The take home message of the German Bundestag elections of 22 September, splashed across the front page of newspapers around Europe and the world, is undoubtedly the success of Angela Merkel and her conservative Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU) alliance.
On the surface, the vote represents a ringing endorsement of the neoliberal agenda pursued by Merkel within Germany and across the European Union as a whole. But the triumphalism of the conservatives conceals an altogether more complicated, and for a likely “grand coalition” government of the CDU and the Social Democratic Party (SPD), more challenging scenario.
Why Merkel won
With a total of 41.5 percent of the vote, up 7.7 percent from the last election in 2009, the CDU achieved its best result since Helmut Kohl’s success in the first post-unification vote in 1990. The explanation for this is pretty clear. Since the outbreak of the GFC in 2008, Europe as a whole has stumbled from one crisis to the next. Unemployment has risen precipitously. Growth has been stagnant at best, and governments across the continent remain shackled to the bondage of the debt markets.
The German government, since 2009 a coalition between the CDU and the neoliberal fundamentalist Free Democratic Party (FDP), has led the way in enforcing harsh austerity on the people of Europe. Health, education, welfare and other basic services have been cut drastically, freeing up the funds needed for governments to continue the flow of debt repayments and to prop up the teetering European financial system.
At the same time, Germany itself has come through the whole thing relatively unscathed. Unemployment has sunk to a historic low of 5.6 percent, exports have held up well, and government revenue remains relatively strong.
When it comes to domestic politics, Merkel has had ample room to manoeuvre. The German people have been spared the kind of brutal austerity meted out in countries like Spain and Greece. There is, then, on the part of wide layers of German society, a perception of privilege in relation to the rest of Europe. And whatever the real explanation for the county’s economic resilience during this period (more on which below), Merkel has succeeded in fostering an image of herself as the “steady hand” steering Germany through the turbulent waters of the crisis.
The role of the SPD
In creating this image, Merkel has been given ample assistance by the SPD, who have at no point put forward any genuine alternative to the core neoliberal project of the CDU.
The SPD have benefited from being in opposition. They have been able to claw back some of their socially progressive image by, for example, putting the demand for the establishment of a legal minimum wage in Germany at the centre of their campaign. Reflecting this, they have increased their vote marginally from 23 percent in 2009 to 25.7 percent, with the majority of these votes flowing from the Greens, Die Linke (the Left Party) and the FDP.
But their ability to position themselves as a genuine alternative to Merkel was always going to be limited. The true lay of the land in this regard is indicated much more by the fact that the SPD’s candidate for Chancellor, Peer Steinbrück, was up until 2009 the finance minister within the last CDU-SPD grand coalition.
For the past four years the SPD has been a loyal opposition, voting with the CDU-FDP on anything of note including Germany’s strategy in the European crisis and the increasing militarisation of German foreign policy. It is notable that some prominent SPD-aligned trade union officials, such as the secretary of the powerful German metalworkers union Berthold Huber, have given their tacit approval to Merkel’s crisis-politics and attributed the problems in southern Europe to, among other things, excessive wage-rises in the pre-crisis period.
The demise of the FDP
Perhaps the biggest story of the election, beyond the triumph of Merkel, is the demise of her erstwhile coalition partner the FDP. Its vote has plummeted from 14.6 percent in 2009 to just 4.8 percent – below the 5 percent threshold that, according to Germany’s electoral laws, must be achieved for a party to gain automatic representation in the Bundestag. For the first time in the post-WWII period, the FDP will have no presence in the German parliament.
This is undoubtedly a positive note in the broader story of the election. That the FDP has been punished so harshly is one indication that the triumphalism of the austerity mongers may be short-lived. Whereas in the lead-up to the election Merkel sought to head-off the SPD challenge by effectively adopting a number of their social policy proposals, the FDP maintained its hardline, pro-business stance throughout. It lost over 2 million votes to the CDU, and around half a million each to the SPD and the recently established “euro-sceptics” in the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
It appeared, at one point in the count, that the CDU might achieve an absolute majority in the Bundestag – something that has occurred only once before in the post-WWII period. In the end it fell just short, meaning that Merkel has to seek a coalition partner from among the other three parties who breached the 5 percent threshold – the SPD, the Greens and Die Linke.
