Let the haggling to succeed Merkel begin

Voting may be over but the process to decide what Germany’s next government will look like has only just begun, writes Mattie Brignal.

After a nail-biting night in which the country’s post-Merkel direction hung in the balance, Olaf Sholz’s left-leaning SPD came out on top with 25.8 per cent of the vote, narrowly pipping Armin Laschet’s embattled conservative CDU/CSU pairing which gained just 24.1 per cent, its worst ever result.

The two biggest parties have ruled out a return to the “Grand Coalition” which has ruled Germany for the last eight years, meaning the country is set for its first ever three-way arrangement.

Both Laschet and Scholz have laid claim to the chancellery and while both men have a shot at forming a coalition, Scholz is in the driving seat.

For one thing, he came out on top in an election in which the CDU/CSU hemorrhaged 6.5m votes compared to its 2017 tally. Scholz is also widely considered the superior candidate. Wolfgang Merkel (no relation), a political scientist at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre, said that, as opposed to Laschet – an “extremely weak” choice who the powerbrokers in the CDU regarded as sub-optimal – “Scholz promises leadership, he promises capability — that is, an ability to navigate through this turmoil — and he has international recognition.”

As Politico’s Matthew Karnitschnig points out: “Nearly half of SPD voters said they wouldn’t have voted for the party if he weren’t its chancellor candidate, according to exit poll data. For the CDU and Laschet, that was only the case for 10 per cent of voters.”

The CDU and SPD leaders have both said they will attempt to form a coalition with the Greens and the pro-business FDP, which finished third and fourth on 14.8 per cent and 11.5 per cent of the vote respectively.

These two parties find themselves joint kingmakers. In what could prove a savvy play, the FDP and Greens are to hold bilateral talks to settle their (considerable) differences before they start haggling with the CDU and SPD. It could help them gain more leverage in any deal, with the Greens hoping for wide-ranging powers over climate policy and Christian Lindner, the FDP leader, eyeing up the post of finance minister.

The Greens have traditionally been comfortable working with SPD. The two were coalition partners in the last pre-Merkel government from 1998 to 2005, and broadly agree on social spending and the need for tax rises, though the SPD is notably softer on Russia.

Getting the economic liberals of the FDP onside will be a far trickier task for Scholz. Lindner said last week that legalising cannabis is about the only thing the two parties agree on.

By contrast, on matters of economic policy, the CDU and FDP are natural bedfellows. “Christian liberal” governments ran Germany for much of the post-war era.

This alignment could prove Laschet’s trump card. As Jasper von Altenbockum writes in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: “Laschet’s big advantage is that he has Christian Lindner on his side, they both know each other well, have already experienced a similar situation in North Rhine-Westphalia, in which Laschet has earned Lindner’s trust, which is not easy.”

There’s a track record of Germany’s second-place candidate going on to head the government, and the narrow margin means Laschet still has a chance of becoming chancellor. Watch Maggie Pagano and Steffen Grimberg dive into the detail of the two men’s chances and the coalition permutations in the latest Reaction YouTube video, here.

For the time being, things will remain much as they are, with Angela Merkel staying on as care-taker chancellor until the horse-trading concludes. While Scholz has said he wants a deal by Christmas, it took a full five months for Merkel to thrash out a coalition four years ago. For all four parties, the real work starts now.