Is Angela Merkel’s government on the verge of dissolution? “Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germanay faced calls from opposition leaders . . . for new elections, as bickering and fighting within her governing coalition has led to growing speculation in the German news media that a collapse of her government could be imminent,” said the New York Times. In the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a Social Democrat-Green minority government was declared last week, causing Merkel to lose her right-of-center majority in the Bundesrat, Germany’s upper house. In a recent poll for the German television network ARD, Merkel’s job approval rating has plummeted to 40 percent. According to another poll, 53 percent of Germans are anticipating an early end to her ruling coalition.
None of this bodes well for the chancellor. And yet the question remains: What power arrangement could replace the current one? The way some critics view the crisis, the collapse will follow the vote for Germany’s president on June 30. (Horst Köhler, the previous president, resigned abruptly after expressing support for the German military presence in Afghanistan—an intervention deemed an inappropriate sentiment for the figurehead position.) The vote will be cast by the entire legislature, and, as speculation goes, parliamentarians upset at Merkel will not vote for her candidate, Christian Wulff, but rather for the Social Democratic candidate (and Protestant pastor) Joachim Gauck. This, in turn, will not only demonstrate a lack of confidence in Merkel but spur a vote of confidence in her government, which she is then expected to lose. Thus will follow a new election.
Except that the parties themselves do not seem all that interested. “I do not believe that the coalition will collapse, simply because neither the CDU/CSU [Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian partner, the Christian Social Union] nor the FDP [Free Democratic party] have an interest in facing angry and disappointed voters right now,” says Ulf Gartzke, director of the Washington office of the Hanns Seidel Foundation. “A lot of coalition MPs would lose their seats if early elections were held any time soon.” (The Hanns Seidel Foundation is a nonprofit organization focused on political education and is affiliated with the CSU.)
A prominent Free Democrat who asked to remain nameless agrees, saying, “the Social Democrats [SPD] are not interested in being a junior partner in yet another Grand Coalition. The CDU and FDP know that if either of them breaks from the coalition, they will get punished at the polls.” He’s right—the Free Democrats scored an all-time high of 15 percent support in the 2009 elections but are now below 5 percent. “That means we’d lose at least half the FDP members currently in the Bundestag,” he says. Besides, “the left hates Gauck,” who recently expressed opposition to an SPD-Linke (far left)-Green government. “Gauck is a bourgeois candidate closer to the center and an outsider. We just had an outsider in Horst Köhler, and he couldn’t handle the job.” Christian Wulff, on the other hand, is the governor of Lower Saxony and definitely viewed as an insider. And though he is expected to win, Wulff may face a runoff election—an embarrassment for Merkel but not fatal.
The way this Free Democrat sees it, “the government is just going to have to get through this” despite the serious rifts already apparent in the coalition: For instance, health reform, under the aegis of FDP health minister Philipp Rössler, has hit major roadblocks—Free Democrats are blaming the Christian Social Union, and in particular its chairman Horst Seehofer, for causing the obstructions. The FDP’s platform for lowering taxes has been abandoned and the party is now holding the line against CDU and CSU attempts at raising taxes. Roland Koch, the CDU governor of Hesse and a key economic adviser to Merkel, is also stepping down—his own recommendations for cost-cutting and deficit reduction were rejected by the chancellor.
A longtime member of the CSU says, “Chancellor Merkel has failed to give the coalition a clear direction, to keep it disciplined and focused. Also, as a result of the euro crisis, she has by now lost her aura of untouchability.” He also views the Free Democrats as having their fair share of problems: “After 12 years in opposition, Guido Westerwelle’s FDP party was trying aggressively to push through far-reaching economic and tax reforms—something that the cautious, consensus-driven, middle-of-the-road chancellor did not really appreciate.”
The FDP member acknowledges that Vice Chancellor Westerwelle, who also serves as the foreign minister, has done a terrible job but does not appreciate Merkel’s treatment of the party. “She has squeezed us in ways Helmut Kohl never did. She was pissed the FDP got 15 percent of the vote.” That said, “Angela Merkel’s only interest is staying in power”—something she is fairly good at.
Then again, survival of the coalition may not depend entirely on the chancellor’s political skill. Some are saying the current government’s hold on power depends on the German soccer team’s success in the World Cup. “Serious Germans are saying this!” insists one German commentator, just back from the Fatherland. Gartzke agrees: “Right now, Merkel’s best bet is to hope that Germany wins the 2010 World Cup, thus boosting her coalition’s political fortunes.” Torsten Krauel, domestic policy editor for Die Welt, adds that if the team is successful, “not one federal minister will contemplate stepping down on a whim, as that would carry the notion of being utterly disloyal to our soccer players!” He’s mostly joking but warns that if by chance Pastor Gauck is elected president, “the FDP will be pushed over the cliff, . . . Merkel will step down,” and no victory in the World Cup finals will be able to remedy that. Of course, he says, “a win for Gauck would be the equivalent of North Korea trumping the Brazilians.” The anonymous FDP member, meanwhile, doesn’t believe a victory in the finals is necessary for the government to survive, considering such high expectations are unrealistic for the young team: “They just have to make it to the semis.”
Germany’s next match is this Wednesday against Ghana.
Victorino Matus is deputy managing editor of The Weekly Standard.
