Andreas Peschke | Laborious but inevitable: The German experience and necessity of coalition-building

German Ambassador to South Africa Andreas Peschke writes on his country's experience of coalition building, which he says is often laborious but must always be in the interest of the people.

Imagine you wake up one morning and decide to become a politician. You are full of ideas on improving the life in your community, from service delivery to education. You campaign and gather support. Come election day, your voters come out and vote for you and your party. You receive a sizeable share of the vote. But, as it turns out, nowhere near enough to run a majority government on your own. What do you do?

That is what happens every four or five years when elections are held in Germany. In our last federal election at the end of September this year, the strongest party, the SPD or Social Democrats, gathered some 26 percent of the vote. The party of our current chancellor, the CDU or Christian Democrats, came in second, with a little more than 24 percent of the vote.

In fact, a similar thing happened in quite several municipalities in South Africa in the recent local government elections, including in five of the big metros.

Parties and leaders campaign on their own platforms and for their own policies. To come back to the German example, the Green party strongly emphasised a rigorous climate policy. The Liberal Democrats campaigned for reviving the economy by strengthening the entrepreneurial spirit and the free market. The Social Democrats wanted a significant rise in the minimum wage. And so on. Some of these goals are compatible with each other; some are less so.

The question now for every party is what the best strategy is to implement their political goals. Is it better to insist on 100 percent of your agenda and take the risk of not ending up in government at all? Or go for reasonable compromises to realise at least a part of your programme?

Compromise

Negotiating with another political party always means compromising in one way or another. You might not be able to fulfil all promises made before. Party members could be disappointed, voters' expectations might not be met – at least to a certain degree. The alternative to this scenario has a name in a democracy. It is called opposition.

Back in Germany, after the 2017 general elections, three parties planned to form a coalition government: the CDU, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats. After years of the so-called "Grand Coalition" between Germany's two biggest parties – CDU and SPD – people expected a fresh start with a new government. The three parties started negotiating in high spirits. Then, about two months after the elections, the Liberal Democrats pulled out of the talks. Their chairman said: "It is better not to govern at all than to govern badly." The fallout was significant. The party drew an enormous amount of criticism.

In the end, the Social Democrats decided to put national interest and the need for a government above the wishes of a considerable part of its membership. Once again, they entered a coalition as junior partner of the CDU. It turned out not to be a bad decision.

They were able to put a lot of their party's policy into government policy. Olaf Scholz, one of their leaders, became vice-chancellor and finance minister. Four years later, he led his party to an election victory and is now in pole position to become Angela Merkel's successor as chancellor of Germany.

And the Liberal Democrats? They spent the last four years on the opposition benches.

Make no mistake – the role of the opposition is a vital and integral part of democracy. But is "not governing at all" really better than "governing badly"? In the end, this is about a fundamental ingredient of democracy: compromise. Very often, compromise is the only way forward. Democracy is in essence, a way to find solutions to problems that work for everybody, not only for a few.

So, in the absence of an overwhelming majority for a certain position or one party, it may not only be pragmatic to find common solutions by way of compromise; it may be logical and necessary.

Rarely a majority in the Bundestag

This is a reality German political parties have been confronted with for a long time.

Since 1949, there has rarely been a time in the Federal Republic's history in which one party had an outright majority in the Bundestag (German Parliament). German political parties had to be ready to make compromises if they were to enter into government. Today, there is a consensus across the political spectrum, from left to right: in principle, it has to be possible to form a coalition between all parties that are firmly committed to the democratic values as laid out by our constitution. Yes, this involves a lot of hard negotiations.

Yes, this takes a lot of flexibility and willingness to cooperate. And yes, this necessitates many difficult decisions. The result of all of this is, however, democracy at work and, hopefully, political decisions that are widely accepted by society.

A couple of years back, South African and German politicians across the board exchanged views on the art and necessity of coalition building. It was a good discussion. And while I am writing these lines, parties in South Africa and in Germany are again involved in complex discussions.

In Germany, the SPD, Greens and Liberal Democrats are negotiating a coalition treaty to build a common platform for a new government. As it is, it might be called the "traffic light coalition" according to the parties' colours red, yellow and green. Or "robot" coalition, as one would probably call it in South Africa.

Here, the local government elections have put a completely new emphasis on the need to compromise – even if it seems impossible at times. I genuinely hope the leaders in our countries will find ways to come together. It may be laborious, but inevitable and in the interest of the people.

- Andreas Peschke is the German Ambassador to South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini. His previous postings include spokesperson of the Federal Foreign Office, Ambassador to the Republic of Kenya, and Director-General for European Affairs.