On top of an unprecedented additional federal debt of €100bn, largely due to the financial market crisis and its economic repercussions, Germany is now blessed with an entirely new system of political parties. The Social Democrats (SPD), which had in the 2005 elections successfully appealed to the "new centre" of society, are now, after federal elections, at a historic low of 23% (down from 34.2%). While the Christian Democrats (CDU), sailing under the flag of a "social" market economy and presided over by the chancellor, Angela Merkel, have barely kept their share of a third of the vote, one of the two big winners are the pro-business Free Democrats (14.6%, up from 9.8% in 2005).
With the CDU, they now form what they call a "bourgeois" (bürgerliche) coalition government, a term with clearly confrontational implications that has not been heard of in German campaigns for decades. The other winner is the Left party with an overall 11.9% (and 28.5% in its east German homeland). The pattern is clearly that of a polarisation of political forces. As a sad joke has it, there is a deep rift dividing the German left. On the one side, the LP. And on the other? The Christian Democrats. In between, the Social Democrats seem to have lost their way and sense of mission.
This social democratic loss was largely self-inflicted. The labour market reforms of 2005, inspired by punitive "activation" ideas and personally drafted in 2003 by the vice chancellor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, are almost as unpopular as the German role in the Afghanistan war. By adopting and defending these two policies under the grand coalition government, German social democracy has created ample space to its left without which the LP could not have thrived and, most importantly, entrenched itself in the west of the country. If the social democrats are to survive their identity crisis, they will have to reinvent themselves as part of a left-of-centre alliance that includes not just the LP (so far a mixed and inconsistent bag of social protectionist protest), but also the Green party, which came in fifth with 10.7% of the vote.
So the pattern of political polarisation in Germany is likely to last. The much mystified "centre" of the political space turns out to be an empty place. While the two big "catch-all" parties used to win more than 90% of the vote in the 70s, they are together down to less than 60%.
The strained efforts of Merkel and Steinmeier to stage a non-confrontational campaign smacked of a conspiracy of silence. Who will be paying for the costs of the crisis? Wait and see. What about nuclear energy? To be decided later, as is the case with Afghanistan and European Union policies. Minimum wages? Perhaps. Migration and the integration of migrants? A non-issue. Balancing the federal budget (so far the single most urgent priority of the federal government)? Too complex and depressing to touch in a campaign, as applies to education and health reform.
Given this bipartisan strategy to minimise commitments, there is little wonder that voter turnout also reached a historical low, with less than two thirds bothering to vote in the east. Incidentally, I have not come across during the CDU campaign a single reference to "Christian values", formerly an obvious household item of the "Christian" democrats' appeal. Mentioning those values may have been deemed unwise, given the hyper-secularised culture of the new Länder.
From now on, the time of shallow and evasive centrist rhetoric, as it was so caringly cultivated under the grand coalition, seems to be over. There is one programmatic term that left and right will perhaps continue to use, the EU-neologism of "flexicurity" in labour market and social policy. But it now begins to dawn upon people that both sides in fact mean the opposite when using it. The market-liberal right insists that in order to "flexibilise" labour, social guarantees must be further abolished, while the left claims that they must be strengthened to make it affordable for workers to behave more "flexibly". Thus the good news is that there will be greater clarity and perhaps even honesty concerning the dividing lines and cleavages in German politics. More good news is that the nationalist and xenophobic right is practically absent from German politics, arguably more so than in any other EU member state.
With the CDU, they now form what they call a "bourgeois" (bürgerliche) coalition government, a term with clearly confrontational implications that has not been heard of in German campaigns for decades. The other winner is the Left party with an overall 11.9% (and 28.5% in its east German homeland). The pattern is clearly that of a polarisation of political forces. As a sad joke has it, there is a deep rift dividing the German left. On the one side, the LP. And on the other? The Christian Democrats. In between, the Social Democrats seem to have lost their way and sense of mission.
This social democratic loss was largely self-inflicted. The labour market reforms of 2005, inspired by punitive "activation" ideas and personally drafted in 2003 by the vice chancellor, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, are almost as unpopular as the German role in the Afghanistan war. By adopting and defending these two policies under the grand coalition government, German social democracy has created ample space to its left without which the LP could not have thrived and, most importantly, entrenched itself in the west of the country. If the social democrats are to survive their identity crisis, they will have to reinvent themselves as part of a left-of-centre alliance that includes not just the LP (so far a mixed and inconsistent bag of social protectionist protest), but also the Green party, which came in fifth with 10.7% of the vote.
So the pattern of political polarisation in Germany is likely to last. The much mystified "centre" of the political space turns out to be an empty place. While the two big "catch-all" parties used to win more than 90% of the vote in the 70s, they are together down to less than 60%.
The strained efforts of Merkel and Steinmeier to stage a non-confrontational campaign smacked of a conspiracy of silence. Who will be paying for the costs of the crisis? Wait and see. What about nuclear energy? To be decided later, as is the case with Afghanistan and European Union policies. Minimum wages? Perhaps. Migration and the integration of migrants? A non-issue. Balancing the federal budget (so far the single most urgent priority of the federal government)? Too complex and depressing to touch in a campaign, as applies to education and health reform.
Given this bipartisan strategy to minimise commitments, there is little wonder that voter turnout also reached a historical low, with less than two thirds bothering to vote in the east. Incidentally, I have not come across during the CDU campaign a single reference to "Christian values", formerly an obvious household item of the "Christian" democrats' appeal. Mentioning those values may have been deemed unwise, given the hyper-secularised culture of the new Länder.
From now on, the time of shallow and evasive centrist rhetoric, as it was so caringly cultivated under the grand coalition, seems to be over. There is one programmatic term that left and right will perhaps continue to use, the EU-neologism of "flexicurity" in labour market and social policy. But it now begins to dawn upon people that both sides in fact mean the opposite when using it. The market-liberal right insists that in order to "flexibilise" labour, social guarantees must be further abolished, while the left claims that they must be strengthened to make it affordable for workers to behave more "flexibly". Thus the good news is that there will be greater clarity and perhaps even honesty concerning the dividing lines and cleavages in German politics. More good news is that the nationalist and xenophobic right is practically absent from German politics, arguably more so than in any other EU member state.
