The German coalition government exploded last Wednesday, the same day that Donald Trump’s victory in the United States presidential elections was confirmed. Some were surprised by the news, others acted surprised: the viability of the so-called ‘traffic light coalition’ – made up of social democrats from the SPD, greens and liberals from the FDP – had already proven unsustainable since last September 1.
That day the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia went to the polls. In the latter, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) won the elections with a historic result. In the first region, AfD was tenths away from being the most voted force. It was the first victory in Germany of a far-right party – which in the case of AfD, borders on neo-Nazism – in a regional election since World War II.
The three ruling parties, which had achieved a parliamentary majority in the 2021 federal elections, obtained a paltry result in those regional elections: the SPD obtained results in single figures, the worst in its history in both states; The Greens only managed to enter the regional parliament of Saxony; while the FDP liberals were literally pulverized in the two states, without parliamentary representation in any of them.
It is no coincidence, therefore, that the FDP finally blew up – or “dynamited”, as several German media headlines – the Government led by Social Democratic Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The president of the liberal party and former Finance Minister, Christian Lindner, provoked the other two parties in the coalition with a budget offer for 2025 that was unaffordable for both the SPD and the Greens. The proposal to advance elections made to Scholz by Lindner last Wednesday night, during a meeting of the Executive that sought to put an end to the differences over those budgets, ended up blowing up an Executive that had been dysfunctional for weeks, to the view of everyone.
Lindner’s calculation seems to have been that a premature end to tripartite government and early elections could save his party from extra-parliamentarism. Currently, most polls place the FDP below 5% throughout Germany, the threshold that allows it to have representation in the Bundestag (Federal Parliament). It would not be the first time that the FDP has been left out of the Bundestag after being part of a coalition government.
And now what?
As of now, the roadmap is more or less clear. Germany is destined to hold early elections, we just need to know the date. After settling scores in public with Lindner in his press conference last Wednesday, Chancellor Scholz said that he would submit to a vote of confidence in the Bundestag on January 15. Scholz would need a parliamentary majority to be able to continue governing as a minority with the Greens until the legislature runs out in September of next year. That scenario is, simply, utopian.
The CDU-CSU union, the main opposition party, will not support this minority government. In fact, the conservatives have been asking for an electoral advance for weeks and the far-right AfD for months. Lindner’s FDP will do everything in its power to see Scholz fall as soon as possible. The post-communists of The Left and its split led by Sarah Wagenknecht will not support it either. As things stand, the current chancellor will only foreseeably have the votes of his party and the green bench, very far from a parliamentary majority.
The president, candidate for chancellor of the conservative CDU-CSU union and leader of the opposition, Friedrich Merz, has already said that he considers that date to be too late and has asked Scholz to bring it forward as much as possible. Merz wants to hold a vote of confidence next week and hold the elections on January 19. The elections would thus be held one day before Donald Trump’s presidential swearing-in in Washington.
The chancellor initially rejected Merz’s demand, but this Friday, during his participation in the European summit in Budapest, he showed himself open to renegotiating the date: “It would be good for the democratic factions to find an agreement on which laws to approve before for the year to end. That agreement could answer the question of when is the right time for the vote of confidence,” Scholz said.
The social democrat thus recognizes that his legitimacy to continue governing as a minority until the end of the legislature is scarce. The only thing left to know is when Scholz will lose that vote of confidence and when the early elections will be held. Following the dissolution of Parliament by the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, elections must be called within three months.
The ‘Trump factor’
There are those in Berlin who wonder if Scholz’s government would have been blown up if Kamala Harris had won the elections on the other side of the Atlantic. Trump’s incontestable victory seems to have accelerated the implosion of the tripartite due to what is coming to Germany with a second Trump term: tariffs on German industry – already hit by the energy crisis after the cutoff of Russian gas supplies – , probable end of US military and economic aid to Ukraine and tightening of the trade war with China, a key trading partner for Germany.
In his public appearance on Wednesday, Scholz mentioned Trump’s arrival and the uncertainty it generates regarding the war in Ukraine and the security of Germany and Europe. The Social Democratic Chancellor said that these circumstances required the German Government to commit to greater public investment both in defense and to support national industry. All of this was unviable with the dogmatism of austerity in public spending defended by the FDP liberals and their Finance Minister, Christian Lindner.
Trump’s return has been a trigger for the internal negative dynamics that had been brewing within Germany for months. The historic result of the extreme right in the elections in Saxony and Thuringia was just a symptom of the political crisis that the European country is suffering. With the AfD in second place in all electoral projections, the outcome of this political crisis is today uncertain.
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