ER Editor: Is Sunday’s election a victory for the Left in Germany? No, argues Alexander Mercouris. Will a Jamaica or Traffic Light coalition emerge, or even another election? Or will it just be More Merkel? Very probably.
Germany’s SDP (Social Democrats) got 25.7% of Sunday’s vote, while the CDU-CSU so-called ‘right’ alliance got 24.1%, its worst showing since 1949. The parties on the edges (Die Linke and AfD) didn’t make headway.
Here are notes from The Duran team’s discussion:
- Mercouris: Angela Merkel is still Chancellor and will remain so until a govt coalition can be constructed. She may still be in office at Christmas. New elections may need to happen, in fact.
- The CDU has collapsed because of 16 years of Merkel being in power. It’s almost a centre-left party itself without real definition.
- But no, it’s not a swing to the left. There are 3 parties on the Left in Germany: the SPD (similar to the CDU, in fact); the Greens (a weird party, sometimes left, sometimes Euro-Atlanticist – it’s the EU fan club, the hate-Russia party, left in the way Hillary Clinton was, i.e. Neocon); Die Linke, the former East German Communist party, which has suffered a major defeat. The left has coalesced around the SDP – the Greens didn’t do well. So we have 25% SPD and 15% Greens, which is not a ringing endorsement for the Left. On the right, we have increasing movement from CDU/CSU to the FDP, which is a liberal (economically speaking), free market party with close connections to the German army. It’s a fiscally conservative, somewhat right-wing party. The AfD has held onto its positions surprisingly well given that the movement in the election was into the centre.
- So Merkel is chancellor for the foreseeable future; the SDP’s Olaf Scholz is a loyal Merkel supporter – there’s little difference between them. It will be a nightmare putting together a coalition. It’s far from certain there will be an SDP-led coalition. If so, it will be weak with little coherence and ‘more Merkelism’. All policies from the outer left or outer right are being pushed aside, so Germany will just drift as it has been doing.
- When Merkel will be replaced, she will likely be President of the European Council – Jean Michel’s current job, so she’s far from being out of the picture. Germany is stuck where it was, and so is the EU.
- It’s just immobilism and a weak government in Germany, drifting along. It’s a broken system with no real challenge given to the EU combine. Macron, meanwhile, will be sniffing around this weakness and seeing his opportunity.
- There are only two options for a coalition: the SPD with the Greens and FDP called the Traffic Light coalition (the favourite option, yet the FDP are incompatible with the Greens) or the CDU – Green – FDP ‘Jamaica flag’ coalition (which could be even more difficult). Amin Laschet has no credibility in the CDU after Merkel, who has destroyed the CDU basically. The most obvious solution is a CDU-SPD Grand Coalition AGAIN, which the Establishment favours.
- The theoretical alternative, which wouldn’t be allowed to happen, is the majority coalition on the Right – the CDU, CSU, AfD and FDP. It would be the most coherent government, which would make sense. But the CDU ISN’T a Conservative party in any meaningful sense. It’s just part of the EU establishment, only pretending to be conservative.
- So it’s not a victory of the Left. We have instead a chaotic picture following Merkel’s distortion of the CDU over 16 years, and because of the way the German elite, the political class cannot conceive of politics OUTSIDE THE CENTRE. And actually, this has created a lot of support within Germany, which is an aging society that isn’t renewing itself. The pensioner vote is increasing, which translates into a vote for stability and Merkel-style inertia, which is bad for Europe and Germany.
- The media is so powerful because the AfD are considered by it to be beyond the pale and would never be invited into a coalition. So we get stuck with immobilism and Merkelism because of this fantasy about the AfD and the power of the establishment media.
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Election results in Germany deliver unworkable coalition mess
The Duran: Episode 1099
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