An SPD success in Germany – and a chancellor on probation
Published: Sunday, Sep 22nd 2024, 19:10
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Coalition rift or not, chancellor's twilight - there is still something to celebrate for the Social Democrats (SPD) in Germany.
It has been a long time since the first results from the eastern German state of Brandenburg brought such a big sigh of relief in Berlin's Willy Brandt House on an election night - even if the figures are still being viewed somewhat cautiously.
"Dietmar Woidke and his Brandenburg SPD have managed a furious race to catch up in recent weeks," says General Secretary Kevin Kühnert. At least no one will take that away from him - no matter what the evening brings. At 6 p.m., it looks as if the Social Democratic Minister President has left the AfD behind in the final meters and can govern for another five years.
According to the initial figures, Woidke even achieved a better result than in the last state election in 2019, with the SPD up by 30 percent - when was the last time that happened? He thus spared the party leadership and the chancellor an acute crisis.
An irony of fate. After all, the Minister President of Brandenburg explicitly renounced the support of the Chancellor during the election campaign and has also sometimes distanced himself from the traffic light system on the issue of migration.
Instead, he adopted a bold tactic that may have ultimately won him the decisive votes: Woidke tied his political future to an election victory and relied entirely on his personal popularity, even among non-SPD supporters.
He played all-in, risked everything and won a lot. So he did not win the election with Scholz, but despite the unpopularity of the chancellor and his traffic lights.
Scholz follows the election results from 6400 kilometers away
The chancellor probably doesn't care about these details for now. Scholz jetted off to New York on Saturday afternoon to take part in a UN Future Summit 6,400 kilometers as the crow flies from Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg, where he lives.
Shortly after 5 p.m. German time, he switched from the German UN embassy on First Avenue in Manhattan to the Willy Brandt House. At that point, it was already clear that things might go well. Scholz can take a deep breath.
If Woidke had only finished in second place and had resigned from office as announced, things would have looked very different. To a certain extent, the fate of the chancellor was also negotiated in Brandenburg. After all, Scholz, who has been stuck deep in the polls for months, is considered to have been counted out following his disastrous defeats in the European elections as well as in Saxony and Thuringia.
A look at the US election campaign
One year before the general election, the SPD is debating whether the 66-year-old is the right candidate for chancellor. At least since people have been looking somewhat enviously at the USA, where the replacement of an unpopular head of government as the leading candidate has given the Democrats an unexpected momentum. Even party leader Lars Klingbeil had to admit this when he attended the nomination convention in Chicago.
Franz Müntefering, the most popular living former party leader, was the first to say so. He declared the question of the candidate for chancellor to be open. And this despite the fact that Scholz had already virtually chosen himself before the summer break: "I will run as chancellor to become chancellor again."
A week before the election, Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter was the first reasonably prominent active Social Democrat to publicly put forward Defense Minister Boris Pistorius as a possible candidate for chancellor - and thus expressed what many in the SPD were thinking. After all, no top SPD politician is as popular with the population as the 64-year-old from Lower Saxony.
Chancellor on probation
The SPD then finally had its K-question. Woidke's election victory will now probably give Scholz some breathing space. However, the debate as to whether he is the right man for the upcoming Bundestag election campaign is not completely over. He is now chancellor on probation.
"The party is dissatisfied with how we are doing in federal politics. Yes, there is enormous pressure," said party leader Lars Klingbeil before the election. The party expects him to abandon his role as moderator in the coalition and deliver. And that means social democratic content: A pension package, a law on collective bargaining, protection of industrial jobs. All issues with potential for conflict in the traffic light coalition.
However, the two smaller "traffic light" partners are now also entering the last year before the general election in a rather battered state. Following their disastrous results in the state elections in Saxony and Thuringia, the FDP (Liberals) once again failed to clear the 5 percent hurdle with 1.1 and 0.9 percent respectively. The Greens - previously in double figures and the governing party - must fear for their future in the state parliament.
According to the initial figures, the AfD ultimately failed to beat the incumbent Minister President. In this state election, it looked far beyond the borders of Brandenburg, and not just in terms of its campaign topics of the war in Ukraine and migration.
Some leading functionaries are of the opinion that the AfD could use eastern Germany as a springboard for a nationwide rise. However, some of the narratives used by the right-wing populists to successfully gain votes in the east are less effective in the west.
This is due to the different view of Russia, but it also has to do with the fact that immigration does not have the same negative connotations for people who worked on the production line or went to school with immigrants from the so-called guest worker generation as it does in the East.
Highest budget hurdle
The Berlin coalition is now facing a difficult few weeks. The 2025 budget must be in place by the end of November. If the "traffic light" gets over this hurdle, then the chances are quite good that the traffic light will make it through to the regular election date of September 28, 2025.
But things can also turn out differently. Sometimes courage means staying in a coalition despite controversy, Finance Minister Christian Lindner recently orated in the Rheinische Post newspaper. "But sometimes courage also means taking risks in order to create new political momentum."
©Keystone/SDA
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