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GERMAN FEDERAL ELECTION

German election roundup: Support for Scholz high, Berlin vote and cat fights

With just over a week to go until the election, we look at the polls, what's going on in state elections, a Green appeal to climate hunger-strikers, cat fights and Merkel's important post.

Published: 17 September 2021 17:29 CEST
German election roundup: Support for Scholz high, Berlin vote and cat fights
The Greens' Annalena Baerbock speaking in Chemnitz on Friday. Photo: picture alliance/dpa/dpa-Zentralbild | Robert Michael

What’s the big picture on polls?

With just over a week until to the election, polls remain stable. 

According to the ZDF Politbarometer, the SPD can count on an unchanged 25 percent of voters – three percentage points more than the CDU/CSU which scooped up 22 percent. But 38 percent of voters have not yet made up their minds. 

According to the poll, the Greens lost one percentage point from the previous poll, falling to 16 percent.

There was no movement among the other parties. The Free Democrats (FDP) and Alternative for Germany (AfD) remain at 11 percent, the Left Party at six percent. 

READ ALSO: What an SPD-led coalition could. mean for foreigners in Germany

When it comes to the three chancellor candidates, the SPD’s Olaf Scholz continues to be on the minds of German voters. According to the Politbarometer, 67 percent of respondents believe he is capable of holding office. The CDU/CSU candidate Armin Laschet is considered by only 29 percent to be capable of becoming chancellor. The Green Party’s Annalena Baerbock scores 26 percent.

Just under half – 48 percent – would prefer Scholz as chancellor. Laschet would be preferred by 22 percent, and Annalena Baerbock by 15 percent.

State polls also hotting up 

It’s not just the federal election taking place next Sunday, it’s also voting day in the states of Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. 

In Berlin, the polls are close. A new survey on the state elections in the capital shows the SPD with 21 percent, the Greens with 20 percent and the CDU with 17 percent.  One of the biggest issues in Berlin include the housing crisis. On the same day, a referendum calling on the state to expropriate homes from big landlords is also taking place. The SPD – with its top candidate Franziska Giffey – has spoken out against expropriation. 

EXPLAINED: Berlin’s super election day 

‘Stop hunger strike’

The Greens co-leader and chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock urged climate activists to end their hunger strike during an election campaign rally in Chemnitz Friday. She said hunger strikes are the “wrong way of dialogue”, saying the activists were endangering themselves. 

An audience member had asked why she did not respond to the hunger strikers’ request to talk. Baerbock said she had spoken to them on the phone and discussed issues of climate policy. Some people at the rally held placards with messages like: “Talk to the hungry!”

The climate activists in Berlin began their hunger strike on August 30th with the aim of securing a public discussion with the three chancellor candidates.

READ ALSO: ‘Last resort’: Berlin activists go on hunger strike for climate

Coalition cat fights 

Two smaller parties – the Free Democrats (FDP) and Die Linke (the Left Party) – have been in the German media a lot over the past days. That’s because these parties are scouting out a possible spot in a future coalition – on their terms, of course. 

On Friday. Left Party chair Susanne Hennig-Wellsow reacted to a statement by FDP leader Christian Lindner, who told Bild that in a constellation “where there are several parties, each must of course be able to contribute”. This had been interpreted Lindner wanting to see several vice chancellors after the elections.

Hennig-Wellsow picked up on the statement and told Spiegel: “Mr. Lindner wants two vice chancellors because he would like to be one of them. I want affordable housing, good wages in east and west, and higher pensions so that no one has to be afraid of getting old anymore.”

However, Lindner hit back again saying his statement was not about obtaining titles. 

Oh how we love it when parties swipe at each other. 

Merkel voting by post

There will be no photos of the Chancellor at the polling station next Sunday, September 26th. Angela Merkel has decided to make use of the postal voting option in this election, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said in Berlin on Friday. He didn’t reveal whether the Chancellor has already cast her vote. 

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POLITICS

Germany’s ‘traffic light’ parties sign coalition agreement in Berlin

Two and a half months after the federal elections on September 26th, the three parties of the incoming 'traffic light' coalition - the SPD, Greens and FDP - have formally signed their coalition agreement at a public ceremony in Berlin.

