The German political churning

The AfD created a bang in the run-up to polls and got the desired effect. But it will have to act like a serious party than merely react, writes Volker Lennart Plan

 This year’s German federal elections saw a loud bang with the populist right-extremist party Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany, AfD), making deep inroads into the German Parliament with an astounding double digit result (12.6 per cent). Following the global and regional trend, the German Bundestag has also fallen to nationalist populism, marking the first time in six decades that a nationalist party will enter Parliament.

The AfD’s loud entry into the Bundestag immediately corroded the coalition of Germany’s two largest parties which had governed the country for the past term. The centre-right coalition of Angela Merkel’s CDU/CSU union as well as the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) coalition suffered their worst electoral results since 1949. The loss of confidence in the established parties can also be seen as a growing fatigue towards Merkel, who has run the country with stoic stability since 2005. All smaller parties, however, gained votes, most of all the AfD. In the ensuing hangover, Germany has been discussing reasons that drove voters to support the right-winged populist party.

In 2013, the AfD almost made it into the federal Parliament after having been founded only seven months prior to the elections. Four years later, and with the refugee influx of 2015 and 2016 as a result of Merkel’s Willkommenspolitik (“open door policy”), the AfD swayed from anti-EU to anti-refugee propaganda. The party effortlessly preyed on the general frustration and disappointment of people who found themselves continuously on the lower side of the social divide. With concentration on modernisation, European integration and powerhouse regions, people living in the underdeveloped border regions realised that little attention was given to them while the economic growth, which Germany had managed to sustain, benefitted only “the others”. The German and EU politics seemed to be more concerned about uplifting and integrating poor European regions and immigrants. What mainstream and ruling parties have been failing to observe is that this subjective negligence is of socio-cultural and not of political nature. Thus, the inability to counter the firebrand rhetoric with a substantial political response leaves the party establishment confused while the AfD is easing into Parliament for the next four years, making it impossible to be further ignored.

Despite its historic losses, the union of CDU and CSU still emerged as winner at the election day,  polling 32.9 per cent and thereby reinstating Chancellor Angela Merkel for a fourth successive term. And as three smaller parties could regain votes, Germany is facing the events of September 24 now with growing practical optimism. After the SPD was quick to announce its withdrawal from the Government the same night, unlike groups see themselves being pushed to the negotiating table. Recently, talks began revolving around a coalition of the CDU/CSU union with the Liberals and the Greens. This so-called “Jamaica flag coalition” — baptised after the colours affiliated with the involved parties (black for CDU/CSU, yellow for Liberals, and green for Greens) — would be another historic outcome of these elections.

In Germany’s restrictive parliamentary system (only parties with more than five per cent of the voting share get a representation in Parliament), there has not been a three-party Government in 57 years and never one involving the Greens with a party other than SPD. The coalition will require excellent political management by Merkel. A not-so-politically robust Merkel had to settle disagreements with the sister party CSU, which demanded concessions in immigration policies in order to hone their common conservative image. While accordance has been achieved among CDU/CSU, this now might hamper the negotiation talks with the other parties that have emphasised Germany’s role as UNHCR signatory and a tolerant society with open borders during their campaigns.

The Greens and Liberals are unnatural partners and ideologically apart. Yet it is unlikely that both parties will not bend to Merkel’s agenda. The Greens have been fighting with dwindling votes and an identity crisis since their core strength of environmental protection has run out of steam. Likewise, the Liberals who were abandoned by disappointed voters and subsequently dropped out of Parliament in 2013 will be keen to re-engage with Merkel to add their own spice to the mix.

Despite the historic results and the effect that the AfD will likely have on German politics, a deviation from current policy course is unlikely. Only days after the election, the AfD split into populists and opportunists, displaying quarrel even before the constitution of the new Parliament. With its focus on populism and unrealistic demands, the party seems more a pool for anger and frustration than a party of alternatives. The AfD created a bang in the run-up to the elections and got the desired effect. But no bomb can explode twice, and therefore the AfD will have to think about acting like a serious party than merely reactive.

The recent State elections of Lower Saxony have already shown that the glorious double-digit results that the AfD scored in the past State — and now federal — elections came only to half here (6.2 per cent), while the victorious Social Democrats are showing first signs of recovery.

Foreign affairs is one area where Angela Merkel can prove further her reputation for maintaining stability and can expect support from all potential coalition partners. Under Merkel’s leadership, Germany will continue to pursue its strong export and financial driven policies, which dominated the EU. The continuation of such policies and a likely liberal coalition partner will not bring the turnaround that Europe had hoped for.

It is more likely that — historic losses aside — a confident Germany will continue to look for cooperation outside the EU and the quarrelsome NATO partners. Germany’s most reliable current and prospective partners reside in Asia, with India being a suitable candidate to help Germany and Merkel along its way. Being a rising consumer of German products and host for growing German investment, the stable trade relationship between the two countries has scope for getting labelled as a “premium partnership with mutual benefits”.

Merkel’s promise of steadiness is welcomed by the countries which know Germany for its investment or scientific hub and not for domestic politics. Merkel can build upon the existing personal trust with Indian PM Narendra Modi and historic ties which had survived even two World Wars. The past Government consultations of 2015 and 2017 have shown that both countries continue their mutual agenda as stabilisers in Asia and support each other on the endeavour to get a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council.

Notwithstanding the excellent bond both countries share in trade, culture, education, and geopolitics, there are growing demands. For a sustainable economic partnership, India requires Germany to be a strong leader of a united EU. Other countries are expecting stability in insecure times. At the same time, the German people expect change and action from their Chancellor. After her painstaking victory and the stinging presence of the AfD, Merkel’s fourth term will probably be the hardest.

