On September 26, Germany, Europe’s largest democracy, will vote to elect a new parliament and a new chancellor.
As Chancellor Angela Merkel heads into retirement, the election promises a new chancellor for the first time in sixteen years and will almost certainly change the ruling coalition in Germany’s parliament.
This election is unique because it will almost certainly result in a ruling coalition of three parties—something rare in German history.
Six major political parties will compete for seats in the Bundestag, Germany’s federal parliament. (A litany of other parties are on the ballot, but only these six are expected to cross the 5 percent vote threshold needed to actually enter the Bundestag.)
Leading the polls is the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Germany’s center-left, catch-all party. The SPD is one of the two largest parties to dominate German politics, the other being Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU).
The SPD and CDU have competed for power since the Federal Republic’s creation following World War II. At times, they’ve shared it in a grand coalition, as they have for the past eight years.
Creative Commons
Germany's Green Party candidate, Annalena Baerbock.
Alongside these two parties are the Greens, an initially radical but now liberal green political party; the Alternative for Germany, the far-right party that burst into politics after 2015 on an anti-immigration platform; the Free Democrats, a classical liberal party; and the Left Party, the 2005 merger of East Germany’s Communist Party and West Germany’s Party of Democratic Socialism.
The election is, in many ways, about the story of Merkel’s long standing career, and now, her departure.
Few figures have so vastly defined German––and indeed European––politics in the twenty-first century as Angela Merkel.
As Germany’s first woman chancellor, the first chancellor from East Germany, and the head of a new party coalition in 2005, Merkel once represented change herself. Today, after nearly sixteen years at the country’s helm, Merkel is known for her stabilizing force in the political sphere.
She has presided over a relatively strong economy and steered the country through a number of unprecedented challenges: the Eurozone crisis, the so-called migration crisis, the presidency of Donald Trump, and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Throughout her tenure, Merkel has remained stubbornly popular. Though she retains her soaring popularity, she leaves her party in trouble.
The CDU, despite a temporary boost following the outbreak of COVID-19, has been steadily polling downwards for years, but largely staying popular because of its connection with Merkel. Since March of last year, the party’s decline has accelerated in what some observers have described as a “freefall.” The CDU seems to have caught itself in the final days, leveling out in the polls near 22 percent, but should they hold, this could be one of the worst elections for the CDU in its history.
One explanation for the CDU’s poor polling is its candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet. Laschet, the minister-president of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, is simply unpopular.
Michele Tantussi via Creative Commons
The CDU's candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet.
After a series of gaffes on the campaign trail that have sunk his already low popularity, there is little confidence that Laschet will emerge as Merkel’s successor. One German magazine has said that he now needs a “miracle” to win. A couple of weeks ago, a poll showed that a majority of the party’s own voters wanted a different candidate than Laschet.
Picking up the lost love has been Germany’s left-of-center parties—namely, the SPD and the Greens. The SPD’s popularity spiked upward this summer, and it now polls three points ahead of the CDU. The Greens achieved historically high polling in recent years, exceeding the CDU as the highest polling party in Germany in May of this year. Since then, its popularity has fallen to stabilize at around 16 percent, still a strong showing but a far cry from its recent peak.
After the election results will come the business of coalition making. In Germany, governments are made up of coalitions of ruling parties. Parties must negotiate and partner together to form a coalition of more than 50 percent in order to govern.
This election is unique because it will almost certainly result in a ruling coalition of three parties—something rare in German history.
Wolfgang Tillmans via Creative Commons
The SPD's candidate, Olaf Scholz.
Should the SPD win the highest vote share, the makeup of the government and direction of its politics will depend on the coalition kingmaker of either the left or the liberals. In this case, Germany will ultimately have a “Red-Red-Green” coalition, party colors indicating the SPD, Left Party, and the Greens, or a Red-Green-Yellow coalition, known as a “Traffic Light Coalition,” consisting of the SPD, the Greens, and the Liberals.
A Traffic Light Coalition might be comfortable for voters, but it could result in governing difficulties given the ideological differences between the right and left parties.
A Red-Red-Green Coalition might make more sense ideologically, given the shared progessive vision of the parties, but poses some political difficulties. The SPD, in addition to the left wing of the party, contains a more conservative bloc. Such a coalition would pit the leftist elements of the parties against the SPD and Green’s more conservative members.
This fact is not lost on the CDU, which has accelerated its fear-mongering of a far-left government, raising fears of how the Left Party will influence foreign policy, most often citing the party’s stance on dissolving NATO and perceived cozying up to Russia.
So, what will happen on September 26? The short answer: nobody knows.
The increasingly volatile party popularity and tightening of the polls make it hard to predict the actual vote share each party will receive. And the coalition-making possibilities, complicated by the likelihood of a three-party government, make it hard to predict what will happen even after the votes have been counted.
However, what is guaranteed is a historic election that will usher in a new government and see an end to the Merkel era of German politics. This in itself makes the election worth watching.
This reporting was done on the ground in Berlin, Germany.