German federal elections are Sunday, September 24. The most likely outcome of the election is another “Grand Coalition” but it will be a much-weakened coalition. And If that coalition forms again, the rightwing AfD party is poised to become the largest opposition party.
Rightwing Turning Point
The Wall Street Journal reports Nationalist AfD Party Moves Into Third Place in German Election Polls
A last-minute surge in the polls has put a far-right party that wants to dial down German remembrance of the Holocaust within striking distance of becoming the country’s biggest opposition force.
The four-year-old Alternative for Germany, or AfD, has moved into third place and double digits in recent polls. If those numbers hold up until the Sept. 24 election and German Chancellor Angela Merkel repeats her current governing coalition with the center-left Social Democrats, the AfD would become the biggest opposition party in parliament.
No matter how exactly the results shake out, Sunday’s election seems assured to represent a turning point in postwar German history. Ms. Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats are set to finish first, and she is expected to remain chancellor. But the AfD, polls show, is very likely to become the first far-right party in more than half a century to win seats in parliament.
“If the AfD in fact gets into the Bundestag, Nazis will be speaking in the Reichstag [building] for the first time in more than 70 years,” Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel recently told German magazine, Der Spiegel.
Political scientists say while the AfD isn’t a neo-Nazi party, it includes a right-wing-radical wing that appears to be strengthening. And without question, the anti-immigrant party breaks taboos in a country that has resisted right-wing populism for decades in the shadow of the Nazi era.
In parliament, AfD lawmakers would receive state financing to hire new staff and to set up offices in their districts, increasing the party’s nationwide reach. They would hold key seats on legislative committees, make nationally televised speeches, and be able to send official inquiries to the government, which ministries are required to answer.
Polls suggest the AfD draws voters from across the political spectrum who are unhappy with mainstream politics, particularly on immigration. A strong showing by the AfD could complicate things for Ms. Merkel by preventing her from being able to form a governing coalition with just one of two smaller parties, the pro-business Free Democrats or the environmentalist Greens. Instead, she may well need to form an unwieldy three-way coalition including them both—despite their ideological differences—and her conservative bloc. Repeating her current “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats would require her to overcome misgivings in both parties.
Eurointelligence View
For many international observers Germany is the exception: In times of Donald Trump, Brexit and Emmanuel Macron, Germans seem to live on another continent of social peace and political harmony. There is nothing of the desire for renewal witnessed during the French elections, or the desire to distinguish themselves shown by the Brexit vote. There is no major populist insurgency. Controversial subjects of our times like terrorism, refugees, immigration, military engagement, or nationalism, are avoided, observes Jean-Dominique Giuliani, president of the Robert Schuman Foundation.
But this peace is superficial, notes Philippe Rocard in Le Monde. There are about 20-30% frustrated voters in Germany, angry about Angela Merkel and her motto “Wir schaffen das” (we can make it) in immigration policy, or her handouts to bailout countries during the eurozone crisis. The three parties that capture the rising protest are the AFD, Die Linke and even the FDP with its radicalised discourse against Greece.
The rise of the AfD, which looks like it could become the third strongest party only four years after its foundation, would be a turning point in postwar German history, notes the WSJ. Never since the 1950s has a far-right party cleared the 5% hurdle. According to the recent polls, the AfD could get as many as 89 out of 703 seats. With its xenophobic and nationalistic rhetoric, the party breaks taboos in a country that has resisted right-wing populism for decades. To be fair, these numbers are still small compared to Austria where the Freedom party is polling 25%, or France where Marine Le Pen received 34% in the presidential run-off. But for Germany it is a major shift.
Unhappy Marriages
CDU (36) + FDP (22) would have a total percentage of about 58%. But many in SPD would prefer the SPD to be in opposition. Should that develop, SPD would be the largest opposition party.
If SDP chooses opposition, Merkel could form a majority government via an alliance of CDU (36), the Greens (7), and FDP (9). Currently, that alliance would have a bare majority with 52% of the vote.
Regardless of what happens, Merkel will be in a much-weakened position compared to now.
And other than a miracle CDU/FDP finish that achieves more than 50%, it may take quite some time after the election for the next government to form.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Angela Merkel has made it clear that she hates Germany and will always put Brussels bureaucrats over German citizens. While this was clear to many people both inside and outside Germany, the CDU leadership was in denial for too long. Now its too late for them to find another candidate before elections.
If there was effective governance in Germany right now, the AfD would barely be on the radar, never mind a likely partner in government.
There will be a grand coalition that will be mostly impotent. After a few face saving months (and a lot of backroom soul searching), Merkel will face a vote of confidence and be replaced with someone else.
This is another failure of Brussels and a failure of Angela Merkel.
Failed leadership cannot be fixed by manipulating interest rates — not in the USA (Obama), and not in Germany (Merkel).
