NOTE: This is a thread from 2018. Updates on 2020 and 2021 events on page 2.

Now Angela Merkel's political demise has been hopefully predicted countless times by domestic left-wing media long before the international right wing ever got on that train after the 2015 refugee crisis; a conservative German weekly quipped about ten years ago that certain colleagues seemed to have saved the phrase "Problem for Merkel" to their F1 key. I remember the "Spiegel" using it when the Social Democrat/Green state government in North Rhine-Westphalia failed, against all obvious sense.*

However, Merkel reportedly just announced to her party's national board that she will not run for party head again at the CDU's December convention. Though she intends to keep on as chancellor for now, which is somewhat surprising given that she has always stressed the unity of party and government office. This is very reminiscent of Gerhard Schröder giving up SPD chairmanship in 2004 after losing popularity over the Hartz welfare reforms, one year before calling snap elections he lost; something Merkel has always refered to as a bad example.

Everybody was clear this was her last term anyway, if for no other reason than that no chancellor has ever served more than four. Merkel is also on the record as saying that she is not going to be carried out of office like Helmut Kohl, who tried for a fifth in 1998 and was shot down in flames. But her authority looked tired from the start of the current term; talks for a coalition with the classically liberal FDP and the Greens failed, and the much-weakened Social Democrats only entered the current majority government out of some sense of national responsibility, against their original intentions. The resulting coalition has been looking ready to break up any moment ever since.

Somewhat ominously, Merkel's long-time confident Volker Kauder recently lost his re-election bid as CDU/CSU Bundestag whip against a guy pretty much nobody ever heard of before. This was not a conservative revolt - if anything, Kauder is more conservative than his successor, who promptly declared his support for Merkel - but it was widely interpreted as an expression of desire for a fresh start in a party that has been known to follow a chancellor through any political jinks and turns as long as he/she keeps them in power.

Now there have been two recent state elections, one in Bavaria two weeks ago, and one in Hesse yesterday. In Bavaria, the CDU's regional "sister party" CSU has ruled uninterrupted since 1957; their head Horst Seehofer has long been Merkel's internal chief critic on immigration policy, largely motivated by sharpening his profile to prevent his long-time rival Markus Söder from succeeding him as Bavarian state minister president. He lost that battle at the end of last year, but became federal interior minister in the current government where he continued to stir up trouble - some say to shore up the CSU's right flank agaist the new AfD for the upcoming state elections, some just out of spite against both Merkel and Söder.

At any rate, while the CSU still came out on top in Bavaria, they lost heavily - in part people who thought they hadn't opposed Merkel enough and went to the AfD, in part those who thought they had gone overboard and went to the Greens, which are the most pro-immigration party. The polarized debate obviously benefited the poles, and the Greens actually became second-strongest party in the state, ahead of the AfD and even the Social Democrats, who dropped to fifth place. Pretty much the same played out in Hesse yesterday - both the former major parties lost ten-plus points, the Greens came out neck-and-neck with the SPD at about 20 percent, their best result ever, and the AfD entered the last of the 16 German state assemblies at about 13.

Both major parties have been shaken by their decline, particularly the Social Democrats who are Germany's oldest continuously existing party and have provided several chancellors, but now run behind the Greens and AfD in national polls. Whatever the direct impact on the CDU, there is increasing desire in the SPD to quit the unloved government coalition and hopefully regenerate in the opposition. That Merkel now retracts on her stated intention to run as CDU head again, despite her other statements that this should be linked to chancellorship, and that she ran as chancellor for a full term, may mean she expects the coalition to break up soon and wants to clear the way for a successor to make a fresh start, leading the party into new elections. There are various possible candidates to succeed her now, too, unlike in earlier terms. We'll see how this goes.


* I always love the dismay on the fringes when they're not careful what they wish for BTW. Leftists have complained about the political standstill and lack of spirited debate and change under Merkel for years; when they got it, but from the right via the AfD's rise, somehow it wasn't what they wanted. OTOH, the right has long expressed its glee about the decay of the two major parties and the eroding of Merkel's power; but now that it's the Greens profiting most from it and they are overtaking the AfD, somehow it ain't right either.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BansheeOne,

B y e

I did nazi this coming...

I’ll believe the bitch when she actually leaves.

I'm willing to believe that she's ready to retire and enjoy life, and I'm willing to believe that she doesn't want to clean up her own mess.

