German elections signal gains for far right and far left report Patrick Costello and Glyn Ford with big existential challenges for social democrats
The polls proved all too accurate in predicting the headline result of Germany’s early election triggered by a no-confidence vote in December after the fragile coalition of Social Democrats, Greens and Liberals in December was brought down by Liberal manoeuvring. Friedrich Merz, the leader of the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), as forecast, is locked-in to become chancellor with 28.5% of the votes despite the surge in support for the far right AfD who finished second with 20.8%, and dominated the vote across former East Germany. The coalition parties were all punished to various degrees. The Social Democrats (SPD), with 16.4%, recorded their worst result since their formation more than a century ago. The Greens lost more than 20% of their former voters, while the Liberals got all they deserved for their squalid betrayal, failing even to beat the 5% threshold for entering Parliament.
However, there were surprises. The first was that despite the concerted “campaigning” by Elon Musk and US Vice-President J D Vance the AfD poll ratings barely moved. If anything their blatant interference backfired. Turnout was up to and close to a record high, while the new chancellor-designate, the veteran Christian Democrat Merz, seen as one of Germany’s most transatlantic politicians, gave a blistering rejoinder to the US on election night, castigating them for their electoral interference and announcing that Berlin – and the EU – can no longer rely on a Washington now indifferent, if not hostile, to the EU.
The second surprise was that the left party, Die Linke, more than doubled their vote to almost 9% compared to the previous national election, and took the biggest share of the vote from 18-24 year olds. They achieved this, their second best result ever, after a catastrophic 2.7% in European elections last June. Seen for decades as an East German legacy Party they saw a breakthrough in the West where they received an unprecedented 3 million plus votes. The result surprised even the Party’s own leadership, who at the start of the campaign were thought to be in danger of falling below the 5% threshold. In part it was the result of the rejuvenation of the party, with over half of their current membership new since the last election. Current parliamentary leader Heidi Reichinnek is a rising social media star with her strong anti-fascist speeches. Disillusioned Social Democrats and Greens have turned left. There are perhaps lessons here for Starmer’s team in the lead up to May’s local election referendum on Labour’s first year.
Die Linke were ultimately the only one of the three small parties to break the 5% threshold. Along with the Liberal FDP, the new Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (socially right and economically left – a less belligerent version of George Galloway) also failed by 13,000 votes to make the 5%. As a result, Merz can take power as chancellor in a simple two party coalition with the Social Democrats without the need to bring in a third party. EU decision makers in Brussels will be delighted to see Berlin avoid long tortuous coalition negotiations at a time when Germany is needed to urgently play a strong role in standing up to the threats from Trump and Washington’s pivot to Moscow.
Yet, while the new numbers in the Bundestag give a CDU/SPD coalition a clear working majority, they do not have the numbers necessary for constitutional amendments. Merz is keen to remove the constitutional limits on the levels of German debt in order to debt finance investment in defence. To do this in the new Bundestag would need the Greens plus some of Die Linke’s MPs. However, the latter are opposed to further increases in defence expenditure, but open to removing debt limits to finance spending on social infrastructure. Consequently, Merz is now looking at options to change the constitution with a vote of the outgoing lame duck parliament before 24 March. The popular Social Democrat defence minister, Boris Pistorius, has welcomed the proposal, along with the Green leader Robert Habeck. The danger is that such a move might further strengthen the AfD. Their leader, Alice Weidel, has slammed the idea as electoral fraud, accusing Merz of “politics against the will of the people”. Merz is hesitating.
Equally the SPD face an existential crisis. The vote of rejection was not just that of their leader Olaf Scholz, but also represented a collapse in the party’s core vote. Blue-collar workers and trade union members in Germany are now more likely to vote AfD than SPD. Turning this around will require a total re-think that goes way beyond the mere election of a new leader. They need to reconnect with their natural and historical constituency roots. Hard to do at any time, but close to impossible from the position of junior partner in a centre-right led coalition. Yet Germany – and the EU – needs a strong and stable Government in Berlin. Germany’s social democrats may just have sacrificed their party for their country and continent. Only time will tell whether it was really worth it!