With general elections upcoming in Germany on September 27, all the latest polling data shows the Social Democrats (SPD) of foreign minister and chancellor candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier trailing far behind the Christian Democrats (CDU) of Chancellor Angela Merkel. (The CDU and the SPD are coalition partners in a so-called “grand coalition” government.) According to the latest “Deutschland Trend” poll of German public television ARD, for example, support for the Social Democrats is running at an all-time low 22%, as opposed to 37% for the Christian Democrats. Indeed, even the combined scores of the Social Democrats and their preferred coalition partners, the Greens, only add up to 34%: well below what would be needed to form a “Red-Green” coalition government.
This does not mean, however, that the re-election of Chancellor Merkel and the formation of a “conservative” coalition government under her leadership is a foregone conclusion. (If this did come to pass, the – by German standards, at any rate – economically liberal “Free Democrats” would be the junior partners of the Christian Democrats.) Despite frequent denials, many signs suggest that should the electoral math favor such a solution the SPD would be prepared to cooperate not only with the Greens, but also with the party known simply as “the Left” (Die Linke). Such cooperation could take the form of a full-fledged broad left coalition including all three parties or of a minority SPD-Green government that governs with the support of “the Left.”
Such a prospect is highly controversial, since the “Left” party is the product of a 2007 merger between the small “Labor and Social Justice” party (WASG) of SPD renegade Oskar Lafontaine and the much larger, “post-Communist,” Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). The PDS in turn was just the re-branded successor party of the old East German Communist Party. Some prominent members of the Left party decidedly reject the “post-Communist” label – i.e., the “post” part. They have their own internal party faction known as “The Communist Platform.”
One clear sign that the SPD might be prepared to form a minority government with the support of “the Left” is the fact that the local SPD in the German state of Hessen attempted last year to do precisely that. The attempt failed when four SPD members of the state parliament announced that under the circumstances they could not in good conscience vote for SPD governor candidate Andrea Ypsilanti.
An even clearer sign is the treatment that has been reserved by the party for the four MPs who deviated from the party line. The four are commonly described in the German media as “deviationists” [Abweichler]. Thus on Tuesday, an internal SPD disciplinary body upheld an earlier party decision to ban the most prominent of the four, Jürgen Walter, from holding any party offices for a period of two years. Walter had previously served as vice-chair of the Hessen Social Democrats. As reported in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the SPD disciplinary body accuses “Comrade Walter” of “grossly disloyal” behavior that has done the party “severe harm.”
The disciplinary ruling is supposed somehow to be unrelated to Walter’s freedom as an elected representative to vote as he sees fit. According to the Hessen SPD, it is rather “strictly a matter of [his] behavior.” This is apparently an allusion to the fact that Walter only made his opposition known the day before the scheduled parliamentary vote on Ypsilanti’s candidacy and is reported earlier to have voiced his approval for her plans to form a minority government with the Left’s support. Thus it would seem that in the SPD, changing one’s mind is evidence of “gross disloyalty” and “intrigue.” It should be noted that some nine months had passed between the January 2008 state elections in Hessen and the parliamentary vote in question (which was scheduled for November 4).
In any case, whereas one of the four “deviationists” quickly made known her opposition, the other three have long acknowledged that the party’s plans to take power with the help of the Left party placed them before a difficult moral dilemma. This is hardly surprising when one considers their biographies. Indeed, one of them, Carmen Everts, had even written a doctoral dissertation on the Left party’s most recent prior incarnation, the PDS: namely as an example of “political extremism” in Germany.
5 responses so far
1 k1981 // Aug 15, 2009 at 9:42 am
Dear John,
I am sorry to say but as a German who used to favor the Socialdemocrats and is now leaning towards the Christiandemocrats, I still feel like defending my old comrades. On a federal level there is no sign whatsoever of the SPD making a coalition with the Linke, at leats not after this election. The SPD has pointed out that they have several disputes with the LINKE over core policy issues, that couldn’t bring them together in this election. Although keeping promises that were made before the election is not one of the strengths of German parties, I see no point of raising fear of a Commi-SPD coalition right now.
