Germany Ahead of the 2021 Federal Elections
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Germany ahead of the 2021 federal elections The German federal elections in September 2021 will mark a historic turning point: the end of the Merkel era with the departure of the Chancellor after 16 years in office. An entire generation has grown up and been politically socialised with Angela Merkel as the ruling Chancellor. None of her male predecessors in office ruled Germany longer than the first woman in the chancellorship - only Helmut Kohl also had a term of office of 16 years. With Angela Merkel's departure, it is highly likely that the so called "grand coalition" of CDU/CSU and SPD, which formed the government in Oliver Sartorius three of the four legislative periods under Angela Merkel's chancellorship, will also be Director Political Research replaced. and Advisory Kantar Public Germany 1 I. The decline of the people parties and the fragmentation of the German party system Thus, the end of the Merkel era will also mark the end of the dominance of Germany's two catch-all-parties (in German called “Volksparteien”). The heydays of the centre-right CDU/CSU and centre-left SPD peaked in the mid-1970s with around 90 percent vote shares at federal and most regional elections but had started to lose popularity since the 1980s. The process of German re-unification defined a preliminary halt to the downward trend in the 1990s, but increasingly since the turn of the millennium, voters have noticeably continued to turn away from the CDU/CSU and SPD. In particular, the three "grand coalitions" of the CDU/ CSU and SPD within the last four legislative periods (2005-2009, 2013-2017, 2017-2021) have obviously accelerated the downward trend of the popular parties. The decline of the Catch-All-Parties Development of the vote shares of CDU/CSU and SPD in national elections 60 50 40 32,9 30 20 20,5 10 0 1949 1953 1957 1961 1965 1969 1972 1976 1980 1983 1987 1990 1994 1998 2002 2005 2009 2013 2017 Only after the brief episode of the With the reunification of Germany, The AfD is represented in all 16 German conservative-liberal coalition (2009- another party entered the federal state parliaments and, with 12.6 percent, 2013) both parties experienced a short- political stage: the former East German is the strongest opposition party in the term upswing. state party SED, which renamed itself 19th German Bundestag. the "Party of Democratic Socialism The prolonged decline of the (PdS)" as early as 1990 and initially In its election manifesto for the 2021 popular parties was accompanied functioned primarily as an East German Bundestag elections, it advocates, by a differentiation of the German regional party. In June 2007, it merged among other things, Germany's party system, with resembled the with the West German Electoral withdrawal from the European Union fragmentation of other European Alternative for Social Justice (WASG). and the abolition of the Euro as a countries with proportional Since then the party has been called Die common currency. representation. Alongside the three Linke. Currently, Die Linke leads the state traditional forces of the conservative government in Thuringia and is part of With the establishment of a six- CDU/CSU, the social democratic SPD the Berlin state government as well as in party system in the German political and the liberal FDP, new parties entered the West-German city state of Bremen. landscape, new challenges arise for the political arena one after the other: future government formations at the In the wake of the financial crisis in 2012, federal level as well: two-party coalitions First, in the 1980s, were the Greens, the Merkel government's centrist and start to become the exception rather who had their roots in the anti-nuclear Europhile course led to the founding of a than the rule. power, environmental protection and national conservative and Euro-critical peace movements and who in their early party called Alternative for Germany phase competed as a protest- (AfD), which above all vehemently and anti-party-party. They first entered rejected the Euro and a supranational the federal parliament in 1982. With European debt management policy. In the reunification of Germany, the the wake of the refugee crisis in 2014, party merged with Bündnis 90, which the party adopted an increasingly anti- had emerged from various GDR civic migration and Islamophobic stance and, movements, to form the all-German after several evolutions, positioned itself party Bündnis 90/Die Grünen. In 2021, increasingly on the right-wing political the party is in government in eleven fringe of the party spectrum. of Germany's sixteen federal states. 