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Timo Fleckenstein

By Timo Fleckenstein, associate professor of social policy at the London School of Economics

On September 26, Germany will elect a new Bundestag – the country’s parliament which elects the federal chancellor, the head of government. After nearly 16 years in office, Angela Merkel will not be on the ballot this time.

This is an end of an era. Not only has German politics been dominated by Merkel but also the European Union. Many consider Merkel, the daughter of a Lutheran priest, the de facto leader of Europe. She is thought to have provided much needed stability in turbulent times – the turmoil of the European sovereign debt crisis, the enormous humanitarian challenges of the Syrian refugee crisis and the “drama” of the Trump presidency, to name a few.

Merkel, who announced her intention to step down in October 2018, is leaving office when Germany is still struggling with COVID-19. At first, the country coped reasonably well with the pandemic compared to most neighbors, but a slow vaccination roll-out and arguments over containing the third wave damaged her ruling party.

After power struggles, Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) nominated Armin Laschet, their newly elected party leader and minister-president of North Rhine-Westphalia – the biggest German state and previously the heartland of social democracy – for the chancellorship. Laschet, with less than an impressive record during the pandemic and a clear vision for the country, claimed the candidacy over the more popular Bavarian minister-president from the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s sister party.

The turmoil on the right could be thought to have provided a window of opportunity for the social democrats, the SPD, which has been forming the so-called Grand Coalition with Merkel’s party. And indeed, in the past, the battle for the Chancellery would have been fought out between the CDU and SPD candidates.

The SPD has sent Olaf Scholz, the current minister of finance, into the race. Considering that Germany presents a very sound fiscal position which allowed for a rather substantial economic stimulus to help the economy during COVID-19 lockdowns, one would have thought the man in charge of finances could become a serious contender.

However, current opinion polls suggest that the SPD can win up to only 14% of voters. This is below the historical low of 20.5% in 2017 and even farther away from the 34.2% vote share the party won in 2005 when Merkel took over the Chancellery.

The SPD is in a profound crisis. Merkel’s centrist policies have undermined the electoral appeal of the SPD, and the party’s previous brand as the “party of social justice” has been exhausted when pragmatic, if not opportunistic, political choices eroded trust among voters.

Instead of the SPD, the Green party has become the main challenger of the CDU. While less than 10% of voters supported the Green party in the previous election, current polls draw a picture of a tight race between the Greens and the CDU-CSU, with the former at 26% and the latter at 23%.

In this position of strength, the Green party nominated a candidate for chancellor – an exercise that would have been ridiculed in the past. Presented with the CDU alternative of Armin Laschet, 44% of the voters favor Annalena Baerbock, the 40-year-old Green party candidate, a recent poll found.

The Green party is no longer a fringe party. It is represented in 11 out of 16 state governments and currently leads the government of a rather affluent state, Baden-Württemberg – the home to Mercedes Benz and Porsche.

The Green party is undoubtedly benefiting from climate change having become a voter concern across different social groups. But the party has become a mainstream party with policies beyond its core issue of the environment and has managed to capture a mood for change across the electorate, increasing its appeal far beyond its previous core constituency.

It’s uncertain whether the Greens will keep their momentum. Nonetheless, what’s certain is that the party-political system in Germany has experienced seismic changes since Merkel assumed chancellorship in 2005. The CDU and the SPD, previously dominating German politics with a combined vote share between 70% and 80%, no longer represent the majority of Germans. Instead, we find an increasingly fragmented party system with a federal parliament of six parties, including a new populist, right-wing party.

Governing in Germany, which was previously characterized by a considerable degree of stability, has become more volatile. While the electoral pressure on the CDU is relatively new and the party might still turn around before voters are called to the ballot box, the SPD has been on the defense for a long time. This is an experience shared by social-democratic parties across Europe and should be seen as a warning for other center-left parties in a stronger position.

Voters ruthlessly punish social democrats who struggle to devise a progressive project for the future. Some might argue that the government under Moon Jae-in faces a similar challenge with rather disappointing approval ratings.

The Democratic Party needs to study the long-term decline of social-democratic parties in Europe, including the German case, which combines the fall of social democracy with the rise of the Green party as a progressive alternative that attracts voters from the center-left, the center and the center-right.

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