On the other hand I would agree with you that the SPD should get rid of the elements that still tend to such a coalition. The only way of saving Social Democracy in Germany, and in the spirit of Sidney Hook I am still a social democrat, there should be a clear pro-growth, pro-west and pro-freedom program. I don’t see any real commonalities between these two factions. The LINKE is stubbornly anti-west, anti-freedom and heavily populist.
2 DFL // Aug 17, 2009 at 8:59 am
I would like to see the Left win in Germany so as to better wreck the current political zeitgeist in the West. The social democracy that has prevailed in Europe since 1945 is what has driven Europe to decline.
3 k1981 // Aug 17, 2009 at 7:31 pm
It is not that easy. Looking at Great Britain’s New Labour and the changes, the in the case of foreign policy worse Chancellor since Bismarck, Gerhard Schröder has undertaken to reform the German social system are proof of a different story. Unfortunately, both have made subsequent errors (the SPD in not defending aggressively their welfare reforms and the Labour Party (like G.W. Bush) in not being able to communicate the necessary overthrow of Hussein successfully) that will result in a massive decline of social democracy in those countries. Europe in decline since 1945? Come on, only someone wishing for the good old (fascist?) days could say something like this. Never before has there been wealth like this, never before more freedom, never before such a long period of peace. Social democracy was one of the factors that helped integrating Europe, especially Germany, into the ‘West’. Fortunately the LINKE will not win in the national elections; they had been expected to gain from the current crisis, but polls show that they even lost.
4 DFL // Aug 18, 2009 at 8:56 am
Since 1945 the following negative phenomena have occured in Europe: 1) a birth rate that has dropped to 1.5 or so children per female: 2) a huge rise in the Islamic population: 3) a growing dependence on the state and the rise of the therapeutic state; 4) a decline in religion and a corresponding decline in morals; 5) the rise of an unsustainable welfare state; 6) state spending that approaches fifty percent, and often more, in most European countries. Writers as different as Mark Steyn, Pat Buchanan and Christopher Caldwell have concluded that Europe is dying.
Throwing around terms like fascist at anyone who does not accept the European welfare state reflects badly is the sign of childishness and churlishness.
5 k1981 // Aug 18, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Not accused anyone of anything, i was just wondering what the alternatives should look like. if you feel offended, i apologize. I don’t see europe dying: I don’t see a problem in a low birthrate, the problem is that there is no economic compensation for it, neither is the dependence on the state a sign of decline. Furthermore I don’t see why a growing muslim (not islamic!) population as a problem per se, it is rather a problem of integrating them and of offering them an idea, similar to the one the USA is offering her immigrants.
I definitely agree with you that there is a decline in religion, but on the other hand there is no correspondence to a decline in morals. The decline in morals has something to do with the rejection of morality as a central concept of society by the generation of 1968. There is morality that comes from religion, sure, but not solely. That the welfare state is unsustainable I would agree partly. There were some crucial changes in the German welfare system, and there will be more. And finally, and redundantly, you mention the excessive state spending. Although I would agree that I think it is too much, this is no sign whatsoever of a decline or a negative phenomena. It is only if you define a state by the opposite, but then your making a petitio principii, stating what is right in your premises: small state is good, europe has big government, hence europe is bad.
Funny thing is:
- USA has with aorund 11 trillion$$ the biggest deficit in the world.
- USA is heavily indebted to the Chinese Commis
- With 9,4 % a higher unemployment rate than Europe ( EU27: 8,9)
- the USA has an unsolved problem of ca. 15 million illegal Immigrants
- there is a bifurcation in the USA, morally and politically that seems almost irreconcilable.
That’s why I like this page here, David Frum is a conservative that reaches across the aisle, not stubbornly pointing fingers at the other side, calling them names and just being stupid theoretically wise. It is not about brand ‘conservative’, ‘left’, etc. it is about what is good for people, for the individual that should be the only criteria.
You must log in to post a comment.