Would this be possible in the United Kingdom? Only two months before the elections, German chancellor Angela Merkel went off for a three-week holiday. This year, hiking in South Tyrol has only partly to do with relaxation: with her conservative CDU-CSU leading by 15 percentage points over the SPD in the polls, Merkel wants this campaign to be as short (and unexciting) as possible. Meanwhile, the SPD remains absorbed with the gaffes of frontrunner Peer Steinbrück and coordination problems between party leaders. So, is the race over before it has begun?
Even though things are going well for Merkel, the SPD still has a chance to make up ground – as it famously did during the federal campaigns of 2002 and 2005. A third of voters are still undecided and the CDU-CSU has weak spots which leave room for opposition attacks.
First, is the recent string of government mistakes. Most prominently, the conservative-liberal coalition was put on the back foot by Edward Snowden’s data surveillance revelations. Instead of examining his accusations openly, the government was busy concealing errors and denying responsibility. Will it really get away with it? Seventy-eight per cent of Germans do not believe that the chancellor was uninformed about the data monitoring.
Second, Merkel is very popular, but her government is not. Only 37 per cent of Germans want the current coalition to continue, with the FDP still worried about whether it will reach the five per cent threshold. The coalition is mainly associated with discord between the parties and the lack of willingness to bring through necessary structural reforms.
Third, after years of copying social democratic policies, the CDU-CSU lacks ideas and direction. It is no coincidence that the conservative election manifesto is as uninspiring as it is inconsistent: it contains expensive promises without a word about how to finance them. The SPD, on the other hand, has received much praise for setting out a detailed plan on how it will pay for its announced investments in education, childcare and infrastructure.
Despite all this, the SPD has not yet managed to gain momentum. But it is not the candidate whose party receives the most votes that gets to be chancellor, but the candidate of the strongest party in a majority coalition. If neither the CDU-CSU and FDP nor the SPD and Green party are able to form a coalition, Merkel will have to rely either on the SPD or the Greens as a partner. In both parties, this constellation is extremely unpopular. Is, therefore, a coalition of the SPD, the Green party and the post-communist Left party as unlikely as most commentators believe? And what role will the new Pirate party and the Eurosceptic ‘Alternative für Deutschland’ play, should they enter parliament?
Even if this election race turns out to be boring, we might yet witness the most exciting coalition talks afterwards.
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Michael Miebach is a political scientist, senior editor of Berliner Republik, and deputy chair of the thinktank Das Progressive Zentrum
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