Germany goes to the polls

The elections for the 18th German Bundestag will be held in Germany on 22 September 2013. Since 2009, when the current legislative period began, a CDU/CSU led Federal Government headed by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel has governed in coalition with the FDP. From the beginning, the work of this CDU/CSU-FDP government has been influenced by the European financial crisis, which has also largely defined the domestic policy of both coalition partners. In addition to “saving the euro”, Merkel has made restructuring Germany’s energy supply a major theme of her chancellorship. After an extension of the operating times of several nuclear power plants was initially agreed in 2010, the reactor disaster at Fukushima in 2011 led to an energy policy rethink. Since then the restructuring of Germany’s energy system in favour of renewable energies has been promoted under the heading of the “Energiewende” or energy transformation.

However, this subject is only playing a minor role in the current election campaign. In the established parties, questions of social and labour market policy and financial and taxation policy tend to dominate. This becomes especially obvious in the major debate on a minimum wage. Therefore, the election programme of the SPD demands an across-the-board statutory minimum wage of 8.50 euros an hour, while the CDU/CSU and the FDP want a so-called lower wage limit, which involves employers and employees in different industries negotiating the respective lowest pay level.

When it comes to the subject of Europe, there is largely consensus between the parties, which all support European integration. The parties are also more or less agreed about the future of the common currency, the euro. In any event, a party political confrontation of polarizing positions is not taking place on the subject of Europe.

Although the problem-solving strategies of the various political camps differ in many areas, these differences frequently only involve small nuances so that the election campaign does not always appear to polarize opinions at all. Political ideas play a bigger role in Germany than personalities. This is due, on the one hand, to the complex problems of a differentiated modern society that are not easily solved and, on the other, to the need to form coalitions – perhaps even between three partners. As a result, the impetus for significantly different, programmatically underpinned election promises is significantly reduced. Despite this situation, differences can be detected overall in the German party system in the respective party political priorities along the fault lines of freedom and security as well as markets and redistribution. Traditionally, the CDU/CSU focuses programmatically on the social market economy and in this context emphasizes the combination of a private enterprise system with a social balance as well as strong support for families. As the largest party group in the German Bundes­tag at present, the CDU/CSU is campaigning to continue the existing Federal Government with Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is popular among the German population as a whole. The SPD and its chancellor candidate Peer Steinbrück, who worked with Angela Merkel as Federal Finance Minister during the grand coalition from 2005 to 2009, are primarily relying on the questions of a minimum wage and social justice. With its two leading candidates, Jürgen Trittin and Katrin Göring-Eckardt, the third political force, Alliance 90/The Greens, is campaigning not only on the basis of its traditional issues of environmental protection and nature conservation, but also the raising of the highest tax rates.

Opinion polls in the spring said it was unclear whether the FDP and The Left would still be represented in the Bundestag after the coming election. Electoral law requires parties to exceed a 5% threshold in order 
to prevent a fragmentation of the party 
system. If the FDP does not manage to 
cross this threshold, it could mean a change of government to Red-Green (SPD and Greens).

Fundamentally, each voter casts two votes. A total of 299 members of the Bundestag – half of the 598 parliamentarians – are elected 
directly for a constituency by a relative majority. Electors’ first votes are cast for these directly elected seats. The first vote constitutes the “personalized” part of the electoral system, because the voter elects a specific individual for his or her constituency. The second vote is cast for a specific political party. It determines the composition of the Bundestag. It is unquestionably more important than the first vote. How many seats a party wins in the Bundestag depends solely on the proportion of second votes it receives. The German electoral system is therefore unequivocally based on proportional representation. New electoral rules come into effect in 2013, but the impact they will have is not really predictable: the core of the new law governing elections to the Bundestag, which became necessary following a ruling of the Federal Constitutional Court, is the abolition of the “negative voting effect” (see box: “Distribution of seats”). If the direction of this reform is correct, then the electorate’s votes will again be translated into seats in a fair and proportional way. It could cause irritations, however, if the number of seats increases substantially as a result.

In addition to the main political issues, the coalition question lies at the centre of the election campaign. In an asymmetrical five-party system, small two-party coalitions are less likely to be able to gain a 
majority than was the case in the past. As a result, the parties will need to clarify the following questions: Which alliances are we seeking? Which alliances do we categorically rule out? Of course, issues and individuals have an influence on this. Above all, the asymmetrical, oscillating five-party system that has existed since 2005 will have far-reaching consequences for the formation of a government: with the exception of a grand coalition, there are no longer clear alliances between the established political camps that are capable of achieving a reliable majority, as was previously the case for decades. The parties must respond to this and try out new patterns of government-formation, such as coalitions across political divides or minority governments. The SPD-Green and CDU/CSU-FDP camps need polarizing issues to mobilize their own supporters. In effect, however, the parties also need to preserve a strategic openness in order to make mathematical majorities possible across political divides. At least the parties of the political Centre are all capable of forming coalitions in Germany. One exception here is The Left, which has so far only been able to form coalitions with the SPD in individual states.

Furthermore, two new parties – the Pirate Party and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) – are aiming to enter the Bundestag. The main concern of the Pirates is an “upgrade” of political participation through “liquid democracy”. In contrast, the AfD, a party established by Eurosceptics, is calling for the withdrawal of the southern European countries from the euro. They could benefit from the growing number of protest voters who have been responsible in recent years for the electoral successes of The Left and the Pirates. However, both these parties have only been able to build their electoral victories on a solid base in specific social groups. A blend of dissatisfaction, the loss of old certainties, curiosity and protest continues to accumulate – particularly when a big idea, such as the abolition of the euro, comes to the fore.

Parties that successfully mobilize can still win elections. That especially applies when majorities are small. A single seat in the Bundestag could be enough to secure the chancellorship. Which government will be formed after the election is still unclear. All options appear possible – from the traditional two-party coalition to a grand coalition to a three-party alliance. ▪

Prof. Dr. Karl-Rudolf Korte is a 
political scientist and Director of the NRW School of Governance at 
the University of Duisburg-Essen.