German politics
The arduous vote for a new president exposes the acrimony within her coalition
| Berlin
THE German custom, when electing a new president, has been to sprinkle the assembly of politicians that makes the choice with actors, sports stars and writers. This time the guest electors were fewer. Such non-political folk are unpredictable and the stakes were too high: defeat of the government’s nominee would have been a body blow to Angela Merkel, the chancellor, already beset by squabbling coalition partners and slumping ratings.
On June 30th, after three rounds of voting, she avoided that disaster: her candidate, Christian Wulff, the premier of the state of Lower Saxony, was elected president a month after the sudden resignation of his predecessor, Horst Köhler. In the event, Mr Wulff eventually won the absolute majority that had eluded him in the first two rounds of balloting. But the result was a severe setback nonetheless.
The election of a president—a job with little political weight but, in the right hands, perhaps the power to instruct and hearten the citizenry—is an unusual reason for a crisis. The three coalition parties—Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its Bavarian sibling, the Christian Social Union (CSU) and the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP)—commanded a majority of the 1,244-member assembly, which is made up of the entire Bundestag and an equal number of representatives of the 16 states. Mrs Merkel had hoped that a successful ballot would mark a new beginning for her government; instead the grudging vote exposed the stubborn old problems she has yet to resolve.
In choosing Mr Wulff, a mild-mannered career politician, Mrs Merkel made her job needlessly difficult. The choice was meant to soothe her party’s bigwigs, with whom she has a sometimes testy relationship. But she paid too little heed to the rank and file, and failed to campaign for him energetically enough once the decision had been made. Beyond governing circles, Mr Wulff stirred little enthusiasm.
Against him the opposition Social Democratic and Green parties cleverly put up Joachim Gauck, a charismatic leader of East Germany’s “peaceful revolution” in 1989 who became head of the Stasi archives and exposed the crimes of the communist secret police. He was the popular favourite, in part because he seemed to rise above politics. A champion of “freedom” over “security”, he is philosophically closer to Mrs Merkel’s “Christian-liberal coalition” than to the left-leaning parties that nominated him. Even hardened government partisans were beguiled by his candidacy. In backing Mr Wulff, Mrs Merkel was opposing a symbol of democratic renewal.
It is the latest misadventure for a government that has been stumbling since its inception. Billed as a “dream coalition” before last September’s federal election, the governing trio has bickered incessantly over such issues as whether tax cuts should come before deficit reduction, how health care should be reformed and how much longer nuclear power plants should be allowed to operate. At the height of the global financial crisis, during Mrs Merkel’s first term as chancellor (at the head of a “grand coalition” with the Social Democrats), she portrayed herself as a bulwark against economic chaos. With this year’s euro crisis, and the colossal bail-outs required to contain it, she has struggled to keep chaos at bay. Her technocratic leadership style, once reassuring, looks out of touch now.
She and her allies have paid a high political price. A CDU-FDP coalition was voted out of office in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state, in May. That erased the federal government’s majority in the Bundesrat, the legislature’s upper house. Support for coalition parties has fallen (see chart). If opinion polls are right, the FDP might not re-enter the Bundestag, having fallen below the 5% minimum threshold. The next federal election is due in 2013 but the coalition’s popularity, and thus its cohesiveness, will be tested in several regional ballots next year.
Mrs Merkel and her government allies still have a chance to regroup. The economy is bouncing back and unemployment has fallen to nearly pre-recession levels. Even before the presidential vote, coalition leaders were vowing that they would be more civil to each other and readier to compromise. Demands by the FDP and CSU for big tax cuts, despite rising deficits, were the biggest source of strife. Guido Westerwelle, who is both the FDP’s chairman and the foreign minister, now says that deficit reduction takes precedence. He and his fellow party leaders will have to show similar flexibility over such contentious issues as health reform, nuclear power and the details of a planned €80 billion ($97 billion) deficit reduction package if tensions are not to erupt again. The Bundestag’s summer break, which starts later this month, will offer a welcome respite from turmoil.
The wobble over the presidency has done more damage to Mrs Merkel’s position as leader of the CDU than as head of government, reckons Richard Stöss, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University. Even so, Mr Wulff’s election neatly sidelines the chancellor’s last serious rival within the party. Mrs Merkel’s allies are not satisfied but, for now at least, are probably stuck with her. German voters may well feel the same.
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