Feb.26

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Teutonic Shift: Readers' Comments on the German Elections, Part I

Germany is the most impactful country on the European continent, and both its government and its relationship with the U.S. have just started on a new path, thanks to this week's elections. This is a very important story, and we thought readers might like to hear from folks who are more dialed in than we are. Sure, we like a little Jager Schnitzel and red cabbage, but we don't necessarily know our SSW from our BSW.

Indeed, we did not recognize that there are some circumstances in which a party can elect representatives to the German Parliament with a portion of the vote lower than 5%. For example, the South Schleswig Voters' Association (SSW), which is legally recognized as the voice of the Danish and Frisian minorities in Schleswig-Holstein, collected enough votes in that state to send Stefan Seidler to Parliament, despite the fact that the party collected only 0.15% of the vote nationwide. That means that, as the dust settles and the final ballots are being tabulated, the Parliament looks like this:

• The center-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which is currently the largest party and the party of outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz, has gone from 207 seats to 120.
  
  
• The leftist Greens, who are part of the current governing coalition, have gone from 117 seats to 85.
  
  
• The center-right Union Parties (CDU/CSU), home to Chancellor-in-waiting Friedrich Merz, have gone from 196 seats to 208.
  
  
• The liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) has gone from 90 seats to zero.
  
  
• The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has gone from 77 seats to 152.
  
  
• The far-left Die Linke has gone from 28 seats to 64.
  
  
• The SSW has held steady, with 1 seat.
  
  
• Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance - Reason and Justice (BSW), Values Union (WU) and Bündnis Deutschland (BD) have gone from 10, 1 and 1 seats, respectively, to zero, zero and zero.
  
  
• The four independent members, one of whom is part of the governing coalition, also look to have lost their seats.

Anyhow, here are a few reader insights into the German election; we'll have a few more on Friday:

• T.K. in Freiburg, Germany: You asked what the result of the federal election in Germany means.
  
  In practical terms, this means that constitutional amendments will become much more difficult to achieve with the new Bundestag, as the combined number of seats of the CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens will fall below two thirds of the seats in parliament required for such amendments. Therefore, MPs from the AfD or Die Linke will be needed. It is unlikely they will agree to any such amendments unless these would be helpful for their own goals. Funding Bundeswehr (the military), which is the main purpose for the amendment currently being put forward by the new government, isn't one of them. A further problem is that the debt brake is a high priority in itself and deviations must be justified each time. There must also be a very valid justification for an exception. CDU/CSU politicians, and Friedrich Merz in particular, announced before the election that they would adhere to the debt brake, as did the now defeated liberals from the FDP.
  
  So much for the legislative issues. As far as the election campaign is concerned, two issues predominated. The first was economic stagnation, the second was uncontrolled migration. The outgoing "traffic light" coalition (red-yellow-green) lost because it failed to get a grip on these problems. The latter was made particularly clear by various brutal terrorist attacks, such as those in Mannheim, Solingen and Aschaffenburg. Some commentators saw the result of the Federal Election as a final warning shot. CSU chairman Markus Soeder spoke of the "last bullet." By this he meant that the CDU/CSU and SPD merger was the last chance to organize a non-populist majority. Indeed, if the problems remain unresolved, it is difficult to imagine how the times of the Weimar Republic can be avoided.
  
  At present, a coalition between the CDU/CSU and SPD is the only way to form a government that can implement a problem-oriented policy. Both parties still have a long way to go to overcome their deep-rooted rivalries. Should this not succeed, a CDU/CSU minority government would be the next alternative. If that does not work out either, snap elections would be the next step. It would possibly be a step back to the conditions of the Weimar Republic. So let's hope that common sense prevails. Weimar Republic 2.0 is still avoidable.
  
  
• J.A. in Mainz, Germany: American living in Germany here. Thanks for the items on the elections. I'm sure we'll see more developments, soon, on the exact nature of "independence from the U.S." that Merz has promised. As an American in Germany, this is, of course, an almost unthinkable thing we're witnessing in U.S.-German relations, at least as far as statements, not actions, go. But, of course, this statement of Merz is not just understandable, it's justified. We shall see.
  
  One thing I wanted to mention is my strong distaste for the German electoral system. As Americans, the 5% rule isn't something we should support. (I'm not saying that your merely pointing out its existence to readers is tantamount to support. I'm basically just ranting here and presenting an opinion that I think usually goes under the radar.) We talk about gerrymandering and voter suppression in the U.S. of various forms, and those are all very bad, and deserve to be combated. We have the Electoral College system, which can diverge from the popular vote. Fine. But I don't see why the 5% rule gets away scot-free, or is even celebrated, in virtually all discussions I've seen of it. This rule literally throws away the votes of millions of people, people who actually showed up and did their civic duty. It's not that they voted for the "loser"; it's that they effectively didn't vote at all. There's literally no difference, today, between an FDP voter and someone who didn't even vote.
  
