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Angela Merkel is not going to run for Chancellor of Germany again when the legislature period ends later this year. This is not breaking news but has been known for quite a while. It still signifies the end of an era: When Angela Merkel took office, Dubya had just taken office for the second time. Both Obama and Trump will have come and gone, Merkel's reign will have lasted for 16 years overall. There has been no lack of challengers from within her party, she survived them all. A lot of significant political evens have happened during her reign, too: kind of unrelated, a re-awakening of patriotism in Germany (re-claiming our flag) following the World Cup 2006; the end of the mandatory draft; the phasing out of nuclear power following Fukushima; the financial crisis and re-emergence of Germany as an economic powerhouse; the Greece & Eurocrisis (giving rise to a far right conservative movement in Germany); the refugee / migration crisis of 2015; Trumpism and Brexit.
She has never been someone who inspires; it is rather unlikely a raging, armed mob would try to stage an insurrection in her support. Having a PhD in Quantum Chemistry, she often did not position herself publicly until she saw how the dice were falling and how things aligned. That is not to say she was not a leader, but it enabled her to survive politically largely unscathed.
Enough of looking back: we will now try to move on as a country and elect a new Bundestag in Q3 (September 26th, to be specific). For those of you who aren't aware, the Chancellor is not elected directly here. We have an electoral system that largely (not exclusively) relies on the share of votes a party receives (as long as it is above 5%), meaning we have a rather large representation and diversity of views in theory. There is the AfD, relatively new, originally a conservative party which is suffering from internal division and continously drifting to the right wing (which, perhaps unsurprisingly, riddled with suspected and actual Neo-Nazis) - hovering between 8 and 15%. There is Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a centrist conservative party by European standards which views itself as a People's party; I will come to details later, but it is a given they will become the strongest party with more than 30% of the vote. There are the Social Democrats (SPD), who had Chancellors of their own (the last one was Gerhard Schröder, now essentially a Kremlin aide; would need an entire thread on him) - they are working hard on becoming irrelevant and have gone from 30-40% to less than 20 in the last two decades. There is the Liberal party (FDP) - actually rather right-wing and socially liberal, they would be likely to profit from dissatisfaction with the AfD and the CDU. There is the Left (Die Linke) - a post-socialist party and follow-on of the former SED of Eastern Germany, still with some radicals and Communists, but by and large now clearly a democratic party, if socialist in nature (though something the SPD clearly is not any more). Finally, there is the Green Party which has really improved in standing and success; they have come a long way since the 1980s and have an actual shot at getting a result clearly above 20%. They would be compatible with the CDU, but also in theory could form a coalition with SPD and Linke.
Now the CDU has elected Armin Laschet as new head of the party. Merkel has not been head of the party for a while, but it still usually would be assumed that the head of the party will also be the candidate for Chancellor. But this is far from certain:
1) Laschet only got elected following a very close vote in a head-to-head against Friedrich Merz, who represents the neo-con women-in-the-kitchen wing. He is not super popular in his party but rather can be considered a compromise and is not Merz.
2) There are other options inside the party, but those now seem less likely than before: Jens Spahn (health minister) had good approval ratings but now messed up the vaccine rollout. Norbert Röttgen only placed third in the vote for head of party. And Merz, well, his chances probably evaporated after his second failed bid to become party chief. But there still is Markus Söder from the Bavarian sister party CSU - he suddenly turned quite popular during the crisis and might be the candidate people would like to see. But this hasnever rarely been done in the long history of the CDU/CSU alliance (the CDU does not exist in Bavaria) - the CDU always usually got to nominate the candidate for Chancellor. (There was Franz-Josef-Strauß in 1980 and Edmund Stoiber in 2002, both CSU candidates.) It is not a secret Söder wants to be Chancellor. It is also not a secret that while Söder is not an anti-Merkel candidate (that would have been Merz), Laschet is probably what would be considered the continuity candidate.
It is too early to know really what parties will have on their agenda come fall. Obviously, Corona is above everything. The AfD is trying to get the anti-lockdown and anti-vaxxer vote, but during the second wave, those states in the East which were largely spared during the first wave have seen insane spikes in cases and deaths recently, so that is not flying like in the summer. I will try to use this thread to discuss some key topics in German contemporary politics over the coming months.
Disclaimer: This thread is not about the 2015 migration crisis and its effects. Keep that in mind before posting.
She has never been someone who inspires; it is rather unlikely a raging, armed mob would try to stage an insurrection in her support. Having a PhD in Quantum Chemistry, she often did not position herself publicly until she saw how the dice were falling and how things aligned. That is not to say she was not a leader, but it enabled her to survive politically largely unscathed.
Enough of looking back: we will now try to move on as a country and elect a new Bundestag in Q3 (September 26th, to be specific). For those of you who aren't aware, the Chancellor is not elected directly here. We have an electoral system that largely (not exclusively) relies on the share of votes a party receives (as long as it is above 5%), meaning we have a rather large representation and diversity of views in theory. There is the AfD, relatively new, originally a conservative party which is suffering from internal division and continously drifting to the right wing (which, perhaps unsurprisingly, riddled with suspected and actual Neo-Nazis) - hovering between 8 and 15%. There is Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), a centrist conservative party by European standards which views itself as a People's party; I will come to details later, but it is a given they will become the strongest party with more than 30% of the vote. There are the Social Democrats (SPD), who had Chancellors of their own (the last one was Gerhard Schröder, now essentially a Kremlin aide; would need an entire thread on him) - they are working hard on becoming irrelevant and have gone from 30-40% to less than 20 in the last two decades. There is the Liberal party (FDP) - actually rather right-wing and socially liberal, they would be likely to profit from dissatisfaction with the AfD and the CDU. There is the Left (Die Linke) - a post-socialist party and follow-on of the former SED of Eastern Germany, still with some radicals and Communists, but by and large now clearly a democratic party, if socialist in nature (though something the SPD clearly is not any more). Finally, there is the Green Party which has really improved in standing and success; they have come a long way since the 1980s and have an actual shot at getting a result clearly above 20%. They would be compatible with the CDU, but also in theory could form a coalition with SPD and Linke.
Now the CDU has elected Armin Laschet as new head of the party. Merkel has not been head of the party for a while, but it still usually would be assumed that the head of the party will also be the candidate for Chancellor. But this is far from certain:
1) Laschet only got elected following a very close vote in a head-to-head against Friedrich Merz, who represents the neo-con women-in-the-kitchen wing. He is not super popular in his party but rather can be considered a compromise and is not Merz.
2) There are other options inside the party, but those now seem less likely than before: Jens Spahn (health minister) had good approval ratings but now messed up the vaccine rollout. Norbert Röttgen only placed third in the vote for head of party. And Merz, well, his chances probably evaporated after his second failed bid to become party chief. But there still is Markus Söder from the Bavarian sister party CSU - he suddenly turned quite popular during the crisis and might be the candidate people would like to see. But this has
It is too early to know really what parties will have on their agenda come fall. Obviously, Corona is above everything. The AfD is trying to get the anti-lockdown and anti-vaxxer vote, but during the second wave, those states in the East which were largely spared during the first wave have seen insane spikes in cases and deaths recently, so that is not flying like in the summer. I will try to use this thread to discuss some key topics in German contemporary politics over the coming months.
Disclaimer: This thread is not about the 2015 migration crisis and its effects. Keep that in mind before posting.
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