It is very likely that the outcome will be another grand coalition (a CDU-Green coalition is highly unlikely, but cannot be ruled out just yet) – something that best reflects the reality of a system in which the two major parties represent little more than two factions competing to efficiently and effectively manage capitalism on behalf of German financial and corporate elites.
The Greens
What then, of the left? Both Die Linke and the Greens experienced a decline in their vote from 2009, with Die Linke falling from 11.9 percent to 8.6 percent and the Greens from 10.7 percent to 8.4 percent. For the latter, this will be a particularly disappointing result. In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 and the accompanying upswing of the anti-atomic energy movement in Germany, the Greens experienced a significant surge in support, polling up to 24 percent in June 2011. As recently as March this year opinion polls predicted the party would increase its vote to 16 percent.
There are a number of factors that help explain the rapid decline in its fortunes. First, as the memory of Fukushima and the accompanying movement has faded, the Greens have been pushed more to the sidelines of mainstream politics in Germany. This process has been aided by the conservative media, particular the infamous Springer-group, for whom the Greens’ potential role as a coalition partner with the SPD in opposition to the CDU made it a target. In the months and weeks leading up to the election a spotlight was shone on policies supposed to illustrate the party’s unfitness to govern – for example, a perhaps rather ill-conceived proposal to make vegetarian meals compulsory once a week.
Second, and more fundamentally, it has suffered from an inability to put forward a coherent political agenda that distinguishes it from the other parties. At times it has been more than prepared to go along with the right wing policies of the CDU and the SPD. The party has been in government before and helped implement, in coalition with the SPD, the infamous neo-liberal “Agenda 2010” reforms. At a regional level it has been prepared to enter coalition governments with the CDU. More recently, it attempted to sure-up support on the left by proposing modest tax increases to fund social spending, in the process alienating some among the (significant) portion of its voting base made up of relatively highly-paid professionals.
The Greens’ lack of a clear agenda was reflected in its election material – the main thrust of which being “What do you think?” Alas, what one might call the “empty vessel” strategy adopted by the Greens backfired, and it appears that many potential voters have answered this question by opting for the rather less ambiguous programs put forward by other parties, with the CDU and the SPD picking up around half a million Green votes each.
Die Linke
The result for Die Linke, is, on the face of things, similarly disappointing. In reality however, there are a number of upsides to its vote. It is significant, for a start, that in the context of the demise of the FDP it will now be the third largest political force in the Bundestag. This will be of particular importance in the context of a likely CDU-SPD coalition, which will position Die Linke well as a strong oppositional voice and give it the opportunity to regain the votes it lost to the SPD in this election.
In contrast to the situation with the Greens, up until only a few months ago it seemed that Die Linke would struggle to make it over the crucial 5 percent threshold. Its electoral success in 2009 has to be seen in its context, in particular the growing dissatisfaction with the SPD during its period of governing with the CDU from 2005. It was this dissatisfaction that gave the impetus for the foundation of Die Linke in 2007, and which ensured that it emerged rapidly as a significant pole of attraction on the left.
In the years that followed, however, it was rather more difficult. Having been cast out of government the SPD shifted left. This narrowed the political space that could be occupied by Die Linke and began a process of clarifying exactly what kind of party it wanted to become.
At least part of the decline in Die Linke’s vote can be attributed to its failure to effectively articulate a vision of politics that goes beyond the narrow confines of parliamentarism. This has particularly been the case in areas, like Berlin, where it has participated in local coalition governments. The question many voters may have asked themselves is, if gaining seats in parliament is all it’s really about, why not vote for the bigger of the “left” parties, the SPD, which may actually have a chance of gaining a slice of the power. This is one explanation for why, in this election, Die Linke lost 370,000 votes to the SPD. Or alternatively, why not opt for something that seems completely “new” – the Pirate Party or, in this election, the right-populist, euros-sceptics in the AfD, to whom, significantly, Die Linke lost 340,000 votes.
To the extent that its goal is simply to be another player in the established political system, it is likely to turn off those looking for a genuine radical alternative to the status quo. This is particularly the case in the regions of the former West Germany. In the areas of the former East the Die Linke vote is held up by a layer of generally older people with, as they say in Germany, “Ost-algie” (“East-algie”, from the german word Nostalgie: “nostalgia”) – those, in other words, with fond memories of life under the Stalinist regime of the German Democratic Republic. In this election, Die Linke’s overall vote in the east was 21.2 percent, with a vote of up to 50 percent in some areas, while in the West it was just 5.3 percent. One need only look at a map of the election results in the formerly divided Berlin to see this effect at work.