This is what these liberal, progressive socialist do; create messes than leave. Just look here in the US and it is the same damn thing. Wherever and whenever a democrat is in charge, things turn to crap, than they usually go to jail for corruption, theft or something illegal, than a mess is left behind.....And stupid, ignorant people still vote for democrats in waves! I don't get it?

Too little too late. Germany is fucked forever.

BansheeOne, as a resident of Berlin - either by birth or by choice - could you fill in some details for those of us whose media has given up reporting any news other than how hated President Trump is?

quote:

Originally posted by fpuhan:
BansheeOne, as a resident of Berlin - either by birth or by choice - could you fill in some details for those of us whose media has given up reporting any news other than how hated President Trump is?

Now you asked for it

quote:

"...the Greens, which are the most pro-immigration party...actually became second-strongest party in the state....

This is somewhat worrisome.

BansheeOne, I appreciate your well written writeups. I was in Bavaria last month and saw election posters everywhere, and was curious how much change Germany was wanting. Europe's "center" seems left of ours and all the articles portray what appears to me to be the right as right wing.

I know a lot of people wonder what european politics has to do with the US, but I thjnk there are in some cases some ties. A few weeks before Trump was elected Britain voted for Brexit, and I thought the move to the right was a good omen for the US election.

People who vote for liberal US candidates pay little attention to what's happening in Europe.

And yet those of us who don't vote for liberal candidates will pay attention to The Phillippines, Brazil, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Xinjiang, Thibet...there's nothing like being damned for your ignorance and lack of awareness by those who don't pay attention. We're the ones who have been fighting rearguard battles and trying to overcome inertia-based trends like the notion that government is the source of all peace and prosperity.

quote:

Originally posted by fpuhan:
BansheeOne, as a resident of Berlin - either by birth or by choice - could you fill in some details for those of us whose media has given up reporting any news other than how hated President Trump is?

I've seen two articles with rather good takes. The Wall Street Journal looks at various scenarios that could play out, and Bloomberg portrays possible successors as party heads. Of those, strike Schleswig-Holstein state minister president Daniel Günther, who has stated he has no interest; his NRW colleague Armin Laschet is hedging his bets for now, saying he is going to talk to the other contenders first. Friedrich Merz would be a long shot, since he's been off the national political scene for a decade.

The two to watch are CDU secretary general Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK for short) and health minister Jens Spahn; I said on a thread here that Merkel's succession would be decided between those two at the time she installed the former as her heiress apparent. Though Merkel recently said that party heads trying to decide on their successor usually doesn't work out, and stated today she's staying out of this, she'd doubtlessly prefer AKK. If the latter wins the vote, I can see her loyally supporting Merkel until 2021 while she learns the ropes of international leadership herself. Her problem might however be that she's seen as too similar and close to Merkel, not really a fresh start.

Spahn has long been hyped as young(ish), gay, conservativ, rebellious and generally hip. He's friends with US ambassador Richard Grenell; Spahn's husband who works for people magazine "Bunte" has done a home story on Grenell and his boyfriend, and Grenell recently got Spahn a meeting with US national security advisor John Bolton at the White House during a visit that seemed to serve no other particular purpose. However, all that might also work against Spahn - this is a traditional conservative party, after all.

An external factor is whether the Social Democrats stay in the unloved government. Merkel's move has of course put a hot rod up the ailing SPD's backside, too; some have already reinforced their calls for a special convention to decide on their own party's future. If they quit the coalition, the only other option for the CDU in the current parliament is to go to the Greens and liberal FDP again. However, FDP head Christian Lindner recently stated that they will not enter a government under Merkel. If he sticks with that there will likely be new elections, releasing Merkel from her own statement that she ran to serve the full term. In that case the cards will be reshuffled; but ironically with current developments in the party system, we might get to see Jens Spahn heading the first national CDU government including the Greens.

ETA chart of German national polling to clarify the last.

quote:

Originally posted by BansheeOne:
I've seen two articles with rather good takes. The Wall Street Journal looks at various scenarios that could play out, and Bloomberg portrays possible successors as party heads. Of those, strike Schleswig-Holstein state minister president Daniel Günther, who has stated he has no interest; his NRW colleague Armin Laschet is hedging his bets for now, saying he is going to talk to the other contenders first. Friedrich Merz would be a long shot, since he's been off the national political scene for a decade.

The two to watch are CDU secretary general Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (AKK for short) and health minister Jens Spahn; I said on a thread here that Merkel's succession would be decided between those two at the time she installed the former as her heiress apparent.

