German Election 2017: All you need to know, from Angela Merkel to Christian Lindner

Election posters showing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, CDU, and and social democrat challenger Martin Schulz, SPD in Erfurt, central Germany. Letters read ‘Successful for Germany’, left, and ‘It is time for more fairness’ (AP Photo/Jens Meyer).

Germany votes on Sunday, September 24 in the election in which Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has been in power since 2006, will be seeking a fourth term. Merkel is the leader of her center-right party, the Central Democratic Union (CDU).

If the German elections haven’t made a lot of noise compared to the Netherlands, France and Britain, which hit the polls earlier this year and despite Germany being the most important country from the EU perspective, this could be due to the relative lack of surprise Germans perceive to be in store for them. As Joachim Bittner, a political editor for the German weekly Die Zeit writes in the New York Times, “It’s not that Germans are uninterested in politics or the issues; it’s that they’ve accepted the fact that the country’s national politics are locked in place by a centrist consensus that gives them little choice at the ballot box”. 

Read How the Chancellor is elected

Merkel and her challenger

The two main contenders of the election are two centrists from the dominant center-right and center-left parties: conservative incumbent Angela Merkel and social democrat Martin Schulz.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, center, attends a news conference for children as part of a family event of her Christian Democratic Union party in Berlin, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017 one week ahead of the German general elections on Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Angela Merkel, CDU/CSU: Chancellor Merkel’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, along with its sister party Christian Social Union in Bavaria region, became the most dominant political force in the post World War II since its formation in 1950, unifying Germany and leading the government for 47 of those 67 years. The main support base of CDU/CSU comes from the older, Christian and conservative population, especially in the south of the country.

As for Merkel herself, her popularity among her supporters suffered a considerable setback post 2015 when she decided to be liberal on immigration by permitting over a million refugees and migrants from Syria and other conflict regions into Germany. Despite Merkel presiding over the the most drastic change Germany has undergone since the fall of the Berlin Wall, she provides an illusion of familiar in the post-Brexit world where Donald Trump is leading the United States. Unlike other main contenders, Merkel has undeniable experience in dealing with the world that has quickly become more prone to crises, economic, political as well as humanitarian. In Bittner’s words, “Within the sea of change — although she has been contributing to it — Ms. Merkel is a rock.” Commentators and Germans have little doubt that Merkel will win her fourth term of Chancellorship, so much so that many have already shifted their focus from who will win the election to whom Merkel will choose to form her next government.

SPD leader and top candidate for the German elections, Martin Schulz speaks during a meeting of Germany’s Social Democratic Party in Dortmund, Germany.  (AP Photo/Michael Probst, file)

Martin Schulz, SPD: The Social Democratic Party, founded in 1875, is Germany’s oldest party; traditionally the party of the working classes and the trade unions. Its mainstay lies in the densely populated, industrial regions of western Germany. The SPD stands for a strong social infrastructure and social policy has traditionally been its strong suit. In 2015, the party was instrumental in introducing a national minimum wage in Germany.

Current SPD leader, Martin Schulz had been the head of the European Parliament from 2012 to 2017, a post he left to challenge Merkel in the upcoming elections. Schulz, a high school dropout, is an unconventional candidate by German standards where academic qualifications and degrees often decide careers, including political ones. Shortly after his candidacy was announced, SPD enjoyed soaring popularity in polls, over Merkel’s CDU, in January and February this year. That success, however, did not last; closer to the election, Schulz has been looking less and less capable of dislodging Merkel.

The smaller, viable stakeholders 

The nationalist, populist Alternative for Germany (AfD), the Greens, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Left have been polling just under 10 per cent, which means there could be four smaller parties in the next Parliament.

Alice Weidel (L) and Alexander Gauland of the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AFD) react before they address a news conference in Berlin. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch/File Photo

Alternative for Germany: The popularity of the right-wing nationalist AfD has been surging since it was formed five months before the last election in 2013 as a Eurosceptic party. The AfD was originally created by a group of euroskeptic academics as a protest against the single European currency – in reaction to Merkel’s decision to bail out Greece in 2010 following Europe’s financial crisis. Since 2015, however, the leadership has changed and the party has taken on the mantle of overt nationalism, anti-immigration and anti-Islam. During 2013 elections, it failed to enter the parliament owing to receiving less than 5 per cent votes, but since then its representatives has been consistently elected into state legislatures and the European parliament. It is currently polling at roughly 8 per cent, mooching off traditional voters mainly from CDU and SPD bases.

The election, despite its low pitch campaigns, is likely to be a watershed moment in German politics as no far-right party has managed to send delegates to the German Parliament since the defeat of the Nazis in 1945. This, in all probability, will change on Sunday.

