German elections: CDU resorts to ‘Red Scare’ tactics as speculation begins on likely coalitions
The CDU is stoking fears the SPD would form a coalition with the pro-environment Greens and the far-left Linke party, but it’s an unlikely prospect, writes Erik Kirschbaum
What has until now been a polite and civilized German election campaign has taken an ugly turn in the final weeks as the ruling conservatives have resorted to “Red Scare” tactics with echoes from the Cold War in a bid to frighten voters away from the centre-left Social Democrats.
The only trouble is nearly half of Germany’s voters today are under the age of 50 and so were either not yet born or have only a small inkling of what the epic East-West confrontation was even all about. The last-gasp “Red Scare” mudslinging from outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservative party also seems suspicious to most voters after the party spent 12 of 16 years in a successful, trouble-free “grand coalition” with those very same Social Democrats.
“It’s an act of desperation from a party that seems to have run out of ideas,” said Thomas Jäger, a political scientist at the University of Cologne, in an interview. “The conservatives have waged the most unimaginative and probably most uncreative campaign they ever had. Now they’re even dusting off the old ‘Red Scare’ strategy and hoping that might work,” he added, referring to the periodic Cold War fears prevalent in West Germany that the country might one day be overrun by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact countries and communism.
A leading Forsa opinion poll on Wednesday showed the SPD nevertheless widening its lead at the top to a projected 25% while Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) and their hapless chancellor candidate Armin Laschet falling another two percentage points in the last week to 19% -the lowest-ever score since Forsa was launched in 1984 for the conservatives.
“The situation for the CDU/CSU is dire and they see their chances slipping away so the strategy has gone from trying to persuade the ‘undecided’ voters out there to pure base mobilization,” said Julius van de Laar, a political strategist in Berlin. “Laschet sees support crumbling away so he’s turning to the ‘red scare’ move to ramp up the base turnout.”
Analysts are doubtful about whether Merkel, who is retiring, and her flailing Christian Democrats will turn around their campaign by dredging up angst about a possible “Communist” takeover in the unlikely event that the SPD ends up forming a three-way coalition with the pro-environment Greens and the far-left Linke party.
But their frightful warnings of the “Red Peril” to come with an SPD-led government have certainly enlivened the campaign ahead of the September 26 vote and put a spotlight on the five different coalition governments that could, in theory at least, be formed in the month or two of negotiations to follow the election.
Because there are six different parties in the German parliament and none are projected to come even close to winning a majority on their own (not even the two current ruling parties: CDU/CSU and SPD), the country’s next government will have at least two and most probably three parties in it.
Here is a look at the most likely three-way scenarios in order of their probability:
“Traffic light coalition” or Red-Green-Yellow
It’s called “traffic light” in Germany as a shorthand for the parties’ colors: SPD (red), Greens (green) and Free Democrats (yellow). The SPD with its chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz has moved six points ahead of the nearest competitor, the CDU/CSU, at 25% and the Greens are at 17%. The SPD has said it would like to reenact the “Red-Green” (SPD-Greens) coalition that ruled from 1998-2005. But together the parties are projected to win only 42% of the vote – thus needing a third partner. The least-objectional third partner would be the Free Democrats (FDP), who are polling 13%. But the pro-business, tax-cutting party that was long post-war West Germany’s kingmaker is playing hard-to-get. The smart money in Germany is thus betting on a “Traffic Light Coalition” even though there could be tensions between the left-leaning SPD-Greens dominance on the one hand and the small centrist FDP on the other. Both the FDP and Greens have been out of the federal government for eight and 16 years, respectively, both are eager to get back into power.
“Red-Red-Green” or “R2G”
This is a less likely three-way coalition made up of the SPD (25%), Greens (17%) and Linke party (6%) – mainly because the far-left Linke made up from the remnants of the former ruling party in Communist East Germany has called for disbanding NATO. That’s completely out of the question for legions of SPD and Greens voters who rely on the United States and NATO for their defense, and that stance has doomed any such similar R2G coalition at the national level in the past – even though such a tie-up would have been mathematically possible after the 2013 election. Scholz has cleverly opted against formally ruling out “R2G” for now despite dropping heavy hints it’s highly unlikely because of the Linke’s anti-Nato stance. Scholz has rejected that demand but declines to exclude the possibility of a three-way tie-up with the Linke in order to have some leverage with the FDP. That is why the conservatives are up in arms about the possibility of the Linke party, with its 6% of the vote, possibly getting seats in the next federal government as long as Scholz won’t rule it out. Even though the “Red Scare” tactics worked in the 1990s, Germans aren’t falling for it this time around.
“Deutschland” or “Mickey Mouse” coalition – or Red-Black-Yellow
This three-way coalition led by the SPD (25%), the CDU/CSU (19%) and FDP (13%) would be the preferred option for the conservatives and FDP but the centre-left SPD are done with the conservatives after being their junior partner for 12 of the last 16 years and seeing their own support crumble as a result from levels above 40% in the late 1990s to under 20% at times in recent years. It’s called the “German coalition” because its colours match those of the German flag (sort of, considering the national colours are actually black-red-gold and not black-red-yellow). Black-red-yellow nevertheless matches the clothes that Mickey Mouse wears.
Kenya coalition – SPD-CDU-Greens
This also possible but unlikely because the SPD (25%) is done with the CDU/CSU (19%) and it’s hard to imagine the CDU/CSU, which has ruled Germany for 52 of the last 72 years and fancies itself as Germany’s natural ruling party, would settle for the junior partner role for the first time in post-war history. The Greens (17%) would also have little enthusiasm for a Kenya coalition even though they won’t rule it out.
Jamaica coalition – CDU/CSU-Greens-FDP
This is also an unlikely alliance of “losers” because the Greens would rather partner with the SPD, which is expected to emerge triumphant on September 26. Talks for a Jamaica coalition after the last election in 2017 dragged on for a month but collapsed when the FDP abandoned them. The SPD and Greens are also ideologically much closer than the CDU/CSU and Greens.
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