By now NRW state minister president Laschet has publically reneged on running, saying that it would be awkward to lead Germany's biggest state and the party while Merkel stays chancellor; though that has been interpreted to mean he would do it if he got to be chancellor, too. OTOH, Friedrich Merz has now made a serious bid and met with considerable approval. In fact he was the favorite of the general public according to a poll this week. Of course that would include non-CDU sympathizers who want him for their own reasons, like Young Socialists national head Kevin Kühnert who quite correctly suggested in an interview that the CDU becoming more conservative again would also help the Social Democrats to distinguish themselves from the uniparty image of recent years.

Or maybe people just prefer Merz exactly because he has been largely out off the public eye and had little opportunity to sully himself with politics in the first place - i.e., the "outsider" factor. Personally I think he would be a good alternative to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer who is too similar to Merkel, and Jens Spahn, who is too divisive. Merz is similarly socially conservative (well, arguably more so since he isn't married to another guy) and pro-market as Spahn, but has more credible substance. However, I remain sceptical that he can just ride in and take the lead of the party after having left the political stage and gone into business ten years ago.

In fact Merz is now facing some headwind over his occupations as board member/chairman for various financial institutions, including American investment management corporation BlackRock, which were implicated in the recent "cum-ex" scandal over dividend stripping to avoid German taxes. He seems to take a bit of a gamble as his candidacy allegedly came as a surprise to BlackRock, leading to current retirement negotiations with no comeback option. Merz is a deeply rooted trans-atlanticist, well-connected in the American foreign policy establishment; though from a US perspective, the current administration would probably prefer Jens Spahn with his links to them over Merz' traditional conservative outlook on German-American relations and solid pro-European positions. But among the three top contenders, Spahn is least popular with the domestic audience.

Interestingly it is reported that Bundestag speaker Wolfgang Schäuble encouraged Merz to consider running for party head quite a while back, and facilitated meetings with CDU personalities to sound the waters. Which of course filtered back to Merkel and may have contributed to her decision. She said at her press conference she decided before summer recess already, talked about it with her close confident Annette Schavan (former federal education minister until she resigned over one of those academic plagiarism affairs, later German ambassador to the Holy See) during the break - but not to CDU secretary Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, who came off looking stupid for assuring Merkel's plans had not changed just before the latter announced they had.

The CDU is supposed to decide tomorrow on how to proceed with the candidacy process. There seems to be general consensus for the contenders to present themselves to the party base in a series of regional conferences, a format popularized by Merkel to discuss her policies. Some opinions have been voiced to vote on them in a base referendum, but this would be difficult to organize before the 3 December national convention in Hamburg, and also be non-binding unless the party charter gets changed accordingly. Overall organization would ordinarily be the job of the secretary general, but of course as one of the candidates herself, AKK has to hold back a little on that.

Meanwhile SPD head Andrea Nahles clings to her own party's regular convention date late next year, rejecting demands to decide on the future of the current government coalition (and likely her own) in early 2019 already. Yet some people like former SPD foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel are predicting a change in the chancellorship before or after the European parliamentary elections next May, particularly if anybody but AKK gets to lead the CDU. The first polls after Merkel's announcement due next week will be interesting, anyway.

All three top contenders for the CDU chair have now been officially nominated by their home chapters (or actually Friedrich Merz is to be today, but has already been nominated by the traditionally conservative Fulda, Hesse county chapter). Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer will recuse herself as CDU secretary general until the 3 December convention; party HQ has reorganized event management accordingly. The three of them will present themselves to the base at eight regional conferences in the next four weeks. There are nine other contenders who have stated to run, some weeks before Merkel's announcement, but they are no-names (the first actually only joined the CDU this year) and not expected to be officially nominated by either a party chapter or delegates at the convention.

When it comes to public opinion, Merz was most popular as possible future chancellor ahead of AKK in one poll this week, and vice versa in another; Jens Spahn placed last in either. The latter poll also found the same distribution in preference for CDU chair among the party's supporters, with AKK named by 35 percent, Merz by 25 and Spahn by seven percent. So far everybody is being terribly nice, stressing that they will work with each other, etc.; Merz and Spahn also have stated they would support Merkel as chancellor to the end of her term in 2021, and not work against her.