  In my opinion, this is considerably worse than gerrymandering and voter suppression on basic democratic principles. I don't want to hear the usual excuse, which is that, in the absence of this rule, there would be a proliferation of parties and more opportunity for chaos in parliament. To that I say, "So be it." Democracy involves a lot of voices being heard. So, in my view, the 5% rule is simply anti-democratic. Again, I can rage all day about the Electoral College and gerrymandering and voter suppression. But that's our house and our mess. We should acknowledge that other houses have other messes, too, and even houses we admire might have bigger messes. Commentators on German politics love to highlight the 5% rule because it adds an interesting wrinkle to the discussion (and analysts love them some interesting wrinkles), but let's see this rule clearly for what it is: an extremely powerful form of voter suppression that takes place after the votes are counted. We should not be afraid to call it out as such. (No I'm not a bitter FDP or BSW voter. I'm not German, so I don't vote here.)
  
  I'd also like to draw your attention to yet another bizarre aspect of the German electoral system that, again, virtually all commenters neglect (probably unintentionally), which is the notion of a second vote. When you vote in Germany, your ballot contains two items to vote on, not one. The first is the name and party of a candidate. That's a no-brainer. But you're not done yet, because the second vote is, merely, a party. No human name, just a party name. This leads to a lot of confusion. Many Germans I've met over the years cannot explain this to me at all. It leads to a Bundestag that is not literally the results of what you see from the first vote, but also contains the effect of the second vote, too, in a confusing way. The German word is "Überhangsmadat." The infographics and discussion never seem to include this. This is the wrinkliest of wrinkles. It is, again, an aspect of the German system that should give us Americans pause. Again, we have plenty of issues, but let's be clear that other places also have issues, too, and it's not an act of ignorant American projection or rank ignorance to point these out.
  
  
• A.O'N. in Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany: The German election was a resounding loss for (most of) the governing coalition for a number of reasons:
  
  
  1. The general "throw the bums out" anti-incumbency sentiment currently sweeping the globe as a result of the multicrisis (pandemic, Ukraine war, Israel/Gaza...) leading to mental exhaustion among those dialed into politics and a generalized sense of malaise among those not dialed in.
     
     
  2. A specific "throw the bums out" anti-incumbency sentiment current here in Germany due to poor economic numbers and a feeling that nothing got done due to the widely discrepant governing ideologies of the coalition parties, where the FDP in particular agreed on almost nothing with the other two partners. The few things that got done to much fanfare were actually very "niche" and quite unpopular (such as a law that allows people to change their legal gender at short notice without requiring reasons or evidence, or a law that allows people to, for example, pass the surname of their divorced ex-spouse on to their new spouse, both of which many conservatives found quite upsetting) and did not really help the image of the coalition as incapable of real work.
     
     
  3. A wider political realignment that makes the former East Germany the primary center of far-right (rather than formerly far-left) sentiments, and moves a large fraction of working-class voters even in the West from the social-democratic SPD to the far-right AfD. Low-propensity voters also voted in large numbers and strongly broke for the AfD. This is overall less drastic than the corresponding realignment in the U.S., but it is a major reason for the dramatic losses of the SPD.
     
     
  4. The widespread (and objectively correct) impression that the FDP undermined the coalition at every step and is a fundamentally dishonest and unreliable partner. This is a major reason for the dramatic losses of the FDP, which were enough to send them off into the desert of below-5% "extraparliamentary opposition" parties.
     
     
  5. The certainty of a CDU/CSU win, which was clear to imply Merz, who would likely need the SPD, the Greens, or both as coalition partners. This led a number of (especially young and female) voters who absolutely detest Merz for a variety of reasons (it has not been forgotten that he voted against criminalizing marital rape as an MP) to switch their vote from the SPD or the Greens to the Left (Linke) in order not to support an inevitable Merz government with their votes for reasons of moral purity. This was also a big factor in getting the Left across the 5% threshold.
  
  The Greens were less affected by most of these factors because their voters skew highly-educated, and thus less likely to vote on emotion. They also tend to put a high value on topics the Greens effectively monopolize, like combating climate change and defending democracy.
  
  The good news is that Elon Musk was not able to swing many (any?) votes to the AfD in spite of his best attempts, and likely alienated everyone who is going to be in government positions for the next four years, which might just possibly negatively impact some of his business interests (Tesla, eX-Twitter).
  
  
• R.W. in Brooklyn. NY: I'm very surprised that when you listed some of the things that incoming chancellor Friedrich Merz will try to do, you didn't include "Keep Ethel and Lucy from getting into yet another scrape."

R.W. in Brooklyn, you've got some 'splainin to do.

Thanks to everyone for their comments. We also note that in a democracy with many groups of voters with extremely divergent views on everything, it is not possible to give everyone what they want. It is inevitable that some people are going to be shut out. Elections have consequences. We'll have some more on Friday. (Z)