Published: 7 December 2021 09:36 CET
Updated: 7 December 2021 12:52 CET
Traffic light coalition
Germany's next Chancellor Olaf Scholz (front, left) on stage in Berlin with other members of the new coalition government, and their signed agreement. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Michael Kappeler

The move marks the final stage of a 10-week week process that saw the three unlikely bedfellows forming a first-of-its-kind partnership in German federal government. 

The SPD’s Olaf Scholz is now due to be elected Chancellor of Germany on Wednesday and his newly finalised cabinet will be sworn in on the same day. This will mark the end of the 16-year Angela Merkel era following the veteran leader’s decision to retire from politics this year. 

Speaking at the ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday morning, Scholz declared it “a morning when we set out for a new government.”

He praised the speed at which the three parties had concluded their talks and said the fight against the Covid crisis would first require the full strength of the new coalition.

Green Party co-leader Robert Habeck, who is set to head up a newly formed environment and energy ministry, said the goal was “a government for the people of Germany”.

He stressed that the new government would face the joint challenge of bringing climate neutrality and prosperity together in Europe’s largest industrial nation and the world’s fourth largest economy.

Green Party leader Annalena Baerbock spoke of a coalition agreement “on the level of reality, on the level of social reality”.

FDP leader Christian Lindner, who managed to secure the coveted role of Finance Minister in the talks, declared that now was the “time for action”.

“We are not under any illusions,” he told people gathered at the ceremony. “These are great challenges we face.”

Scholz, Habeck and Lindner are scheduled to hold  a press conference before midday to answer questions on the goals of the new government.

‘New beginnings’

Together with the Greens and the FDP, Scholz’s SPD managed in a far shorter time than expected to forge a coalition that aspires to make Germany greener and fairer.

The Greens became the last of the three parties to agree on the contents of the 177-page coalition agreement an in internal vote on Monday, following approval from the SPD and FDP’s inner ranks over the weekend.

“I want the 20s to be a time of new beginnings,” Scholz told Die Zeit weekly, declaring an ambition to push forward “the biggest industrial modernisation which will be capable of stopping climate change caused by mankind”.

Putting equality rhetoric into practice, he unveiled the country’s first gender-balanced cabinet on Monday, with women in key security portfolios.

“That corresponds to the society we live in – half of the power belongs to women,” said Scholz, who describes himself as a “feminist”.

READ ALSO: Scholz names Germany’s first gender-equal cabinet

The centre-left’s return to power in Europe’s biggest economy could shift the balance on a continent still reeling from Brexit and with the other major player, France, heading into presidential elections in 2022.

But even before it took office, Scholz’s “traffic-light” coalition – named after the three parties’ colours – was already given a baptism of fire in the form of a fierce fourth wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Balancing act
 
Dubbed “the discreet” by left-leaning daily TAZ, Scholz, 63, is often described as austere or robotic.
 
But he also has a reputation for being a meticulous workhorse.
 
An experienced hand in government, Scholz was labour minister in Merkel’s first coalition from 2007 to 2009 before taking over as vice chancellor and finance minister in 2015.
 
Yet his three-party-alliance is the first such mix at the federal level, as the FDP is not a natural partner for the SPD or the Greens.

Keeping the trio together will require a delicate balancing act taking into account the FDP’s business-friendly leanings, the SPD’s social equality instincts and the Greens’ demands for sustainability.

Under their coalition deal, the parties have agreed to secure Germany’s path to carbon neutrality, including through huge investments in sustainable energy.

They also aim to return to a constitutional no-new-debt rule – suspended during the pandemic – by 2023.

FDP cabinets
Volker Wissing (l-r), FDP General Secretary und designated Transport Minister, walks alongside Christian Lindner, FDP leader and designated Finance Minister, Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), the incoming Education Minister, and Marco Buschmann, the incoming Justice Minister. Photo: picture alliance/dpa | Michael Kappeler

READ ALSO: 

Incoming foreign minister Annalena Baerbock of the Greens has vowed to put human rights at the centre of German diplomacy.

She has signalled a more assertive stance towards authoritarian regimes like China and Russia after the commerce-driven pragmatism of Merkel’s 16 years in power.

Critics have accused Merkel of putting Germany’s export-dependent economy first in international dealings.

Nevertheless she is still so popular at home that she would probably have won a fifth term had she sought one.

The veteran politician is also widely admired abroad for her steady hand guiding Germany through a myriad of crises.

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