That's probably dumb talk to be forgotten tomorrow, to paraphrase first post-war chancellor Konrad Adenauer; but I can see that they would have no interest to topple her and likely have the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition fail under current general political conditions, which would result at best in another one with the Greens and classical liberal FDP as the only alternative for a majority in parliament, and more likely in new elections with even stronger Greens. The latter at least said this week they wouldn't just fill the gap left by the SPD but rather expect new elections, for obvious reasons. Any more conservative party head would probably want to rebuild the CDU to a strength where a classical conservative-liberal coalition with the FDP might have a shot at a majority again before making any further moves.

As for the SPD, their national board has stated there will be no earlier national convention, as demanded by their left wing; party head Andrea Nahles said they didn't even discuss the coalition question. Of course some suggest the Social Democrats may merely hope the question will resolve itself through a change in chancellorship without them doing anything, releasing them into the desired opposition role. National poll developments so far are not particularly indicative; there is a slight trend of CDU and Greens gaining at the expense of the AfD, but I don't consider that very well-founded at this point.

Well, after the first regional conference in Lübeck on Thursday, the takeaway seems to be that the three candidates for the CDU chair are still hard to tell apart in their positions due to reflexively agreeing with each other on popular issues. All appear to have made out tax reform as a major topic in articles published this week; they also all stressed a return to strength for the CDU, promised greater participation of the party base, and were more or less mildly critical of immigration policy under Merkel.

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as the liberal representative tried to stress her more conservative positions, like on family, while the two conservatives tried the same with their more liberal positions. That is particular evident with gay marriage, where AKK reaffirmed her critical stance, and Friedrich Merz softened his own; given that the issue is legally decided in favor since last year, neither is really consequential of course. AKK also spoke out against "cultural self-dwarving" like no longer singing Christmas carols in kindergardens, and recently demanded a lifetime Schengen area re-entry ban for deported criminal asylum seekers. In a rebuke to Merz yesterday, she said that the CDU chair shouldn't be just a stepping stone to the chancellorship (which it quite obviously is).

Merz OTOH has called the right-wing AfD "openly national socialist", and vowed to cut their strength in half at the conference. He had also stated earlier that his opinion of the Greens as a possible coalition partner had improved from his very critical stance ten years ago, and that they had become a very bourgeois and liberal party. He particularly noted that he was often in wide agreement with fellow Atlantic Bridge member and former Green party co-head Cem Özdemir. That's not gonna impress the conspiracy theorists who think that the organization is a tool of trans-partisan American proxy rule over Germany.

Jens Spahn has been the only one to go on the attack against his co-contenders for the party chair. He accused Merz of being a flip-flopper over his recent signature under a trans-partisan paper by various former political big names calling for a more solidary Europe, including a European unemployment insurance, which would run counter to the rejection of unionizing obligations of EU members by German conservatives; the paper was published a week before Merkel announced to step down. Merz subsequently distanced himself from that point and stated that the paper was a compromise and he couldn't get all his positions in.

Spahn also accused AKK of "hurting" him when she spoke out against gay marriage last year, when he subsequently married his husband. Since Spahn is placed last in polls on the race, he probably feels he has nothing to lose by a more aggressive stance. At the conference, he needled Merz with the remark that "we could have used you" during the refugee crisis the latter criticized, refering to his decade-long political hiatus while making money in private business.

Merz seems aware that unlike in the US, financial success and wealth of politicians is often viewed with suspicion in Germany; in an interview this week he was reluctant on admitting he was a millionaire, and defined himself as "upper middleclass" to some public ridicule. Overall, another poll among CDU sympathizers this week found AKK still leading at 46 percent, followed by Merz at 31 and Spahn at twelve. Of course in the end, the 1001 delegates of the national convention on 7-8 December (not 3rd, as I wrongly stated earlier) get to decide, and preferences seem to go randomly through regional chapters.

On the general level, voters seem to wait for the outcome of the internal CDU competition, since after an initial slight hike in poll numbers following Merkel's announcement, the CDU is hovering at an average of slightly above 26 percent. The real beneficiaries of the current situation continue to be the Greens, who are still rising and came within three or four points of the CDU in several surveys this week. AfD and SPD are competing for third place at about 14-15 percent, with the former generally a nose-length ahead. I found that the image of the "Financial Times" German poll tracker I linked to three posts ago updates itself, so it continues to give a current take of development.

Three regional conferences in, the competition for the hardest stance on immigration among the CDU contenders is in full swing. Jens Spahn seized on right-wing conspiracy theories surrounding the UN Migration Compact that is to be signed on 10 December, demanding that the CDU convention on the preceding weekend should debate it and that German signature should be postponed if necessary. In fact the CDU/CSU Bundestag group already discussed it and is supporting a parliamentary motion backing up the government to sign it. That was not unanimous though, and the CDU's Saxony-Anhalt state chapter recently demanded not to do that while other party figures have complained that the issue was not communicated enough to the public, and negotiations went "under the radar".