2 II. Impact of the Corona-crisis on the political mood Even more than the financial and Euro While satisfaction with the work of Conversely, government satisfaction crisis after 2008 and the refugee crisis of the federal government was still rose to 63 percent and then remained 2014, the current Corona crisis is causing comparatively low in the run-up to at a similarly high level until December profound and currently not even fully the pandemic, this changed abruptly 2020. With the start of the vaccination foreseeable changes in society. However, with the spread of the COVID virus campaign in December 2020, however, it can already be seen that the political in Germany and the accompanying an increasing number of eligible voters pandemic management in particular political measures. While 65 percent of were dissatisfied with the federal will have a considerable influence on the eligible voters were still dissatisfied with government's pandemic management Bundestag elections in September: the work of the federal government in and thus with its work as a whole: the March 2020, one month later the figure federal government left an increasingly was only 36 percent. courageous and clueless impression with regard to the pace of vaccination, the testing strategy and the enforcement of uniform federal rules. Government Satisfaction & Approval of Pandemic Management ARD-DeutschlandTREND by Infratest dimap Satisfaction with the performance of federal government Satisfaction with Corona-crisis management 100 100 90 90 80 80 79 less / not at all satisfied 70 70 64 less / not 60 at all satisfied 60 50 50 40 35 very 40 satisfied / 30 satisfied 30 20 20 19 very satisfied / satisfied 10 10 0 0 20 21 20 20 20 21 21 - - - - - - - Nov/… Dez/… Aug/… Sep/… Jul/ 20 avr avr Okt/ 20 Okt/ Apr/ 20 Apr/21 Mai/ 20 Jun/ 20 Jan/ 21 mai déc févr Mrz/ 20 Mrz/ 21 Feb/ 21 janv mars How satisfied are you with the work of the federal government? Universe: Eligible voters in Germany How satisfied are you with the Corona crisis management of the federal government and the federal states? Figures in percent The strong correlation between After the almost simultaneous announ- A decisive question between now and government satisfaction and cement of the peak candidates of the the federal elections will be whether this the assessment of the pandemic CDU/CSU and the Greens at the begin- shake-up in basic trust in the Union will management is not the only remarkable ning of May 2021, the Greens passed the last or not. thing; the associated approval ratings CDU/CSU in political sentiment for the and vote intention for the CDU/CSU are first time and are currently virtually at of note too. Before the pandemic at the the same level. beginning of 2020, the ratings of the CDU/CSU in the ARD Deutschlandtrend In addition to criticism of the mana- were around 27 percent, those of the gement of the COVID-19 pandemic, Greens within striking distance between several members of parliament of the 22 and 24 percent. With the onset of CDU/CSU had to deal with allegations the pandemic, the CDU/CSU alone of corruption and enrichment in connec- benefited from the drastic increase tion with the procurement of protective in government satisfaction, reaching masks. Indeed, there was a number of approval ratings of 39 percent as early resignations from office. All this shook as May 2020, while the Greens dropped the confidence of parts of the electorate to 18 percent in the same period. With in the Union's competence in govern- the decline in government satisfaction ment and crisis management. For a long from December 2021 onwards, the time, this was a central strength of the Union's lead melted significantly back to Union as "state party no. 1" - a corres- the pre-pandemic level. ponding weakening could thus become the Achilles' heel for the Union in the election campaign. 3 III. Peak candidates for the Chancellor’s office For the first time since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany, an incumbent chancellor is not standing for re-election. A structural advantage for the chancellor's party threatens to become a disadvantage in the fight for the chancellorship due to the Union's unfortunate selection of candidates. instead of the usual two-way duel, a three-way contest between Armin Laschet, Olaf Scholz and Annalena Baerbock is emerging. The leading candidates do not only represent the policies of their parties. Personalisation in politics becomes all the more important the more the party programmes are perceived by the electorate as interchangeable - a perception that has steadily increased at least over the last 20 years, for right or for wrong. Direct Vote Federal Chancellor ARD-DeutschlandTREND by Infratest dimap (June 2021) Party supporters Armin Olaf Annalena don´t know / Laschet Scholz Baerbock no answer CDU/CSU 65 17 2 16 FDP 32 25 9 34 29 29 26 AfD 27 15 58 16 SPD 15 67 11 7 Linke 15 34 22 29 Armin Laschet Olaf Scholz Annalena don´t know / Baerbock no answer Grüne 6 10 74 10 +8 +5 -12 -1 Universe: Eligible voters in Germany If you could vote directly for the Federal Chancellor, who would you choose? Figures in percent / Changes in percentage points compared to May 2021 Armin Laschet (CDU) – Although Armin Laschet, as leader of the They would like to see the Union's ‘the underestimated’ much larger sister party, was ultimately profile and programme become able to prevail, he enters the election noticeably more conservative again.