Germany is Preparing for the Post-Merkel Era

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton NB] Times & Transcript

In October 2018, German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that she would step down as the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) though she has remained in office until the forthcoming Sept. 26 election.

The CDU and its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) has headed the federal government with various coalition partners since 2005 under Merkel’s leadership. Since 2013 it has led a “grand coalition” with the country’s second largest party, the Social Democrats (SPD). But can the CDU hang on to power after she leaves?

Under Germany’s mixed member-proportional electoral system, coalition governments are the norm. Germans cast two votes: one for a candidate in their individual constituency and one for a political party.

The constituency election is a simple first-past-the-post. There are 299 constituencies in Germany, so direct votes make up half of the 598 seats in the Bundestag. Every candidate who wins one is guaranteed a seat.

The second vote is for a political party list. These results determine which candidates make it off the lists to the remaining 299 seats in parliament. There is a threshold: Parties need to receive at least five percent of the overall list votes to qualify for list seats.

Voters are able to split their vote amongst parties, perhaps voting for their local CDU candidate in the first vote but casting their ballot for the free-market liberal Free Democrats (FDP) in the second vote, enabling the smaller party to gain list seats.

Currently, there are six parties represented in the Bundestag: the centre-right CDU/CSU with 245 seats; the centre-right FDP with 80; the centre-left SPD with 152; the Left Party with 69; the Alliance 90/the Greens with 67; and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), with 88.

No party will emerge with an absolute majority in September’s general election. So tortuous negotiations will then begin to cobble together a coalition government.

Here are some of the most common options, though the AfD is regarded as outside the realm of possibility by the others. The colours refer to the parties’ own self-identification:

A “Grand” Black-Red coalition: This refers to the alliance of Germany’s two biggest parties and is the one that Merkel has headed at the federal level for three of her four tenures as chancellor.

A Black-Yellow coalition: Germany’s centre-right CDU/FDP partnership has governed Germany at a federal level for the bulk of its post-war history. The last time was under Merkel from 2009 to 2013, but before then, CDU Chancellor Helmut Kohl led no fewer than five black-yellow cabinets from 1982 to 1998.

The CDU/CSU candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, has been heading a coalition government with the FDP in Germany's most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia since 2017, and has stressed the advantages of this combination.

A Red-Green coalition: This is the standard for a centre-left government in Germany, and was successfully led by SPD Chancellor Gerhard Schroder with the Greens as partner from 1998 to 2005.

A Red-Red-Green coalition: Until now, this SPD/Left/Green option has not been considered at a national level, because of the lingering connection of the Left Party with the East German Communist dictatorship and its occasional rhetoric about leaving NATO.

A so-called “Traffic Light” Red-Yellow-Green coalition: While the SPD and the Greens are usually willing to accommodate the FDP as a junior partner who could put them in power, the FDP generally rules this one out on the grounds that their platforms were too different.

Then there are the two “flag” possibilities. A “Jamaica” Black-Yellow-Green coalition: Of Germany’s major leftist parties, the Greens are the most likely to appeal to the country’s CDU/FDP conservative centre. This version almost came about on the federal level in 2017, before the FDP dropped out, its leader Christian Lindner declaring that “It's better not to govern than to govern wrongly.”

Though it has never made up a national government, “Jamaica” coalitions have succeeded on the state level in the Saarland from 2009 to 2012 and currently in Schleswig-Holstein.

A “Kenya” Red-Black-Green coalition: Such an SPD-CDU-Green government would definitely manage to get an absolute majority, but is highly unlikely and would only be considered in response to a significant rise of the far-right AfD.