Germany Elects!

Elections are an exercise carried out with regularity by the democratic countries to elect their new rulers – irrespective of if they are economically weak or strong. Glaring examples of extremely successful and utterly failed economies by not having democratically elected governments are in front of us – China and Afghanistan. Managing elected democracies is quite challenging. So, democracy is not a pre-condition for economic success and material wellbeing of the people. Having said that, most of the civilized world prefer to run their countries democratically.

Germany is the world’s 4th largest economy, amongst the largest democracies, locomotive of European Union, a highly innovative country, focused on environment and sustainability, and amongst the top donors for various causes like refugees, poverty-alleviation, disaster management, climate change and democracy. We should be interested when an election is taking place in Germany to decide the political future of the country – which is going to affect various geopolitical facets of the world in the near future.

Political parties

German vote on next Sunday will mark the end of 16 years of Merkel era!

Germany, historically, has two major political parties CDU/CSU – Christian Democrats – the conservative ones, and SPD – Social Democrats – the oldest political party. In spite of having “Christian” in the name of the party, it is considered secular. Why in the Western media every mention of “BJP” – is invariably followed by “Hindu Nationalist Party” is a mystery to me. But it is not relevant for today’s topic.

Majority of Germans, similar to the other West Europeans, are not very religious. Religion does not play any role in politics, economy and in day-to-day activities. It is personal. We will see if it remains so in the face of radicalism being imported to Europe from other regions.

Apart from CDU/CSU and SPD, there are four other major political parties in Germany. FDP – the Liberals, Die Grünen – The Greens, Die Linke – extreme Left, and AfD – Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) – extreme Right.

Election process

Not surprising that German electoral process is complicated and manual (not electronic). Though it is not as complicated as the American one. Every national above 18 years of age, has two votes. The so called “first vote” elects the local Member of Parliament (Bundestag-the lower house). The “second vote” is more important – which goes to elect the party. The overall imbalance between the first and second vote is taken care of by a so-called overhang mandate system. But for all practical purposes the second vote is decisive. Germany has a threshold of minimum five percent of popular vote without which a party cannot enter the Bundestag. During Weimer Republic times (1919 to 1932) a lot of splinter parties and extremist political groups got elected. These smaller groups could not form the Government, but had huge bargaining – or rather blackmailing – power and caused failure of elected governments. Nine elections took place in just 14 years with about 30 political parties in the fray. This led to the failure of democracy in Germany and a yearning for a strong power centre, and paved way for the Nazis. The threshold of 5% of national vote for national elections is worth considering in countries like India.

The Legacy

Angela Merkel has led the country for 16 years, and has been amongst the strongest and most popular Chancellors so far. It will be extremely difficult for the new Chancellor to follow her footsteps.

The major parties - CDU – right-of-centre, and SPD – left-of-centre do not have major differences any more. The times have changed since 1970’s-80’s when the CDU was the party of conservatives, and Christians. While SPD represented workers and trade unions. Today, there are considerably less conservative Christians in the country, and so are the classical workers and radical trade unions. Economic growth, employment, healthcare, political stability, sustainability, and social wellbeing of the countrymen are the key objectives of both the parties.

The Liberals are supporting professionals and businesses - including the famous Mittelstand (SMEs). The Greens – environment, equality, social justice and liberalism. The Left are the successors of the Communist Party of earlier East Germany – having good support in those regions. AfD - the anti-immigrants party - has come up during last decade after Merkel accepted above a million refugees from the Syrian crisis. It won 12.6% of the popular vote in 2017 – one in eight Germans elected it. But it is treated as “untouchable” by the political establishment.

The present situation

During the 19 elections since 1949, only once did Germany see a single party rule. The rest of the 18 times it has been ruled by coalitions. Thus, it is clear that whoever wins on 26th September, the parties will form a coalition for the next four years.

Merkel continues to be a very popular Chancellor. Thus, it was obvious that her successor from CDU/CSU will lead the nation after the elections. But the things have changed drastically over the last couple of months. Currently the most popular Chancellor candidate is Olaf Scholz of SPD. In popularity contest, he leads Armin Laschet of CDU by 26% points.

In a mature economy people differentiate between a person and the party. SPD is ahead of CDU for the first time in 15 years in the opinion polls. However, there is a tough competition (25% vs 22%) so far as the parties’ rating is concerned. During the month, SPD and its candidate Scholz are gaining at the cost of CDU and the Greens. AfD and the Liberals are more or less at the same level. 

The major election topics are more societal than personal or economic. 

Respondents said, the major topics for their own decision in the election are:

Social Justice 53%

Environment Protection 43%

Refugees/Asylum-seeker 25%

Handling of Covid-19 22%

Economic wellbeing, employment, inflation, petrol prices, water, electricity, infrastructure, corruption, terrorism, safety of women etc. do not appear as major decision-making factors. Which is an example of a stable and safe country, despite the influx of refugees. 

What next - after 26th September?

60.4 million Germans are eligible to vote on next Sunday. Typically, more than 75% Germans exercise their right and perform their duty by turning up to vote – even though voting takes place on a Sunday. As soon as the election process concludes at 6pm, the first prognoses are out. These remain pretty stable as the counting continues. The results typically vary within a band of +/-1% - which may often be decisive for a party struggling to stay in the Bundestag. The winner (largest party) is clear within a couple of hours, however who becomes Chancellor - is not. Coalition forming is a big exercise in Germany. In 2017, it took almost six months! 

Angela Merkel’s CDU won 1/3rd of the vote – which was 8% points below 2013, and a surprise for Merkel. SPD won just one out of five German votes. The right wing AfD’s performance was a shock for the mainstream parties. They took some time to get out of the slumber. The CDU discussed with the Liberals and the Greens first. They could not agree. Finally, they came to SPD. SPD was split. The veterans wanted to go with the Conservatives. The Young Socialists were opposing the Grand coalition. After five and half months’ of negotiations about the partners, ministries, personalities, and program – finally in March 2018 CDU-SPD coalition came to power with Merkel as the fourth time Chancellor. Interestingly, none of the major country-related policy decisions were affected by this deadlock.

Will it be different than 2017 this time?

There isn’t a big difference between the politics of CDU and SPD. Olf Scholz has been the finance minister in Merkel's Government. If SPD becomes the largest party, it may make an attempt for a coalition with the Greens and the Liberals, or the Greens and the Left. There is a good popular support for SPD-Green-Liberal alliance at present. But the negotiations will be tough with Greens and Liberals taking extreme views on business and climate. There is no popular support for SPD-Green-Left alliance. Most likely, in a month or two SPD and CDU will be back to the tables, negotiate the terms, and form a coalition of continuation – this time with Olaf Scholz as the Chancellor. He has been successful in portraying himself as Merkel’s continuity candidate. Merkel’s popularity as well as Armin Larschet’s errors come in handy for Olaf Scholz.

The geopolitical situation currently is very fragile. In evolving bipolar world new blocks are getting formed. Unlike during the cold war era – this time, an active role in international politics is expected of Germany.

From Indian perspective, I wish that Olaf Scholz of SPD wins the majority and forms the Grand Coalition with Merkel’s CDU. Continuity matters! Based on the current trends it looks a likely outcome. But who knows, a lot of voters are still undecided. As they say - “a week is a long time in politics!”

(Thanks: Wikipedia, BBC, DW, ZDF, FT)