Accelerated elections to the German Bundestag, which will take place on Sunday, February 23, most likely not only the completed short word of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but will constitute a sad caesura for German politics.
If the current polls confirm, all 5th voter will vote for the utmost right-wing alternate for Germany (AfD) – never in post-war past The German organization to the right from the chadecia did not gain this much support at national level.
To the very end, it is not known how many parties will enter the parliament – at the end of the run around the electoral threshold 2 electoral lists balance, so it is only after all votes have been calculated that 5 or even 7 groups will enter the Bundestag.
End of Deutsche Ordnung
For decades the German organization strategy was among the most unchangeable in Europe. From the 1950s to the mid-1980s, the West German Parliament dominated 2 groups – conservative chadetia, created by the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and Bavarian Christian-Social Union (CSU) and the centre-left Social Democratic organization (SPD). The Liberals of the Free Democratic organization (FDP) ruled both with chade and with SPD.
In the 1980s, MPs and MPs of the 4th party, the Green Party, were besides elected to the national parliament after the Reunion of Germany in 1990, including erstwhile president of the Social Democracy Oskar Lafontaine, which resulted in the rebranding of the group on Linke, simply “Lewica”).
The next phase of the “development” of the German organization strategy was the emergence of an alternate for Germany (AfD) in 2013, which was formed as a gathering of supporters of the return to the German brand, Eurosceptics, national liberals and right-wing conservatives. In the elections to the Bundestag in September 2013, erstwhile the leadership of Angela Merkel won as many as 41.5% of the vote, AfD failed to exceed the electoral threshold.
AfD's large return followed the 2015-2016 migration crisis erstwhile anti-immigrant and racist sentiments intensified in Germany and throughout Europe. The electoral success of the AfD – in the 2017 and 2021 elections it was supported by 12.6 and 10.4% of voters respectively – did not decision the group to more centred positions, on the contrary: the organization founded by the "eurosceptic professors" has radicalized and represents present highly right-wing views, in peculiar in terms of migration policy and integration of people with migrant roots, who present represent about 1 5th of the German population.
AfD supports the abolition of economical sanctions imposed on Russia, advocates the reconstruction (!) of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, and its politicians have repeatedly proven, in their thoughts, speeches, deeds and negligence, that they are pleased to service as the 5th column of Vladimir Putin over the Rhine, the Elbe and the Danube.
When in late January Elon Musk virtualized with the AfD electoral congress, delegates welcomed the South African billionaire, who one more time demonstrated their belonging to the global far right.
Return of good old CDU
Although AfD will gain evidence advanced support, it is almost impossible that it will be part of the future ruling coalition. In the polls, there is simply a chadecja (retains support of 27-32%), which leads clearly before AfD (20-21%), SPD Chancellor Olaf Scholz (15-17%), the Green organization (13-14%) and the Left (5-9%). The destiny of the Liberal FDP and the fresh group are at stake Sahry Wagenknecht – both groups have ratings around 4 and 5 percent.
The fresh chancellor will most likely be president of the CDU Friedrich Merz – a conservative Catholic and economical liberal from Westphalia, years ago the main intra-party rival Angela Merkel, who, after losing his fight with the cancler in 2009, retired to business. After a nearly ten-year break, he returned to active politics and in 2022 – after 2 failed attempts in 2018 and 2021 – was elected president of the CDU.
Merz promised the chapeques to return to the "old good CDU" and complete the centre course of the Merkel era: the CDU was to be a conservative organization with a pro-business economical profile again, alternatively than a social democracy of light (which in fact was never, the social successes of Merkel's governments mostly pushed the SPD, with which the chapencies formed a alleged large coalition – and it is worth reminding that in 2017 the Chancellor voted in the Bundestag... against the introduction of marital equality).
Merz, whose ambition is to "take over the support of the AfD", besides announced a renewed tightening of migration policy, and Merkel's consent to the adoption by Germany of Syrian refugees in the summertime of 2015 – it was in this context that the Chancellor expressed the celebrated phrase "We can do it!" – he considered in the flashback a violation of the law.
