On September 24, 2017, Germany will hold national elections. Current Chancellor Angela Merkel is running for a fourth consecutive term, meaning that if she wins and finishes the next term, she will become the longest serving head of government since World War II, ahead of Helmut Kohl who served for sixteen years from 1982 to 1998. Angela Merkel was first elected as chancellor in 2005.

Overview

Germany elects its government as per two electoral lists. The first vote is a direct vote for the candidate in a specific district. This vote elects about half of the members of the upcoming parliament. The second vote is a party-specific vote, in which the electorate casts its vote for the political party that they would want to see govern for the next four years. This is actually the key vote as it determines the ruling arrangement. To illustrate, Angela Merkel is running as a direct candidate in her own district of Vorpommern-Rügen (in the northeast of the country where she grew up) and as the head of her Christian Democratic Party (CDU) as part of the second party vote.

In the end, the German election is not a direct vote for the chancellor. Rather, it is a vote for a political party. For the 2017 vote, 42 political parties are vying for the electorate’s vote. Of those 42 parties, only 7 parties will, in the end, be represented in parliament as Germany has a 5 percent clause in its electoral law. This clause stipulates that a political party must gain at least a 5 percent share of the overall vote in order to gain representation. The majority of the 42 parties, which includes parties such as the Party for Animal Welfare, the Senior Citizens Party or the satirical “The Party”, will in the end not come close to reaching the required threshold.

Following the final vote tally, Germany is traditionally ruled by a coalition of parties, as no single party tends to get enough votes to gain an absolute majority. Only during the period from 1960 - 1961 did Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his CDU party gain enough parliamentary seats to govern alone. All other ruling arrangements have been coalitions of two or more parties.

Anticipated Scenarios

Currently, Germany is governed by a so-called “grand coalition” composed of the two major political parties in Germany; the CDU[1] representing the right-of–center political spectrum and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) representing the left-of-center position. In addition to these two, the following parties are expected to enter the parliament for the next four years: the Alternative for Germany (AFD – conservative right party running on an anti-immigrant platform); the Free Democratic Party (FDP – liberal positions based on degrees of individual responsibility); the Green Party (environmentally conscious movement) and the Left Party (Linke – successor party of the former Communist Party of East Germany prior to 1989).      

The final composition of the upcoming government will be determined by which parties can realistically put together a majority-government. Given the current polling data[2], the vote on September 24 will result in the CDU coming in first place with approximately 35 percent of the vote, followed by the SPD with an average of 23 percent and with the other four parties (AFD, FDP, Greens and Left) vying for third place, which each projected to receive between 8 to 11 percent of the total vote.

Given the fact, that no party is ready to enter into a coalition with the AFD, given the AFD’s anti-immigrant and severe rightist stances, there are only 3 possible coalition outcomes: a continuation of the grand coalition between the CDU and the SPD, a conservative-liberal alliance between the CDU and the FDP, or a potentially path-breaking so-called “Jamaica” coalition between the CDU, the FDP and the Green Party (Jamaica as based on the colors of the parties – black, yellow and green). The Social Democrats will be unable to form an alternative leftist coalition, if current poll data is to be trusted.

“Boring” Election Campaign

The election campaign has been characterized by most observers as boring and uninspiring. The Social Democratic candidate, Martin Schulz, has run a campaign focused on social fairness. Despite that Schulz was able to gain some percentage points when he first announced its candidacy at the beginning of 2017, Angela Merkel and her CDU were quickly able to regain their majority status over the following months.

In a much anticipated direct debate between Merkel and Schulz at the end of August, the challenger Schulz tried to attack Merkel for a variety of positions ranging from growing economic inequality, the immigration debate, and future of relations with Turkey (a contentious issue given the growing rift between the German government and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan over the arrest of German citizens in Turkey), but Schulz was unable to score any definite points against the sitting chancellor.

Angela Merkel, meanwhile, has run her campaign on a continuation of her past policies suggesting that while Germany faces numerous challenges to be tackled, in particular in areas such as education reform and digitalization, the overall situation of the German population was satisfactory. Opinion polls suggest that most Germans do view their own situation as not sufficient enough to warrant a change in government. Most observers, thus, characterized the television debate as being simply an advertisement for a continuation of the current grand coalition.

The one unknown factor, meanwhile, is the relatively large number of still undecided voters. Whether this is significant enough to change the expected election outcome remains to be seen.

Unintended Consequences

The main debate within the Social Democratic party is whether they should risk the way into the opposition or continue as Merkel’s junior partner in a grand coalition. One of the main criticisms of the past eight years of grand coalition government is the fact that Germany has been ruled by a large degree of consensus politics among the two main parties. Thus, the system gave no enough room for contentious debate, where opposition politics deemed essential for a thriving democratic system.

In all aspects of the current electoral make-up, the smaller political parties have at the moment no chance to prevent decisions of the CDU or the SPD from being enacted. In the medium- to long-term, political commentators view such a situation as being detrimental to the future of Germany’s political democratic culture. The rise of the AFD as a neo-conservative rightist party with fascist overtones is cited as a direct result of this deteriorating situation.

All of this suggests another period of consensus politics inside Germany. However, that will have little impact on tackling rising challenges such as the growing rift between the rich and poor, or the rising poverty levels among Germany’s senior citizens. Figures and data demonstrate that Germany’s social security system is no longer adequate in alleviating growing rifts within society. The main magazine in Germany, Der Spiegel, highlighted this issue with reference to the so-called “Wutbürger” i.e. those people that are simply driven by rage and who are ready to vote for parties outside the given mainstream.[3] What this points to is a period of increased division and contention over the coming four years given the indication that Angela Merkel once elected will simply continue with the same governing style that she has practiced over the past 12 years.  If the social climate were to become more contentious, there are no guarantees that Angela Merkel would in fact be able to finish her term to the end.

No Shifts in Foreign Policies

Whatever the outcome of the election, the result is unlikely to bring about a significant change in the foreign policy orientation of Germany, in particular when it comes to the Gulf region. Germany still sees itself as a strategic partner of the GCC countries and wants to benefit economically from a continued relationship. Yet, the debate over the continuation of the Iran nuclear deal (which Germany strongly supports) and the recent rift within the GCC over Qatar also have exposed some of the limitations of German and European approach when it comes to the Gulf.

Germany will continue to try to balance out the various contradictions that currently define the Gulf security environment but it will find itself in a difficult position to maintain that balance. The new German government will, thus, find itself challenged to find the right tone in order not to damage its strategic relations with the important Gulf region.