Results Leave Germany Confused PDF Print E-mail
By Election Blog   
Monday, 19 September 2005
For months, German media was only concerned with the question of coalitions. Would Angela Merkel be able to form a government with her preferred partner, the Liberals (FDP) or would she be forced into a grand coalition with the then humiliated social-democrats? While the likely outcome of today's elections still is a grand coalition, the actual result is a political earthquake To explain the chaotic situation, let us first take a look at the main German parties. The outgoing government consisted of the centre-left SPD and the Greens while the centre-right Union and the liberal FDP were oppositional, making it very clear they wanted to work together in government. Apart from those two preferred coalitions, a fifth party emerged recently: the Left, fueled by protest against the centre-left's social reforms perceived as neo-liberal by many traditional left-wing voters. Since this party was born as an anti-thesis to the current centre-left government, a cooperation of all three left-wing parties seems impossible.

So far, the calculations were as follows: SPD and Greens were unlikely to return to parliament with a working majority, Union and FDP together had a slight edge in most polls. If the Left party would become so strong as to make impossible either of the preferred coaltions, the anticipated outcome would have been a so-called grand coaltion between the two largest parties in parliament, the SPD and the Union. With the Union leading the SPD with 7-10%, everyone assumed leadership in that coalition wouldn't be a question. Angela Merkel would become chancellor, but would the FDP make it?

When the exit polls were broadcasted, the Union was in for a shock. Their comfortable lead in the polls had completely evaporated, giving the Union only a slight edge over the SPD. Contrary to all polls, both parties got some of the worst results ever. However, the SPD had expected this for months, the Union didn't. While experts had predicted a hung parliament might be possible, the assumed reason was a strong Left party, not a disastrously weak Union. As a result, even though the Union is still likely to be the strongest party, psychologically, the result is a crushing defeat from which Angela Merkel is unlikely to recover.

The question now, again, is of how to get a majority. Since none of the obvious coalitions comes even close to that and the Left party is excluded, there are three possibilites: Union/SPD, Union/FDP/Greens, SPD/FDP/Greens. Interestingly, the Liberals, who received on of their best results ever, mostly thanks to voters switching from Union, have categorically ruled out any cooperation with either the SPD or the Greens. This way, Germany is stuck with the exact coalition many expected in the first place. Unfortunately, this now would be a government formed by losers, with the question of who the bigger loser is yet unanswered.

In fact, there is still a possibility for Gerhard Schroeder to stay chancellor and in his early reactions to the result, he insisted on staying in office even if his SPD was the smaller partner in a grand coalition - contradicting all traditions of German politics. It remains to be seen if there can be a grand coalition, who the chancellor will be or if the Liberals still change their mind to make way for a shaky three-party coalition. In fact, writing this at midnight, we don't know anything. The consequences will be interesting, though. Now that we've finally rebuked the notion of German efficiency, will be develope a sense of humour trying to cope with this mess?

[b]Friedrich Kauder[/b]
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