It is notable that where the party has achieved its greatest electoral success in western areas, such as in the Berlin district of Neukölln, is also where it has been strongest in terms of its presence in extra-parliamentary struggles and movements. The past four years have, by and large, been a difficult period for those within the party arguing for it to orient itself in this way. The level of class struggle in Germany remains at historic lows. In this context, the position of the more conservative currents in Die Linke, those for whom the pursuit of power through parliament is the central focus, has been strong. There are signs, however, that this is beginning to change.
Dark clouds on the horizon
Beneath the surface of the conservative euphoria and the trumpeting of Germany’s economic strengths lies a rather gloomier, and more contradictory picture. Germany’s ability to weather the impact of the crisis owes, contrary to the dominant narrative fostered by Merkel and the CDU, largely to earlier neoliberal reforms carried out by the SPD-Green coalition in the early to mid-2000s.
The main effect of these reforms has been a massive expansion in low paid and casual employment. Out of a total of 30 million German workers around 7 million are today employed in the low wage sector. For these workers, the German economic “miracle” has been anything but, with wages sinking by around 20 percent over the past decade. In areas with particularly low levels of unionisation workers can expect to be paid only 3-5 euros ($4-$7) an hour. Overall, real wages have been flat for the past ten years. During the same period, the number of temporary workers has almost trebled.
This has provided the foundation for the continuing profitability of German capitalism, and particularly its export industries, during the period of the crisis. There are signs, however, that the limits of this strategy have now been reached. Profit rates in Germany, which rose sharply following the formation of the euro zone in 1999, are now declining. The main export industries are vulnerable, in the context of continuing lack of demand within the EU, to any slowdown in the rest of the world (particularly China).
In this context, the pressure on the new government to go further down the neoliberal path in domestic politics will be high. It is unlikely that the next four year term will provide the same room to manoeuvre as has been granted Merkel since 2009.
Opportunities for the left
There are also signs, beneath the headlines coming out of the election, that public opinion may not be so in line with the plans of the German ruling elite. A recent survey in Deutsche Welle found that while 70 percent of respondents thought that the economy is “going well”, only 30 percent believed they had “personally benefited”. Another survey carried out by respected polling company Allensbach in 2012 found that 48 percent of Germans agreed with the statement “Capitalism no longer fits with our time”.
Also significant was the outcome of a referendum that was held simultaneously with the election in the city of Hamburg. A majority, 50.9 percent, voted in favour of the regional government bringing the city’s energy network back into state hands. This was in spite of tens of millions of Euros being spent by major energy companies on the campaign for a “no” vote. The government in Hamburg is now obliged to purchase the energy network back from the private companies that currently own it.
In recent years there has also been something of an uptick in the class struggle. The major established unions remain, by and large, bound up in so-called “crisis-corporatism”. However, there has been a spate of strikes in traditionally less unionised areas. In the context of an ongoing, bitter struggle in the retail industry for example, the union Verdi has, through a (by German standards) quite militant approach, recruited 20,000 new members in the past two months. This may seem like small beer when seen in light of the German economy as a whole, but it illustrates the possibilities nonetheless.
In conclusion, while this election no doubt represents a victory for Merkel, the coming four year term is unlikely to be smooth sailing. The agenda of the rich and powerful in Germany stands in stark contrast to the aspirations of a large chunk of the population. The ability of the government to paper over the cracks in the system is diminishing. It is impossible to predict exactly how the situation will develop from here.
But people are looking for an alternative. This has been clear in recent years from the emergence of new parties such as the Pirate Party and the AfD. Such parties can appeal by presenting themselves as outsiders to the whole rotten game of established parliamentary politics. For the left in Germany to counter this trend, and to break through to broader layers of workers and others dissatisfied with the status quo, requires more than just providing an oppositional voice in parliament. The challenge is to help build a genuine alternative to the agenda of the rich by actively participating in, organising and strengthening left wing struggles and movements on the ground.
