Analytics

Elections in Germany. How will they affect Ukraine?

ANALYSIS FROM

Germany is facing early parliamentary elections. Each of the political parties that have a chance to get into the Bundestag has its own vision of how to help Ukraine.

A little background. From 2021 until November 6, 2024, Germany was governed by a coalition of three parliamentary parties, whose representatives were members of the government. The leading role in it belonged to the Social Democrats, whose leader Olaf Scholz is currently the Federal Chancellor of Germany. Their allies in the ruling coalition were the Union 90/Greens party and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). However, disputes arose between the coalition partners over the budget deficit and ways to overcome it, and they could not be resolved constructively. Therefore, after a meeting with political partners on November 6, Chancellor Olaf Scholz dismissed Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the head of the Free Democrats. His fellow party members resigned along with him, and the coalition collapsed.

As a result of these events, at the suggestion of the leaders of the above-mentioned parties, as well as the CDU/CSU, which is in opposition to the government, a plan was announced to hold early parliamentary elections to be held on February 23 next year. A vote of confidence in the current government took place in the Bundestag on December 16, which ended in a vote of no confidence in the Scholz government: he raised the question of trust in himself and the government, and expectedly did not receive a vote of confidence. The vote of no confidence in the chancellor and the government was cast by 394 out of 717 MPs. This means that the current parliament will be dissolved by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and then new elections will be held. And there are interesting prospects.

Currently, the rating of the current Federal Chancellor of Germany, Olaf Scholz, is at a record low: only 15.5% of voters trust him. In such a situation, of course, his Social Democratic Party of Germany cannot win.

The problem is that for some reason the SPD decided to commit political suicide. It has retained the unpopular Olaf Scholz as its leader and candidate for chancellor, although another influential Social Democrat, Boris Pistorius, is the country’s most highly rated politician with 53.1% of voters’ trust. He is a current government official and holds the post of defense minister in Scholz’s team. It would seem that he has all the cards in his hands. But no: on November 21, Pistorius refused to run for office in the upcoming elections and sang a hymn to his current boss, calling him “an outstanding federal chancellor.” This politician seems to be some kind of a wrong one, because he is not a cunning careerist and a cunning schemer. He is not a politician at all, but a loyal samurai who always supports his master. If Pistorius’s fellow party members do not manage to persuade him to become their leader in the near future, the SPD will at best take third place in the election race and receive 15-16% of the vote.

Sociologists currently call the CDU/CSU opposition force and its candidate for the post of federal chancellor, Friedrich Merz, the favorite of the upcoming elections. The party is confidently on its way to victory and has a chance to win 30% of the vote. It is worth recalling that the double name of this political force reflects an interesting nuance. The CDU, or Christian Democratic Union, is a nationwide party in Germany, except for Bavaria. This federal state has its own party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). At the national level, they are actually one party, with a common political program and a common candidate for chancellor, but legally they are not the same thing: remember that Germany is still a federal country. But this is old German business. And for Ukraine, the CDU/CSU’s victory is even more beneficial than the SPD’s continued stay in power. Both parties are friendly to Ukraine, but Friedrich Merz also promises to give us long-range Taurus missiles, which we will not get from the cautious Olaf Scholz.

One of the favorites in the upcoming elections is the right-wing radical party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which opposes the provision of weapons and other assistance to Ukraine. Its rating is 19.5%. For comparison, in the elections held in September 2021, the AfD received 10.3% of the vote, which brought it 83 seats in the Bundestag. In three years, the increase in sympathy for them has almost doubled: there is something to worry about for respectable mainstream parties.

The AfD is perceived, and rightly so, as a political upstart and radical: it is a young party, having existed only since 2013, which cannot be compared to such dinosaurs of German politics as the CDU and the SPD. The former is four years older than the German state itself; the CDU was founded in 1945. The latter has been around since the days of Tsar Panko, or rather King Johann I of Saxony, in 1863.

The AfD is a kind of German version of MAGA, with local variations of all its political features: “traditional values,” anti-immigrant rhetoric, Islamophobia, and Euroscepticism. In addition, this political project clearly has the ears, or rather horns, of Russia sticking out: influential party members repeat pro-Russian narratives and call for Russian gas to be brought to Germany again, just like in the good old days. In the current elections, the AfD will for the first time nominate its candidate for the post of federal chancellor, Alice Weidel, who has repeatedly called for an end to military aid to Ukraine and the lifting of sanctions against Russia. For Ukraine, the growing influence of this party, frankly, does not bode well. However, according to forecasts, the alternatives will not take the first place in the elections, and no one from the mainstream will offer them marriage, i.e., they will not be invited to join the ruling coalition.

Another influential party in Germany is the Union 90/Greens. Its representatives are part of the current coalition government of Olaf Scholz. As its name suggests, the party promotes an environmental agenda: solutions to climate change, care for the environment, lobbying for the use of renewable energy sources and reducing fossil fuel consumption.

The Green Party is a sincere friend of Ukraine. Members of Scholz’s government, such as Economy Minister Robert Habeck and Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock, are both in favor of providing all the assistance needed to defend Ukraine. The Greens also support the transfer of long-range Taurus missiles to Ukraine, which was called for by party co-chair Omid Nuripour.

Currently, sociologists predict 11% of the vote for the Greens. This is less than the 14.8% they garnered in the 2021 elections. Back then, the Greens won 118 seats in the Bundestag. Let them be lucky now!

This election will offer the electorate a completely fresh political menu. For the first time, the Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance for Common Sense and Justice will take part in the elections. This political force was founded exactly one year ago by people from the Left party. It is a populist and pro-Russian party that advocates for an end to arms supplies to Ukraine, the lifting of sanctions against Russia, and the curtailment of support for refugees from Ukraine who have found refuge in Germany. Sarah Wagenknecht’s Alliance can count on 5% of the vote. This is the threshold for political forces in the German parliamentary elections. Let’s hope that the Alliance will not overcome it.

But the good old Free Democratic Party of Germany, founded in 1948, is teetering on the brink and may not get into the new Bundestag. Its rating is currently about 4%. It is a liberal political force, a “middle-class party”; it is currently led by Christian Lindner, who until last November was the Minister of Finance in the Scholz government, and the Free Democrats are, respectively, members of the government coalition. If they do get into parliament this year, they may enter a coalition with the CDU/CSU, and their representatives may again be in the government.

The views of the FDP leaders on supporting Ukraine are not much different from those of their former senior partner Olaf Scholz. To be more precise, they “fluctuate along with the party’s general line”. They also support military and economic assistance to Ukraine and the sanctions regime against the aggressor country, and they are also against supplying Ukraine with long-range Taurus missiles, although they themselves once called for this weapon.

What are the prospects for the future parliamentary and governmental coalition after the elections? Friedrich Merz and the CDU/CSU are likely to win the elections. As for the junior partners, the question is still open and will depend on the mood of German voters on election day. Coalitions in Germany are usually named after the colors of party symbols. The recently collapsed coalition of Chancellor Olaf Scholz was called the traffic light coalition: it included the Social Democrats (red), the Free Democrats (yellow), and the Green Party. The new association may be black and yellow (the black one being the CDU/CSU and the yellow one the FDP), or black and red, i.e. a coalition of the major parties, the CDU/CSU and the SPD. Of course, life will put everything in its place. But it is always worth keeping in mind that life, including political life, even in stable Germany, is too unpredictable.

Author – Oleksandr Olesiv