firmly seen to be blowing in a decisive direction.

That tendency can be seen in the dramatic transition for Merkel in the last few years from a cold response to a frightened young child whose family faced deportation, to the embrace of refugees - opening the doors to relieve the pressure on Southern Europe.

A turn that, with substantial political consequence, has garnered fresh respect among younger voters. Through such means have Merkel and the CDU, conservative Christian Democrats, kept just ahead of the curve.

The Election

After seven years of government by the SPD and Gerhard Schroeder came to an end in 2002, there began a widening of the groups that won representation in the Bundestag, with the share of the vote for the biggest parties falling.

The 2013 election seemed to break that trend. The falling vote share of the big two reversed and party representation dropped from to four. The CDU established for themselves a commanding place - largely at the expense of their former coalition partners, the FDP.

However, 2017 seems likely to render 2013 just a blip in a larger trend. Polling suggests the two main parties will lose ground again and as many as six parties will win seats in the Bundestag for the first time since the 1950s.

The remarkable thing is that the CDU has over time proved itself far more resilient than the SPD to this fragmentation of the vote. More remarkable still is that in this election it will be young people who keep Merkel's conservative party in power. Their support has been critical in several recent regional elections.

The Oppostion

At the head of Merkel's opposition is Sigmar Gabriel and the SPD, the Social Democrats who have for the passed four years been her coalition partners in a grand coalition between the two main parties of German politics.

At times in the last few years, particularly back in February, Gabriel and the SPD would have been forgiven for thinking their opportunity had come to return to office as the senior party. Yet the lull in support for the CDU in February did not last.

Once again, the SPD will instead enter an election looking to stem the flow of support away to third parties - a pattern seen not just in Germany but across Europe where Social Democrats have struggled to find a narrative for the times.

This election will also likely see the return to the Bundestag of Merkel's former coalition partners the FDP - her free market liberal allies whose decline prompted her to warn the Coalition partners in Britain of the likely affect of such an arrangement on the Liberal Democrats' fortunes.

The FDP have slowly recovered across regional elections since they fell below the seat threshold in 2013 and are back up to 9% in the polls. Under Germany's proportional system that could deliver around 60 seats and could mean the return of a CDU-FDP government.

For the Left, influence in the next legislative term will depend on polls translating to seats for Die Linke (The Left) and Die Grune (The Greens), one democratic socialist, the other environmentally conscious and concerned about finding a sustainable future.

The strength of the big two, and especially their grand coalition of the passed four years, tends to freeze them out of federal politics. But both parties put pressure of the SPD to move Leftwards and away from the CDU and the far-right AfD - who threaten the SPD base in much the same way as UKIP have threatened Labour in Britain.

It is perhaps testament to the centrist positioning that Merkel pursues, that there is talk that her administration may even turn to the Greens as a possible coalition partner after Sunday - with her decision to begin a nuclear phase out as a statement of credentials.

A Bitter Pill

Amidst the turmoil - the returned spectre of nuclear war, regional wars and the resultant refugee crisis, fundamentalist terrorism, the slide into authoritarianism in Eastern Europe, the return of Nationalism to the West - Angela Merkel is, understandably, seen as a fixed point.

A stable, constant, and reassuring presence. There will not be many voices that cry out loudly against the result, if she is reelected to office. It will be seen as inevitable. But there is something bitter in the triumph of conservatism amidst neverending crisis.

What the progressive heart cries out for is something, for Germany and for Europe, that can roll back the darkness. What they will accept for now is the stern, bleak but sturdy breakwater.

The UK general election result appears to be no big surprise when seen alongside results from across Europe

The number of seats won aside, the UK general election produced a result pretty close to expectation. The big mainstream parties, austere conservatives and austerity-leaning social democrats - in this case the Conservative and Labour parties - saw their stranglehold on voters slipping away, with liberals struggling to avoid obliteration while a new challenge arose in the form of various anti-establishment parties.

While Britain might see itself as a special case, this pattern certainly isn't isolated to those islands. It has been repeated right across the continent.

Spanish Regional Elections

In Spain, where the ruling Partido Popular - the conservative, pro-austerity party - are struggling with 20% unemployment and trying to suppress separatism in Catalonia, the end of last month saw regional and municipal elections (BBC, 2015). Since the last round of regional elections, Partido Popular had recovered a substantial lead in the polls in many of the regions.

But it was a polling lead that looked large mostly through comparison to a divided opposition. The opposition to Popular was split between the traditional social democratic, Left-wing party, Partido Socialista Obrero Espanol (PSOE), and two rising anti-establishment groups, reflecting trends across Europe.

Podemos and Ciudadanos, the Left-leaning radical and Right-leaning populists respectively, represent a growing, organised, mass movement against the politics of the old order. While Ciudadanos has recognisable party appearance - offering a Centre-Right, fiscal conservative, balanced budget, anti-corruption ticket, kind of like UKIP without the intolerant overtones - Podemos has been built by forming alliances with, and offering support to, local campaigners and regional movements, pouring mass support into decentralised, grass roots campaigns.

Yet their rise has helped to divide the response to austerity, and allowed the conservative narrative to hold its own. But it hasn't all been the result of splitting the vote - the Centre-Left response has been weak or uncertain all across Europe, and so has been displaced in many regions and provinces by the new radical and populist parties.

However, despite Partido Popular polling  fairly well, and the opposition being split between at least four parties nationally - plus a number of regional parties strong in their own provinces - the vote share in the Spanish regional election was even more fragmented than in the UK's general election.

