The result is a direct domestic challenge to the chancellor's austerity doctrine, writes DEREK SCALLYin Stuttgart
GERMAN CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel faces increasing pressure to back economic growth measures in Europe after a domestic election debacle in Germany’s most populous state.
Voters in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) gave the Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens more than 50 per cent support, according to exit polls, in a state election fought over their €3 billion debt-financed stimulus programme.
After a lacklustre campaign, Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) slumped to a record low of just 26 per cent support in the last major state poll before next year’s general election.
Yesterday’s result returns the outgoing SPD-Green minority administration to the Düsseldorf state parliament, or Landtag, with a comfortable majority.
It is a result that leaves largely unchanged Germany’s federal arithmetic but it could change significantly the political atmosphere.
The backing of NRW voters will embolden the SPD and Greens to step up at national level their opposition to Merkel’s austerity-first approach to the euro zone crisis. It is a welcome political signal for their French political ally, François Hollande, on his inaugural visit as French president to Berlin tomorrow.
Germany’s SPD and Greens have already withheld their Bundestag support for ratifying the fiscal treaty in Berlin until concrete growth proposals are put on the table.
Sensing the sea change, Merkel has begun to reposition herself, at least rhetorically: emphasising growth measures while reiterating her opposition to paying for it with debt.
Yesterday’s election result represents a direct domestic challenge to this doctrine.
Despite NRW having total debts of more than €200 billion, SPD state governor Hannelore Kraft offered voters a €3 billion debt-financed Stärkungspaket (strength package) to tackle what she termed Kaputtsparen, or destructive saving.
The short-term cash injection is intended to give breathing room to hard-pressed NRW cities as they juggle ongoing austerity measures, red-ink budgets and long-term structural decline.
“We put people at the heart of this election campaign,” said Kraft, reflecting wider calls for budgetary flexibility around Europe.
Her strategy triggered an SPD revival in its traditional political heartland and secured Kraft’s reputation as a force to be reckoned with on the national stage.
With her low-key style and common touch, the 51-year-old has been suggested by pundits as the ideal SPD candidate to unseat Merkel. Kraft has ruled out running against Merkel in 2013, preferring to stay in Düsseldorf, but she remains one to watch.
Meanwhile, would-be Merkel successor Norbert Röttgen, environment minister in Berlin, stood down as head of the CDU in NRW after a “painful” defeat with record losses.
Röttgen incurred Merkel’s wrath for agreeing that yesterday’s vote was a referendum on her austerity-first politics.
The only glimmer of good news for Merkel was the revival of her Free Democratic Party (FDP) allies, with 8 per cent support.
Taking their place on the critical list was the Left Party, with just 2 per cent. Seven years ago its electoral triumph in NRW marked the beginning of the end of then German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. But infighting left the party ill-placed to stop the SPD snatching back its social profile, while it ceded its political protest cachet to the anti-establishment Pirate Party.
From a standing start it won 8 per cent of the poll, its third state election triumph in succession.