Losses and Wins in Germany

In Germany’s special election Sunday, seven months earlier than the normal date because the trio-run government collapsed, there were a full  29 parties on the long paper ballots. But only 7 had a chance to retain their presence in the Bundestag. The final count: 3 wins, 4 losses.

One winner, with the most votes (28.5%), though fewer than in past elections, was the Christian sister team (CDU-CSU) called the “Union.” Its top man and future chancellor, Friedrich Merz, was a financial lobbyist and board chairman of the American investment giant BlackRock’s German subsidiary during his pause from politics (during his rival Angela Merkel’s more moderate rule). He is a millionaire

His solution for Germany’s current economic distress: lower taxes on wealthy corporations, cut benefits for the “lazy” jobless, immigrants, children and seniors, many of whom face poverty. But billions for a giant armament build-up and preparations for an openly-planned conflict with Russia.

To form a new government, however, his Union did not do well enough. It must find a partner to achieve a needed 316-seat Bundestag majority.

The Greens, who took some losses (down to 12 %), retain only faint echoes of their radical past; their remaining support on gay rights, marriage, abortion and marijuana may still upset some “anti-woke” Bavarian blockheads but would otherwise be secondary, since they lead the whole ruling pack in heating up war fever with their “ruin Russia” policy and they find increasing comfort with big business interests. But their poor electoral showing gives them too few seats to provide a majority.

Another loser was the small Free Democratic Party, which even more overtly plugs the low-tax interests of big business. Its leader, the suave, smartly dressed Christian Lindner, with his changing, always artfully sculptured three-day beard, was the difficult member of the governing trio. Seeing his party glued unchangingly to the losing 4% level, it was he who caused the downfall of the ruling triumvirate,  in hopes of joining a new, openly conservative constellation. But his risk misfired; his party stayed below the needed 5% in the vote, and he must now say goodbye to the Bundestag . Also to politics. The general feeling of  “Good riddance” was almost audible!

So Merz must turn to the Social Democrats. Their results (16.4%), their worst since 1949 (or since 1887, some have found), do provide just barely enough seats to paste a coalition together. It would undoubtedly not include the party’s present leader until now, the soon ex- Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who is largely blamed for the distress of his party and of Germany in general. Scholz is still occasionally plagued by a revived influence-peddling bank scandal from his early days as mayor of Hamburg. But the reasons for his party to scuttle him are both his immense unpopularity as head of a government which failed and, equally important, his occasional leaning, though hesitant and inconsistent, toward the few courageous leaders among the Social Democrats who are not pushing for long-range missiles for Zelenskyy and an insane confrontation with Russia. Instead, party politics now lean toward gung-ho crusaders like Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, who calls for “war . This makes them eligible as junior partners in a new coalition with Merz & Co. and Pistorius possibly as vice-chancellor.

The frighteningly big vote winner was the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), in second place nationally (20.4%) and winning a solid first place in all five East German states. While calling for peace in Ukraine (its one good card, for its own, partly pragmatic reasons ), it builds almost totally on hatred toward immigrants and all ”foreigners.” It also supports Netanyahu to the hilt, as an “anti-Muslim,” it calls (but very quietly) for lower taxes and regulations for the big corporations. And it demands conscription and more German dominance in the world. Its “expel immigrants” pressure has pushed all but the LINKE in the same direction. But it is still too far, far radically rightist to be accepted as a partner by the Christians, although the so-called “stone wall” separating them shows increasing signs of crumbling. And all these parties agree; Germany must build military strength.  of course purely for defense – but closer than ever to Russian borders, with ever swifter planes with bombs.

Those who like to read about history and perhaps find analogies may have noted that  the  AfD result  on Sunday,  20.8%, was double its 9.4% count in the previous election and then noted that the Nazis got only 2.6% in 1928 but18% in 1930 and reached 37% in July 1932. The giant jumps were clearly a result of the terrible Depression and the threat of worker resistance.  Is the downward-fading German economy now facing  a new Depression? And do leftist workers represent a threat?