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What are you talking about?? Merkel will win and she (not her party) is the favorite of most Germans. Steady, ready, smart and willing to change – not like this strange dude in Washington LOL
And I expect that the SPD will go into opposition to rebuild itself for another run in 4 years. In the meantime a Jamaican coalition will run Germany and Europe.
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Ya mean like Hillary, Merkel is planning on stealing the election?
Snark
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Clueless but it is ok
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“If SDP chooses opposition, Merkel could form a majority government via an alliance of CDU (36), the Greens (7), and FDP (9).”
This presumes that the globalist FDP will regain parliamentary status (5%) which it lost in the last election.
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let’s hope the germans improve on the voter turnout of just 71% in the last electins in 2013.
should germans copy the turnout of the recent french elections of less that 50%, we will have proof positive that democracy in both countries has failed and that libtard socialism has become “de rigeur” and the gemran people have been wholly subsumed by the mantra “do no work, pay no taxes, just print money” – after all that is what the immigration of millions of non-german speaking, uneducated and unhealthy migrants means.
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It will be always higher than in the best country of the world – that’s a sad fact.
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Maintaining your country’s cultural and ethnic identity is now called nazism? See what I said about indoctrination and propaganda. Europe had assumed a self imposed double cross of being a bastion of civilization and maintainer of human values. Try forcing 10,000 migrants on China, Korea or Japan and see what happens. You are welcome.
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Democracy have never been anything but a failure. As no religion that professes that the act of you and me getting together to lynch and rob some old lady and then rape her 10 grand kids is somehow not just perfectly OK, but even the holiest of holy “rule of law!”, just because we live in a town of 13 and, “voted” on it first, will ever be.
Democracy may have given the impression of working in the early US because, and only because, it was combined with a Republican constitution that strictly limited what government could do in the name of what “We the People” could be suckered into voting for.
Limited being the key word. Take “limited” away, and democracy is no different than any other form of arbitrary tyranny. Retain “limited” as properly understood, and it doesn’t much matter exactly how government is formed, and what it wants to do. Ergo, in both cases, democracy-or-not-democracy is rather irrelevant. While what matters is limited-vs-unlimited government.
Currently, all “democracy” serves as, is an excuse for those in government to keeping their powers unlimited. Which make the whole idiocy the problem, not any kind of solution.
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The fact that a party that is fully commited to Germany is at barely 12% say it all about the population distribution, and the power of propaganda. Yet, propaganda works both ways.
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Yeah, I’ve been reading about AfD on this blog for ages. Why is it not “hate speech” to call them Nazis?
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Fully committed to the Nazi state you mean?? They will be lucky if they get close to 10% which is still 10% points to much.
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I don’t believe the poll and think AfD will come in weaker.
Being from the East I guess Merkel will be OK with placing more power into European Union, being used to the Soviet Union style control herself.
Germany does get positive payback though with a captive supplicant market and weaker currency than would otherwise be the case.
Why other EU countries don’t calculate the advantage to Germany of the weak Euro and ask for a cut (it is weak because of the others) is a mystery to me. Wouldn’t you want your share?
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AfD is politically incorrect. I expect the polls under count AfD.
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Those Krazy Krauts
Kowtowing to the TPTB is in their DNA
I see ‘no’ Alternative in that chart
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be good to see a side by side comp of the top 4 parties with verifiable changes to departmental budgets and each tax rate.
germans need to allocate around 50,000 euros for each immigrant for the next five years (then some more later on).
that works out at 2 million immigrants x 50,000 each x 5 years or 500 billion euros.
that will take care of direct costs for housing, education, health, nutrition and sewage.
of course the indirect costs could be the same half a trillion again as gemray’s infrastructure needs to be built out, freshly introduced diseases are combatted and spikes in rapes, murders, kidnappings and female genital mutilations are looked after by the wider german society.
in another five years, if all goes well, maybe the bill will halve to a quarter trillion euros in direct costs.
still when you are talking about a bill in the trillions of dollars for a big mouthed hausfraus demented social engineering, it is serious money.
i wonder if germans want another million or two immigrants?
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“Political scientists say while the AfD isn’t a neo-Nazi party, it includes a right-wing-radical wing that appears to be strengthening.”
So naturally, the only logical response is to double-down on Merkel’s disastrous immigration policies., thereby guaranteeing the continued rise of AfD.
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The graph basically shows that the 3 parties are at the exact same spot they were in December. Parties either lost all their gains or gained all their losses.
Probably says more about the uselessness of the polls than anything else.
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The election system is complex, you vote for a representative AND a party and they don’t have to be the same. The CDU has a big seat advantage because they will win the vast majority of the directly elected delegates. If the CDU voters are smart, they will split their vote, electing the CDU delegate and also supporting the FDP for the proportional seats. This gets mathematically complicated, but the bottom line is — the CDU and FDP could easily get a majority of seats even though they are outvoted by the other four parties, and also, the news media outside of Germany is doing a poor job of analysis because they don’t understand the system. The US has the Electoral college, Germany has a mixed proportional and direct system that’s even harder to understand.
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