In search of the perfect coalition
The biggest problem for Friedrich Merz is the selection of future coalitions. Since the FDP, a conventional coalitionist of chadetia, may not enter parliament – and even if the Liberals cross the electoral threshold, their support is modest adequate that the Chadecko-liberal coalition will surely not have a majority in the Bundestag – Merz has only uncomfortable options: the alleged large coalition with the SPD or the alliance with the Green Party, and if there are inactive no votes, the Jamaican coalition (Cadeece + Greens + FDP) and the Kenyan coalition (Cadecia + SPD + Greens) are inactive possible. And here comes another problem.
The president of the sister CSU, the eccentric Prime Minister of Bavaria Markus Söder, announced publically that he would not in any event support the coalition with the Greens, whom he considers to be "the main braking on migration"; he would kindly agree to a common government with the SPD, but only if Chancellor Olaf Scholz did not join him. The blocking choir was besides joined by FDP president (and retired in November 2024 erstwhile finance minister) Christian Lindner, who announced that his group would not enter any coalition in which the Greens would be...
Friedrich Merz has repeatedly declared that his leadership will not cooperate with AfD. any commentators no longer believed in Merz's assurances after he presented a resolution in the Bundestag at the end of January 2025, followed by a draft law on "limiting the illegal influx of third-country nationals into Germany", which included, inter alia, the introduction of permanent passport checks at the state border (which is incompatible with EU law), the elimination of the anticipation of merging migrant and migrant families with subsidiary protection position or fresh powers for national police to hold at abroad stations residing in the country without a residence permit.
The resolution, which had no legal effect, passed a velvety, several-voiced majority (through the support of the FDP and the AfD), while the bill no longer obtained the required majority, as part of the MPs and MPs of the CDU and the FDP simply did not take part in the vote. If the Merza bill were passed by the Bundestag, it would be the first bill that was passed by the national parliament with the support of the AfD. Merza's legislative charge outraged the left side of the political scene and resulted in a series of thousands of anti-right manifestations in many German cities.
A sad end to the "progress coalition"
The direct origin of the collapse of the Light Signalling Coalition (the name comes from the colors of the organization that formed them – the red SPD, FDP bile and Greens) in November 2024 was the disagreement of Finance Minister Christian Linder (FDP) to loosen the principles of the alleged debt brake.
This regulation, enshrined in the basic law in 2009, importantly limits the ability of the national government to take on debt (essentially, the recently drawn debt cannot be more than 0.35% of GDP per year). For respective years, the left-wing parties (SPD, Greens, Linke) have been demanding improvement of the rules to supply funds for the essential investments in deteriorating infrastructure and to accelerate the environmental transformation of the economy; whereas the centre-right parties, namely chadecia and FDP, do not agree to loosen these rules, explaining that the state should sparingly plan its spending.
In November 2024 Chancellor Scholz requested Linder to exclude spending on Ukraine from the debt brake regime, declaring formally "the state of hard budgetary situation". Since Linder did not want (or, as he himself believes, could not, for legal reasons) agree to this solution, Scholz dismissed his unruly finance minister and FDP left the coalition (except for the Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure Volker Wissing, who preferred to surrender the FDP organization card). The abolition of the Liberals from the government resulted in Olaf Scholz's cabinet losing the parliamentary majority, so the elections planned for September 2025 were postponed to Sunday, February 23.
The Ambivalent Balance of Government of Olaf Scholz
Although the "coalition of progress" (so-called itself in the coalition agreement of 2021) has had any success on its account – among another things, it increased the minimum wage, reformed the unemployment benefit system, introduced a inexpensive German-wide public and regional transport ticket (from January 1, 2025 for 58 euro per month), facilitated the naturalization of foreigners, increased national funds for social construction and the share of green energy in the energy mix, partially legalized possession of marijuana, passed a fresh self-determination bill (which makes it easier for people to transagitate sex in documents) or created a peculiar fund for the acquisition of arms for the Bundeswehr of EUR 100 billion – could not make a common, convincing narrative, meandering from 1 image crisis to the next.
