After losing a confidence vote and triggering snap elections, can Olaf Scholz lead mainstream parties back to power, or will more radical forces prevail?
December 2024
On Monday, German chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a vote of confidence in the Bundestag. Germany’s “traffic light” coalition of Social Democrats (SPD), Liberals (FDP), and Greens is now history. While the current government will remain in place until a new chancellor is elected, Germany’s federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, now has three weeks to either piece together a new coalition or pave the way for snap elections. Scholz thus joins the ranks of three previous Social Democratic chancellors who failed to complete their full terms in office: Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Gerhard Schröder.
The country now heads into a historically short election season, with February 23 widely expected to be the voting date. Speculation abounds over whether this condensed campaign will benefit the major political parties or their challengers from the radical fringes.
Germany is grappling with stagnant economic growth, eroding public trust, geopolitical instability, and a growing challenge from anti-establishment forces. The latest polls paint a complex picture. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) under Friedrich Merz, together with its Bavarian sister party (CSU), currently leads with around 33 percent of the vote, while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) stands as the second-strongest party with 17 percent. Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) are polling at 15 percent, the Greens at 14 percent, and the FDP at just 4 percent. The newly founded left-wing populist Wagenknecht movement (BSW) hovers around the 5 percent threshold, with the far-left Die Linke unlikely to re-enter Parliament.
While these numbers can still shift dramatically — as often seen in the past — the central issues of the upcoming campaign are clear: the economy, exploding energy costs, rising living expenses, immigration, and the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Party Platforms: Shifts and Breaks
Promoting a platform titled “Political Change in Germany,” the CDU/CSU promises economic growth and aims to undo a whole series of traffic-light policies, including the liberalization of cannabis laws, an unpopular heating law, and a controversial gender self-identification law — issues that have contributed to the coalition’s decline.
But at a deeper level, the CDU/CSU is trying to break with the legacy of Angela Merkel. With energy prices surging, the conservatives are reconsidering Merkel’s nuclear phase-out following the 2011 Fukushima disaster and are pushing for a tougher stance on immigration. Proposals include processing asylum seekers in safe third countries and opposing fast-track citizenship for migrants. The Bavarian CSU underscores this push with full-mouthed calls for “law and order.”
The SPD, in contrast, is doubling down on traditional social-democratic policies. Its platform focuses on social belonging, public investments, pension payments, raising the minimum wage, and taxing the super-rich while lowering taxes for the average voter.
Notably, Scholz is presenting himself as a nuanced and cautious supporter of Ukraine, distinguishing his position from the conservatives’ more hawkish stance, the election platform warns of “dangerous adventures in questions of war and peace” and in his speech in parliament on Monday, Scholz pledged that “Germany would certainly not be sending any German soldiers to fight in this war, not with me as chancellor.”
At this point, it is unclear how much of the public debate will focus on Ukraine and whether the issue will become decisive. However, history attests to the power of antiwar rhetoric in postwar Germany. After all, the last Social Democratic chancellor before Scholz, Gerhard Schröder, orchestrated a stunning election win based on his outspoken opposition to the war in Iraq in 2002.
Germany’s Greens, meanwhile, are recalibrating. While their 2021 platform framed the climate crisis as “the existential question of our time,” today’s message prioritizes economic innovation and sustainable growth. The party has also quietly shifted gears on immigration, with Green candidate Robert Habeck citing concerns about organized crime (“clan violence” ), and produced an unexpected proposal to help rural youth in East Germany obtain driver’s licenses — a quiet nod to voters skeptical of the party’s traditionally quasi-religious anti-car stance.
Predictably, for the AfD, immigration remains the central issue, echoing concerns that are widely held among the general public. The party’s draft platform also combines criticism of continued support for Ukraine with calls to leave the EU and abolish the euro, following a referendum.
The Wagenknecht movement similarly blends skepticism of Ukraine aid with left-wing critiques of unregulated migration. The party was founded only this January, but already has had a string of electoral successes: Three regional elections in eastern Germany and a successful performance in the European elections. The BSW’s platform is yet unfinished, but draft versions focus on the war in Ukraine, protecting the middle class, and rejecting U.S. missiles in Germany. Finally, the FDP, thrown out of government and down in the polls, is trying to recover lost ground with a classic focus on de-bureaucratizing the economy.
For the first time in Germany’s postwar history, five candidates are vying for the chancellorship, representing the CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, AfD, and Wagenknecht’s BSW. Twenty years ago, the political establishment mocked the liberal leader Guido Westerwelle for daring to run for high office alongside the major-party candidates. Today, a fragmented political landscape has made such candidacies routine.
All current indicators point to Friedrich Merz as the frontrunner. However, Merz’s personal approval ratings remain low, and in recent head-to-head matchups with Scholz, the two leaders are virtually tied with an unflattering 26 percent support rating.
The Coalition Conundrum
Germany’s political turmoil is unlikely to end after the votes are cast. The Brandmauer — or cordon sanitaire — designed to protect democracy by keeping the far-right at bay is not only shutting out the AfD but also boxing in the political mainstream, leaving few tangible options.
Surely, thanks to the “firewall” against the far right, the AfD has no viable coalition partners and no realistic path to power, short of an outright majority. Yet that firewall also complicates a process of coalition-building already fraught with barriers for mainstream parties.
Merz has ruled out cooperation with the AfD, and his Bavarian sister party threatens to veto any coalition with the Greens. However, the CDU also refuses to collaborate with Die Linke, should it re-enter Parliament, and has also rejected the BSW as a potential partner.
This stance, of course, is echoed by Olaf Scholz, who has rejected a coalition with the BSW because of its position on Russia, declaring that “with them it wouldn’t work at all.” But the SPD is equally unlikely to rekindle its fraught coalition with the Liberals. In parliament, Scholz accused the party of “sabotage,” saying that it lacked “decency and maturity.” And the Liberals? They have solemnly pledged to not govern alongside the Greens.
With lines in the sand and firewalls in every direction, the most plausible coalition options currently include a grand alliance between the CDU and SPD or a CDU-Green alliance. Either scenario would require Merz to modify his ongoing course-correction away from Merkelian progressivism. Because in both scenarios, he would have to share power with more left-leaning partners that are already in government now.
While a future two-party coalition may thus prove more stable than the three-party traffic-light government, it is unlikely to deliver sweeping change. A new coalition in Berlin representing more of the same, however, would likely only further fuel the rise of the right. The AfD, for its part, has already declared the CDU its “primary political opponent” and appears confident it will benefit from dissatisfaction with whoever governs next.
As the AfD’s radical MEP Maximilian Krah noted weeks ago already, “disenchantment will come when the conservatives start governing with the Greens in 2025.” In this reading, four more years of explaining to citizens that “there is no alternative” might only further strengthen the party that claims the word alternative in its name. Thus Germany’s current political crisis may well be a prelude to a greater danger in the months — and years — to come.
Michael Bröning is a political scientist and a member of the basic-value commission of the German Social Democratic Party. His most recent book is Die Hetzer sind immer die anderen (2024).
Copyright © 2024 National Endowment for Democracy
Image credit: Maryam Majd/Getty Images
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