An election campaign poster of the German AfD party in Berlin reads ‘Burkas? We prefer bikinis.’ (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

AfD’s appeal increased along with Germans’ disappointment with the mass refugee influx prevailed and anxieties that some Syrians in Germany have ties to radical organisations have surfaced in recent years, but its electoral fortunes saw a dip in 2017 as the number of asylum seekers reduced. Currently led by Alice Weidel and hardliner Alexander Gauland, AfD wants to seal EU’s borders from refugees and immediately deport anyone who application for political asylum has been denied. It has insisted on the primacy of “traditional” German culture and rejects Islam as a part of German society. It also wishes to downplay Germany’s Nazi past. Openly nationalist Gauland has reportedly made statements like, “If the French are rightly proud of their emperor and the Britons of Nelson and Churchill, we have the right to be proud of the achievements of the German soldiers in two world wars”. AfD’s stand on climate change being man-made is a skeptical one and it wants to reverse Germany’s recent push to switch to renewable resources. It was the only major German party to welcome the election of US President Donald Trump and Britain’s decision to leave the EU.

As pollsters predict a 10 – 12 per cent performance for the AfD, it is worth noting the pollsters may lack experience with far-right sentiments, which is voters may not necessarily disclose voluntarily or up front. The degree of AfD’s performance will likely affect the composition of the governing coalition.

The top candidate of The Greens, Katrin Goering-Eckardt addresses the delegates by the words reading “Nazis? No, thank you” during an election campaign party meeting in Berlin. REUTERS/Fabrizio Mensch

The Greens (Die Gruene): As the name suggests, environmentalism is the core cause of the Green party who rely on the political support of educated, urban voters, especially in university towns of Germany. Their supporters have marched for everything from gay rights to ending dependency of nuclear power. Once a countercultural movement associated with Hippies and activists, the Greens grew out of an assortment of social protest movements of the 1980s that eventually unified into a political party. The Greens came into prominence in the early 2000s as a coalition partner of the SPD led by former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. It was still more successful in 2009 when it received 10 per cent of the national vote first and only time. Since then the party has been underperforming. Divided to the ‘realists’ and the ‘fundamentalists’ — the former have been slowly taking control of the leadership and are likely to push the party policies in the more centrist direction.

Celebration of the Left Party in the Berlin Kulturbrauerei. Katja Kipping (L), Dietmar Bartsch, Sahra Wagenknecht, Klaus Ernst. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Left Party (Die Linke): Partly a descendant of the former East German Communist Party, the stronghold of the Left Party understandably lie in the states of former East Germany (GDR), where the older people remember the bygone days of the communist GDR regime. In the West, its voters tend to be the younger voters who want to express their disenchantment with the dominant parties. The Left is also an internally divided party, with radical, anti-capitalist members on one hand and moderates who mainly aim to check capitalist excesses on the other. This is embodied in the Left’s two election candidates – Sahra Wagenknecht who is occasionally a populist firebrand and Dietmar Bartsch, who is a moderate conciliator.

The Left party is currently the largest opposition party in the German parliament. It strongly opposes Germany’s military missions abroad and wishes to increase market regulation, current minimum wage, state pensions and investment in social infrastructure. The Left Party could likely be a part of the ruling coalition, in case the SPD prevails. 

Christian Lindner, chairman of the German Liberal Party (FDP), delivers a speech during a party’s convention in Berlin, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017 (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

Free Democratic Party (FDP): This pro-European and business friendly party has been around since 1948 and though it has never led the government, it has long participated in governing coalitions and yielded some significant ministers. Contrary to its legacy, the FDP suffered significant electoral losses in 2013 and failed to make it past the five per cent hurdle. In 2017, it has benefited from the new leadership of the charismatic Christian Lindner and is likely to make a return to the Parliament.

Likely coalition combinations: According to the recent polls, many Germans would prefer the current ruling coalition between Merkel’s CDU and the SPD — the two strongest, centrist mainstream blocs. Merkel, if she wins, could also enter a coalition with either the libertarian Free Democratic Party or the Green Party — both of which performed poorly in 2013 but are poised to make a comeback now.

Major election issues

Immigration is one of the main issues that have come to the fore since the refugee crisis of 2015, along with questions of what constitutes a “German” identity. The management of refugees and internal security in the wake of terrorist attacks are critical concerns that centrist parties have steered clear of discussing, perhaps in awareness that only the far right, nationalist AfD party could benefit from the opening of that can of worms. The stark avoidance of these key issues by the big players has dubbed the 2017 campaign as ‘the sleep campaign’.