Poor German election result could be start of Angela Merkel’s end

German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s future seems to lie in a so-called Jamaica coalition.

At the headquarters of the free-market Free Democrat Party on September 24, activists gasped as the first exit poll results were read out: Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union, their Bavarian sister party, were on just 32.5 per cent, much lower than any poll had suggested.

Then, a few seconds later, came a gargantuan cheer. The FDP had almost doubled its vote share to 9 per cent. “If you keep cheering after every sentence this will be a long night,” a visibly delighted FDP leader Christian Lindner told the crowd.

Such was the story of the night. The CDU-CSU and their Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners did badly. Their joint vote share fell from 67.2 per cent to 53.5 per cent, its lowest ever.

So grim was the SPD result that party leaders immediately announced they would not be available for a second “grand coalition” with Chancellor Angela Merkel, even if asked. The FDP comfortably cleared the 5 per cent hurdle needed to join (or in this case re-enter) the Bundestag.

The Greens defied poor polling and gained four seats and the socialist Left party added five. Most notable of all, the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) soared to almost 13 per cent.

The most drastic change is the AfD’s arrival in the Bundestag as the third largest party, having gained about a million votes each from the CDU-CSU and the political left (the SPD and the Left party). Its success points to the endurance of Germany’s longitudinal divide: it took 20.5 per cent of the votes in the former communist east.

It is also alarming in a country with Germany’s Nazi past. Two weeks ago Alexander Gauland, the AfD’s probable leader in the Bundestag, said: “We have the right to be proud of the achievements of the German soldiers in two world wars.”

The day after the election he questioned Germany’s relationship with Israel.

Still, the party’s success should not be exaggerated. It is a new amalgamation of old political forces in Germany, like the nationalist-conservative wing of the CDU in the west and strong residual anti-Western sentiment in the east, melded together by the fact that the country has taken in 1.2 million immigrants in two years, an experience Merkel stresses it will not repeat.

Fully 61 per cent of the AfD’s voters said they were motivated by disappointment with the other parties (compared with 30 per cent for the electorate overall).

Meanwhile, the party’s ability to use its electoral windfall effectively is questionable: it is fractious to the point of parody. The morning after the election a newly elected Frauke Petry, the party’s former leader, announced in front of stunned colleagues at a press conference that she would not be sitting in the AfD group in the Bundestag, and walked out. She is said to be planning to found a splinter party.

As in The Netherlands, coalition talks could take a long time. They will begin in earnest only after a state election in Lower Saxony on October 15. Unless the SPD changes its mind about another grand coalition, the only numerically possible option is a “Jamaica” coalition of the CDU-CSU, the FDP and the Greens, so-called as their colours are those of the Caribbean nation’s flag. Such a government would have a wide ideological span and require some bending of red lines; the Greens, for instance, insist they will enter only a government that steers Germany towards a ban on cars with internal combustion engines and the CSU says it will join only one that does not.

It all comes as Germany is under pressure to lead in Europe, and to make concessions towards eurozone integration. Merkel is sceptical about these anyway — she thinks the eurozone’s problems demand structural reforms in weak economies rather than more German cash — but even were she not, she would struggle to persuade her partners in a future Jamaica government.

For the Chancellor has been weakened by the election result, dubbed by the Bild Zeitung, a tabloid, a “nightmare victory” for her. Her alliance has lost 65 MPs.

Minds are turning to the Chancellor’s departure, which may have been brought forward by the mediocre result. Free Conservative Awakening, an energetic faction on the CDU’s right, is calling on Merkel to step down as party chairman (a post separate from the chancellorship).

Among others it suggests Deputy Finance Minister Jens Spahn, viewed by some as a possible successor, for the job.