I always wonder what the fuck such phrases are supposed to mean. It's not like the negotiations weren't publicized, and if people aren't widely interested in it, that's hardly the fault of those in charge. Before even looking up the actual text, I could say from the way I've seen it discussed by concerned looneys with no or on the base of unrelated "facts" that it's the same like freaking that the EU's Lisbon Treaty allowed the re-introduction of capital punishment, or that evil American investors would take over European local utilities under the abortive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Spahn also got some headwind from saner co-partisans, though contender Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer has slickly invited critics of the compact to a "dialogue" without saying the party convention should make a decision on it.

For her conservative credentials, AKK additionally warmed over her stance against dual citizenship for non-EU citizens, and that criminal asylum seekers should be deported even to Syria if necessary - something even interior minister and notorious hardliner Horst Seehofer has ruled out at this point after reports that his house was evaluating the possibility (he also came out in support of the UN compact, noting that it put more obligations on the countries of origin for migrants). She also stated she will resign all offices if she loses, but that this was no blackmail rather than giving the winner the natural opportunity to select his own party secretary general.

Meanwhile Friedrich Merz pointed out that Germany is the only country in the world with an individual right to asylum in the constitution, and suggested it should be "openly debated" that this is an obstacle to common EU standards on immigration. He subsequently clarified among much criticism that he was of course not arguing against the right to asylum as such. Merz will probably continue to struggle with his financial self-classification, too. He has now allowed that he is making about a million Euros annually these days, but not without pointing out defensively that as a young couple/family, they had to turn every Mark at home. He also elaborated that to him, "upper class" is people who inherited wealth, and he was formed by his parents' middle-class ethics.

His contenders actually don't attack him too directly over this, likely because envy debates about the rich don't sit well with many conservatives either; rather, they are content to let the media and other parties handle this. In a talkshow this week, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state minister president Manuela Schwesig of the SPD hit him over his two private aircraft (at least one of which a small Cessna, however). Even leftist commentary regretted though that Merz is too much of a gentleman to discuss whether that's more expensive than Schwesig sending her oldest son to private school, something that was criticized as unbecoming a Social Democrat last year.

Within the CDU, the powerful Medium Business Association has come out in support for Merz after the three candidates presented themselves. The Women's Union had already endorsed AKK. A poll this week saw her increasing her lead among CDU supporters to 38 over Merz' 29 percent, with Jens Spahn remaining at six. That would make her the favorite even if you allow that the two guys are probably splitting the conservative wing between them; but again, ultimately the convention delegates will make the call on 7 December.

With one week to go until the CDU's Hamburg convention, the series of regional conferences of the contenders to the chair with the party base are now through. In the second half, they were focussing on other topics than immigration, probably because the issue has been milked as good as possible for campaign purposes. There had also been warnings from the CDU's Economic Council and others that the party might be damaged from too-divisive competition after Friedrich Merz suggested it had taken the rise of the AfD with a shrug, and Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer called this a slap to the face of all party members fighting against continuous fake information and the AfD's rabble-rousing. Jens Spahn also criticized Merz' charge.

I think it just goes to show that the CDU isn't used to open debate between candidates for the top job like other parties are. Following the pre-determined leader to secure their grip on power is pretty ingrained in them - and has proven largely successful, too; so it's understandable some fear to devolve into a quarreling crowd like lesser parties. Others think it's rather therapeutic for the CDU to discuss freely like that for a change. In line with that, the party convention will now actually debate on a motion supporting the UN Migration Compact, based upon the one that was already agreed by the Bundestag this week.

If you trust a poll from this week, CDU voters are increasingly focussing their support on AKK vs. Merz at 48:35 percent, relegating Jens Spahn to an also-ran at two (unsurprisingly, more women are for AKK and more men for Merz, while support for Spahn is gender-neutral). Merz was sure to get most of the applause at the second-to-last conference in his native state of North Rhine-Westphalia; while Spahn is also from there, Merz' supporters have generally been the loudest at the events so far. Still, neither necessarily translates into votes at the upcoming convention. One participant at the NRW conference was quoted as saying the CDU really needed all three of the contenders to adequately represent the party, but obviously There Can Be Only One.™ Anyway, the 1,001 delegates in Hamburg will have the final say on Friday.

TL;DR.