Would the destiny of the coalition, which managed to break down the inflation caused by the aftermath of the pandemic and war in Ukraine and independent Germany from Russian natural materials, be different if Chancellor Scholz communicated with voters in a little factual and more emotional way? If Minister Lindner had abandoned fiscal neoliberalism and discovered within himself the Social Liberal of his group would present not have fought to cross the electoral threshold, but would have raced the Greens for which of these 2 parties wields a government of souls in progressive German bourgeoisie? Unfortunately, we will no longer find answers to these questions.
Showdown on the Left
Reading the programs of the organization to the left of the center (i.e. SPD, Greens and Linke), you can see quite a few similarities at first glance. Keynesism and multi-billion-dollar state investment are dominant in economical policy, in social – attachment to the welfare state. The groups request an increase in taxes for the wealthiest while reducing the burden on little earners of households, and they besides want to keep the level of pensions around 50% of the last salary. Although Linke is more "social democratic" (read left-wing) than the SPD, it is not a plan to install in Germany "the socialism of the 21st century" in the kind of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. However, there is 1 fundamental thing that distinguishes Linke from the Social Democrats and the Greens – the attitude towards the war in Ukraine and to NATO.
During an emotional debate in the Bundestag about the proposal to change the migration policy proposed by Friedrich Merz, Heidi Reichinnek, 36-year-old leader of the election list Linke, besides appeared, who bravadicly attacked CDU president. Thanks to an effective run in social media, among others on TikTok (at the end of the election campaign, the Reichinnek MP watched more than 540 1000 people on this platform, which is about the same as Prime Minister Tusk!) poll support for Linke went from around 4-5 percent in January to up to 9% in fresh studies before the elections. The resurrection of this circumstantial Lazarus of the German left led to a deterioration in the situation of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), which in many polls fell below the electoral threshold.
Sahra Wagenknecht – Formerly an thought communist, for years 1 of the most crucial figures of the left wing Linke, in 2015-2019 co-chairing the parliamentary faction of this organization in the Bundestag – appeared from this group in October 2023 and set up her own association, which subsequently became a German-wide party.
The BSW combines the social economical agenda with the demands of a more restrictive migration policy, a "better thought-out climate policy" and opposition to vocalism and Cancel culture. This fresh political force, which sounds like an perfect proposal for a typical of the "conservative left" (in Poland besides known as alt-left), has 1 serious flaw: the group is totally anti-American, and thus pro-Russian and pro-putin. erstwhile Volodymyr Zelenski spoke in front of the Bundestag in June 2024, representatives of 2 groups, AfD and BSW, ostentatically left the room.
However, returning to Linke: after leaving the vagenknechtychtist party, it began to match simply a more left-wing version of the SPD. but for Ukraine.
The SPD broadly supports the transportation of German weapons to the fighting Ukraine, further financial support to the government in Kiev and German membership in the North Atlantic Alliance (today it only opposes the transfer of Taunus maneuvering missiles to Ukraine).
Linke, in turn, has officially condemned Russian aggression, acknowledges Russia as an aggressor, and does not question the rights of Ukrainians and Ukrainians to self-defense, but at the same time... It does not agree that the national government should send military aid to Ukraine due to the fact that it opposes any export of weapons manufactured in Germany. It is besides skeptical of NATO, claiming that it is not a "community of values", but a "clean military alliance that serves national and economical interests" – it would like to replace it with a "new European safety architecture" based on the Union and another "international institutions". He supports sanctions against Russian military manufacture and oligarchs, but... he does not agree to sanctions that could make the lives of average Russians and Russians worse.
Perhaps the Western European leftist will see this line of reasoning as sensible, but for those from east and Central Europe it sounds like an aberration, and indeed dangerous naivety.
It won't get any better, but it won't get any worse.
Among all the bad news coming from Germany in the coming days is 1 or 2 good news.
First, no substance what kind of coalition after the election, Germany will keep its pro-Ukrainian and pro-EU course. And secondly, weakening the BSW and possible failure to enter the Bundestag of this organization is simply a further step towards self-cleaning the German left with enthusiasts and enthusiasts of Putinian Russia.
