Germany
slides right
One of
the main results of the 2017 German federal elections is that the four party
legislature became a six party legislature.
The two new parties come from the right.
They are the moderate, liberal Free Democratic Party and the
nationalist, anti immigration ultra right party called the Alternative for
Germany.
That
puts Merkel’s right wing Christian Democrats in the middle of the right.
When
the world press says that Merkel “won” this election what they mean is that her
party got more votes than any other. That is 33%, down 8.6% from the last
election. She also “won” because she
will probably be able to form a governing coalition.
Almost
all the government's we have known of West Germany and all of the governments
of the united Germany have been coalitions.
The only reason that I say “almost” is because I don’t know the post war
history enough to be sure. I can not
think of a post WW2 German government that was not a coalition in the
west. The east was a mono party state.
In
order of size, those the reaching the minimum of 5% of the votes required to
hold proportionally allocated seats in Bundestag, the main house of the German
legislature whose majority elects the Federal Chancelor, are as follows:
Christian
Democrats 32.9, down 8.6
Social
Democrats 20.8, down 4.9
Alternative
for Germany 13, up 8.3 first time qualifying
Free
Democrats 10, up 5.6 and coming back into office
Left 9,
up .4
Green
9, up .6
Source
Spiegle on line
The two
main political parties that have usually held the office of Federal Chanclelor
and have always been part of the ruling coalition both lost ground.
One of
the two new right wing groups to qualify for representation, the Free
Democrats, is an old traditional party that has held many posts and been part
of many coalitions in the past. It is no
surprise that they are back in. The poor
results last time that lost their representation have been recovered and they
return to their normal size and place.
The
other one, the Alternative for Germany, is the big part of the slide to the
right coming into the system for the first time with a strong showing and
taking the third largest share of the votes.
This group is correctly indentified with our own alt-right, the National
Front in France and other ultra right wing movements that have been making
gains across Europe.
With a
combined left vote of 40% between Social Democrats, Left and Greens, the German
left does not have enough votes to govern by themselves in a Red-Red-Green
Coaltion, but they are still a mainstream part of German politics. Note that they form many a local Land
government in different coalitions.
This
election represents dissatisfaction with the status quo. The two parties that
lost votes are the two parties that form the current government coalition.
The
harder left did not gain much, but it did not lose votes either.
So the
big move was from the two main, traditional government parties, to the liberal
center right and the hard line far right.
The vote for the liberal Free Democrats was not much of a surprise and
is more in keeping with their normal share of the electorate. That leaves us with the biggest news being
that the hard right comes in taking votes from the status quo movement.
So, who
is this new Alternative for Germany? It
would be fair to refer to them as being more of an anti-immigrant party than a
typical far right party with a strong anti socialist bias and hard line right
wing politics on a series of subjects.
Inside their movement there are more and less hard line members and divisions
strong engough to have one of their founders leave the movement before they
have even been sworn in.
So who
are the 13% of Germans who voted for the hard right Alternative for
Germany?
Mostly
Social Christians, but also significant numbers from the Social Democrats and
minor numbers from the other movements.
Many
from the former East Germany and from Bavaria, but really getting significant
votes from most of the the country.
More
men than women, but many women voted for them and their main leaders are
women.
More
workers than professionals, but again, the numbers are a tendency that does not
define their whole electorate. All
social classes and education levels had a perscentage of hard right voters.
Source
Zeit
And
what should we expect?
In
Germany we should expect all the other parties represented to shun and isolate
the ultra right.
The
Social Democrats have decided not to stay in the government, taking themselves
out of the conversations to form the next coalition. They have good internal reasons to do so, but
they also have a national reason. As the
second largest party they will now form the official opposition. If they had joined the government, the ultra
right would have held that official role.
The
Christian Democrats will probably form a government with the Free Democrats and
the Greens, what the Germans call a Jamaica Coaltion for the party colors
Black-Yellow-Green. Remember that the
German Greens are not so far left and have served in government before.
It is
noticeable that the news graphics assign the color light blue to the
Alternative for Germany and I have not seen the traditional color for fascists
in Germany, brown.
Germany’s
support for more refugees coming and their participation in the French
government initiative for a stronger, more federal Europe will both be in a bit
of trouble. While the mainstream German
parties will not accommodate the hard right movement, they will not miss the message
either. The anti Europe and anti immigrant
feelings in Germany extend way past those who feel so strong about it that they
are willing for vote for the ultra right.
We have already seen a shift in positions from inside of the Christian
Democrats.
And a
lot will not change. Merkel will go on
to be the longest serving federal Chancelor.
German politics will be plural, colorful and peppered with some new
drama, but in the end their system of political pluralism and proportional
representation is inherently stable.
Note:
In earlier blogs I predicted this outcome with smaller numbers for the hard
right based on Land elections earlier in the year. Between then and now the main change was
Merkel’s and her Christian Demorcrats decline in popularity, especially over
the issue of the one million refugees Merkel accepted last year.
