Germany yesterday woke up to the news that its crisis-prone government could become even more unstable after the parties ruling in a loveless coalition suffered humiliating results in an election in the southern state of Bavaria.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ally, the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU), slumped to its worst election results in almost 70 years and her junior coalition partner, the center-left German Social Democratic Party (SPD), saw support in Bavaria halved.
“It’s going to be turbulent,” newspaper Die Welt headlined. “The result in Bavaria is a vote against the grand coalition in Berlin.”
Photo: AFP
The SPD had hoped that infighting over immigration between Merkel’s federal Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the CSU would give them a boost in Bavaria.
However, instead, the SPD saw support fall to just less than 10 percent, prompting a discussion over the sustainability of its alliance with the CDU at the federal level.
Many SPD members are still bitter over their leaders’ decision to join a Merkel-led government after vowing before the general election in September last year to sit in opposition if they lost to the conservatives. They are now demanding consequences.
Photo: AFP
SPD General Secretary Lars Klingbeil told Deutschlandfunk radio that members wanted a change in the style of government.
Party leaders have promised members opposed to a coalition with the conservatives that they would hold a review after two years in government and decide whether the partnership is still viable.
Asked whether disgruntled SPD members were demanding that the review be brought forward, Klingbeil said: “The evaluation is planned for the middle of the legislative period, but something must happen now.”
“There must be different style of government,” Klingbeil said.
He said that the CSU under party leader Horst Seehofer must stop picking arguments, especially on issues like migrant policy.
“If the style of government doesn’t change, there will be a debate in the SPD and the critical voices will get stronger,” he said.
Polls indicate that the ruling parties could be chastened again in two weeks in an election in the western state of Hesse, where they are expected to bleed support to the far-right Alternative for Germany and the ecologist German Greens.
The state is ruled by Merkel’s CDU in a coalition with the Greens, and a slump in support for the conservatives there would almost certainly further weaken her authority.
“If the CDU loses the government in Hesse, this will probably start a discussion within the CDU about Merkel’s position,” the mass-selling Bild tabloid said.
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