If the wins of the AfD were most alarming, one losing result was truly most tragic. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which split away a year ago from what it considered a far too conformist, compromising LINKE, won surprisingly high results in last year’s European election and in three East German states, starkly reducing voters’ support for its former parent party, the LINKE, which soon sank to a dangerously low 4% for the rest of 2024. But while the BSW maintained its cease-fire/anti-NATO (and Putin) position in the Ukraine war and certainly as its total condemnation of Netanyahu’s genocidal massacres in Gaza and now the West Bank, it was no longer seen so clearly as a protest party, partly because it had joined in state governing coalitions in Brandenburg  and Thuringia, Perhaps because it stuck far too close to the AfD and mainstream parties on anti-immigrant questions. Also, no doubt, because Sahra Wagenknecht kept membership down to a tiny number, about 1100. Applicants for membership must be vetted by the central executive committee, with thousands on the waiting list, and well under 100 members in every state. All these problems added up,  plus newly negative treatment in the media. For whatever reasons, or all of them, their vote on Sunday came to a heartbreakingly close 4.972% election result, thus failing the 5% level by only 14,000 votes! Its further existence in the Bundestag was gone; some hostile critics predicted  its further existence as well. Some of the best brains on the left, including those who now lose their Bundestag seats, will soon be out in the cold.

But there was also a second winner on Sunday, one which caused amazement all over Germany. Seemingly doomed to a similar fate as its breakaway BSW offspring, and after big losses in all 2024 elections and a glue-like, fateful 4% in the polls, it finally drew conclusions about its reformist character, which had caused it, in its former East German bastions, to really become a part of the establishment. Late in 2024 it finally returned to vigorous protest. It remained divided on key questions, with some comfortably-seated leaders, bowing to government and media pressure, nearing a pro-NATO tolerance and supporting  not only Zelenskyy but even “Israeli  self-defense” slogans. But it decided to steer away from these questions, at least during the elections, and adopted a plan to knock on doors of tens of thousands of households and ask  those they met what they wished for. It then focused loudly and vigorously on these major worries; fuel and grocery prices, criminally little affordable housing and frightening rent increases. With three elder leaders (calling them “The Three Silverlocks”) and with charismatic young female leaders in TikTok appeals, they hammered on these subjects, demanded a genuine ban on raising rents and, alone among the main parties, called for solidarity and clear support for immigrants’ rights. It rapidly gained thousands of new members, mostly young, and soared in two months from 4% to an amazing final 8.8%!

The most spectacular success for the LINKE was in Berlin. Down, year for year, to only 6% as late as November, it has soared in this city-state, within three months, to a fantastic first place with 19.9%, ahead of the governing  Christians and Social Democrats, the Greens and the AfD! Overcoming years of decline, it won direct seats for four Bundestag candidates: Pascal Meiser won in Kreuzberg/Friedrichshain with 30%, Ferat Kocak, of Kurdish background, in a former West Berlin district (the first such success for the LINKE), the new, energetic young party chairwoman Ines Schwerdtner  won in Lichtenberg with 34.5% and veteran leader Gregor Gysi was re-elected with an almost unbelievable 41.8%!

The coming government headed by Merz will be even more dangerous than the previous ones in a rapid push towards conflict, even if that means a partial  break with the traditional patrons across the Atlantic. If it weakens or breaks relation with Trump, it will not be because of his racism and increasing repression, his climate warming plan, nor even primarily for his painful tariff plans. These forces now hate him for moving to achieve peace in the Ukraine – his only good move, for whatever reason. This has enraged them for they do not want a ceasefire or negotiations, they want to earn more billions on weapons, they want to expand, they even want conflict, so they can regain their old-time strength in Europe and spread their euro-heavy wings into Ukraine, Moldova, and beyond. Harkening back to the traditional goal of German war expansionists, they look longingly at those Eurasian expanses, thosee markets for German goods, the mineral wealth, cheap skilled labor and a powerful geographical position.

Berlin is not Germany but is, after all, its capital and largest metropolis. The victory here, the amazing nation-wide 8.8% with its increase to 64 Bundestag seats (out of 630) plus the many thousands of enthusiastic new members – still represent only a very thin slice of the political scene. But there is now new, strong hope that the LINKE can overcome the influence and the strength of those compromising “reformers,”  who still stand for a ruinous status quo and have forgotten the basic goal of the party, a peaceful, non-profit, truly socialist society. Perhaps some of them may even have been moved by the fresh campaign methods into a new belief in genuine action. And if this can be achieved, this victory can have far-reaching importance well above its numbers, and can possibly help in the resurrection of  left-wing opposition not only in Germany but in France, Poland, Britain and all the rest. It is a spark of hope which may comfort, encourage, even help comrades in other countries.