The writer is the Resident Representative, Hanns Seidel Foundation, New Delhi

With AfD being the third largest party in Parliament, it’s not going to be easy for Merkel coalition to maintain open borders, says Bharat Wariavwalla

The results of the recent German elections inspire faith in democracy or as the Germans call it, “social” democracy. It also assures that the project of European unity will continue. But the results also raise fears that an anti-immigration, anti-EU and perhaps racist party, the AfD has entered Parliament. It secured 12.6 per cent votes, making it eligible to sit in Parliament. Last time, in the 2013 elections, it failed to get the stipulated limit of 5 per cent votes to be eligible to sit in Parliament. This is how I, an Indian liberal, read the German polls. I see Germany not just as a country with the fourth largest economy, and technologically and scientifically, one of the most advanced countries in the world, as most Indians do, but as a country that is morally above many countries of the world. To accept a million refugees in 2015 was indeed a noble act. How many countries would do that today? German democracy was different from other democracies in the sense that it was built on a solid moral foundation.

Here then was a country that put itself above the usual considerations of national interest and acted out of larger human concerns. This was the rationale behind Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to accept 1.2 million refugees from countries from where many terrorist groups operate. People from war-torn Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan came to Germany and the Germans accepted them warmly. There was the spirit of ‘Wilkomen’. Following the logic that nations only act out of their interests, Germany should not have taken a million refugees from Syria and Afghanistan. Surely France, Italy, America or India would not have taken such a large number of refugees. Germany took them and in doing so, it “rescued our (Europe’s) cultural dignity”, said Emmanuel Macron. They are fine words from a neighbour across the Rhine, but you can be sure that Macron would not have taken such large number of refugees.

But what was the “(Europol’s) cultural dignity” that Macron referred to? It was what the EU Constitution called “European humanism”, an idea that embodies various currents of thought, arts, science which came with the birth of Renaissance in the 14th Century. The contemporary German Republic came to embody this humanism. One would not understand Merkel’s decision to take a million refugees without understanding the essence of what constitutes the German republic today. It was born out of the ruins of the Second World War, a war that Nazi Germany brought on the world. Nazism was the very moral and cultural antithesis of European humanism. That great writer of the time, Thomas Mann, left Germany because he felt that his historical identity as a German risked being destroyed by Nazism.

Post-war German democracy is then built out of the collective guilt the Germans have felt over their past. Thus, when thousands of German youth went with coffee and blankets to welcome the refugees on their borders in 2015, they were atoning themselves for what their fathers did at Auschwitz and Birkenau. They atoned for their past and something that comes out of a sense collective repentance is always beautiful.

Fritz Stern, a German Jew, who left Germany in the thirties to escape death and later settled at Columbia University to teach European history used to tell his students (I was one of them) that modern Germany is born out of the collective guilt the German people have felt over their past. Later, he visited his land of birth and wrote some penetrating writings on post-war Germany.

The post-war German leadership is unique. It has produced no heroes even when the country faced some very trying times. Generally, it is in these times that heroes appear on the scene and promise an end to travails. The country passed though some very difficult years after the war. Apart from the usual deprivations that follow a war, like scarcity of material goods, it was completely ostracised from the West. Germany was a pariah country. There was a terrible sense of isolation among the German people.

But Konrad Adenauer, the first Chancellor of post-war Germany, remained all throughout his years in power a modest man who scrupulously stuck to the rules and procedures of democracy. Merkel is very much like Adenauer in that she is not imposing, pretentious or unduly assertive. She is a solid substantive person, who understands that democratic processes are slow moving and cumbersome.

Democracies don’t need heroes. It’s only in the unhappy lands that heroes appear, promising people the moon. What they get instead are arrests, suppression of freedom and concentration camps. In his play Galileo, Bertolt Brecht says unhappy are the lands that need heroes. India had Indira Gandhi, who promised the end of poverty. True to their long democratic tradition, the British people threw out a war hero, Churchill, from power and put in his place a modest Clement Attlee. He built a welfare state in Britain and began the process of dismantling the Empire.

Immigration was the principle issue in the German elections. It has been in the recent elections in France, Holland, Austria, and in the referendum in Britain. However laudable the Merkel Government’s decision to take in a million refugees, the question is what would the Government in Berlin do in the face of another wave of refugees? Martin Schulz, leader of the main Opposition party, the Social Democrats, raised the issue in this election. He asked whether Germany has a coherent policy on immigration. Sadly, no country has — neither Trump’s America, Modi’s India, nor Macron’s France.

However, one thing is becoming clear. There is a growing opposition within many democracies of Europe, North America and India to accepting refugees from other countries. We saw how hostile some people in the ruling party were to keeping Rohingyas in the country. Macron says what liberals in France or anywhere in the world would like to hear: Openness, tolerance, and pluralism. But he knows too well that even one refugee entering France from, say an Arab country, and Marine Le Pen of the National Front would publicly flay him. Remember this racist, anti-EU, anti-immigration party got some 41 per cent votes in the first round of the French elections last April.

With the AfD getting 12.6 per cent votes and sitting as the third largest party in Parliament, it is not going to be easy for the Merkel coalition to maintain open borders. Apprehensions over what “our national identity” is are prevalent in the liberal West and in a different way in India. Donald Trump won the election, though only by electoral and not popular vote, stoking fear of the Americans that Mexicans would come in droves to the US. Boris Johnson, who led the exit campaign in the referendum in June 2016, raised fears in British people’s mind that a million Turks would come to the island if Britain stayed in the EU.

Liberal democratic India is a natural partner of the liberal democracies of Europe, notably of Germany and France. In fact, it is the latter two who are the firmest supporters of a liberal democratic world order, which was laid at the end of World War II.

The writer is associated with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, New Delhi