Partido Popular took only around 31%, falling from a previous 46% (Buck, 2015), and the PSOE also fell to 25%. The two anti-establishment movements, Podemos and Ciudadanos, took 14% and 11% respectively, and could well find themselves in government in Madrid and Barcelona (Kassam, 2015). The nationalist and regionalist parties took between them a combined 15% of the vote.

With the establishment parties only taking 56% of votes, and the main opposition to Partido Popular taking 65% of the vote divided up between three parties and a range of regionalist and nationalist groups, the results of Spain's election tell us that the political establishment is in disarray (Buck, 2015{2}) - with Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy expressing disappointment at the fragmented result (Kassam, 2015{2}).

Italian Regional Elections

In Italy, the situation was initially balanced a little differently. At the 2013 election Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's Partito Democratico (PD), which represents the Centre and Centre-Left of the spectrum, became the biggest party on just 30% of vote - though Renzi himself only became Prime Minister after months of wrangling over how to form a government saw two Democratic Premiers, Pier Luigi Bersani and Enrico Letta, come and go.

The PD, which groups together some vociferously socially democratic voices, has under Renzi, considered by some to of the same mould as Tony Blair (Day, 2013), nonetheless imposed elements of austerity on Italy, seeking to make the country's economy more 'competitive' (The Economist, 2015). Those moves have damaged their position, with trade unions striking against 'reforms' to the labour market (BBC, 2014).

Yet over the past couple of years the party has benefited from an opposition that has crumbled. The controversies facing Silvio Berlusconi, the long time leader of the country's Centre-Right movement, has split the Right-wing group into two blocks (The Telegraph, 2013). Berlusconi's own return to the political limelight has been rather less than spectacular, with the former Premier turning to up in support of the wrong party's candidate in Lombardia (Johnston, 2015).

These divisions have left the opposition to the Centre-Left Democrats split up between a Berlusconi rump, the broad anti-establishment group Movimento 5 Stelle (M5S) and the Right-wing Northern separatist group Lega Nord. In recent months Lega Nord have moved, from a fringe regionalist party on the Far-Right, to overtake Berlusconi's group in the polls and in local elections, under their controversially popular leader Matteo Salvini (Sanderson & Politi, 2014).

In the regional election Renzi's Democrats took over 40% of the vote in five of the seven regions. Meanwhile Berlusconi's party struggled, falling as low as fourth in some regions behind Lega Nord, who made huge gains (Kirchgaessner, 2015) - even in areas on the fringes of their traditional heartlands. However, despite Renzi's Democrats winning outright in five of seven regions - including two gains in the south - they lost in Liguria and, when the concurrent municipal reforms are accounted for, popular support for the party was 24%, even as it remained the largest party (Ellyat, 2015; BBC, 2015{2}).

German Regional Elections

For those concerned as to what comes next, the results in German over the last two years look like being an interesting guide - appearing almost to be a couple of years ahead of the European trend. Back in 2013 - in what now seems like an indication that the Liberal Democrats in the UK should have expected their poor performance in May - the liberal Frei Democratische Partei (FDP) lost every single one of their seats in the German Bundestag, down from a previous total of 93 seats. However, in the regional elections held over the last two years there have been signs of a recovery.

Having fallen below five percent of vote, the FDP did not meet the threshold to qualify for Bundestag seats. Amongst the problems the party had faced were many that will be familiar to the UK Lib Dems: struggling to recover votes lost to their former Centre-Right coalition partner (who they partnered with for primarily economic reasons), and being squeezed for votes by their antithesis, a popular anti-EU party, plus faith lost due to a failure to deliver promised tax reforms. Two-thirds of votes the party lost went to the CDU, many whom still wanted the FDP to keep the CDU in check but had lost faith in the party after internal party struggles (Wagstyl, 2013).

After the FDP's federal election defeat, the party suffered further losses: just 3% in the 2014 European Parliament election, 7th place with 3% and no seats in Saxony, 7th place with 2% and no seats in Thuringia, and down to 1% and 7th place with no seats in Brandenburg. Yet by February 2015 the party was polling back up at 6% nationally, and then took 7% of the vote to retain all 9 of its seats in Hamburg, and 6.5% with 6 seats, all brand new, in Bremen.

At the present rate they look on course for 6-9%, from down at 3-4%, by the time of the next federal election in 2017, which could mean a recovery to as many as 40-60 seats - reflecting a recovery to their 2005 position. That should at least give liberals hope that when they are gone, they are quickly missed (The Guardian, 2015), and boost their efforts to restore credibility (Wagstyl, 2014).

What the German results also show is that liberals are not alone in the struggle to restore electoral credibility. As has been seen in Spain and Italy, and with Labour in the UK, social democratic parties are struggling to come up with an electorally successful alternative narrative to conservative austerity. In Bremen, Germany, the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) has governed continuously since the end of the second world war and yet even here support for social democrats has weakened (The Economist, 2015).

The conservative ascendancy is not all it appears to be

The struggles of all of the main parties have been largely to the benefit of conservatives everywhere except Italy, which is being governed from the Centre by Democrats struggling for support. But the conservative is not all that it seems to be. The message from voters in Britain seems to be a match for the voices of voters across Europe: austerity has been allowed to limp because the opposition has not yet managed to construct a compelling alternative narrative. In all of these countries all of the establishment parties are teetering on the brink.

Yet, even in the face of the grip of austerity, disillusionment and anti-establishment movements, there is hope for the recovery of lost ground on the Left. But a recovery will require the Left to learn the lessons of the past few years and to adapt to the times by changing its methods. More decentralisation, co-operation, and an end to the mainstream chic of sycophancy towards the established order is essential. Only then can any party on the Centre-Left hope to gain the support of radical movements and find a broad consensus behind a real alternative to austerity.