Regional election threatens to weaken Merkel coalition

DESPITE HER business-as-usual manner German chancellor Angela Merkel knows her political fate depends on a snap state election on the far side of the country in just six weeks’ time.

Three years early, the May poll in North Rhine-Westphalia has turned Dr Merkel’s political strategy on its head in advance of of her re-election battle which is scheduled for autumn 2013.

“Government work at federal level is completely independent from the work in the federal states,” said Dr Merkel at a press conference in Berlin, aware that she was telling a half-truth.

Just half the size of Ireland, but home to more than 18 million people, North Rhine-Westphalia is Germany’s most dense population centre, its industrial heartland and trusty political weather vane.

It was here in 2005 that voters, angered by hard-hitting welfare reforms, ousted the Social Democrats (SPD) after 39 years in power.

Then chancellor Gerhard Schröder called an all-or-nothing general election and lost power. This time around, the region’s voters will play a decisive role in deciding the duration of the Merkel era.

Her Christian Democrats (CDU) are stable enough on 33 per cent in NRW, but the party’s hopes of leaving the opposition benches in the Düsseldorf Landtag, or state parliament, are hobbled by its coalition partner. The liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP) are struggling at 2 per cent support, reflecting the party’s parlous state at national level.

Given this, few expected the FDP to withhold support on Wednesday for the state budget of NRW’s minority SPD-Green government. But it did, triggering early elections and the real prospect of an FDP election wipe-out.

“This is about everything for the FDP,” said Daniel Bahr, party head in the region and minister for health in the Merkel cabinet.

A serious drubbing in NRW could prompt a leadership heave against FDP leader Philipp Rösler, just a year in the job, potentially destabilising Dr Merkel’s coalition.

The unexpected election in May has also exposed the German leader’s strategic dilemma: record personal popularity, steady party poll numbers but no obvious coalition partner for a third term.

It’s not just Dr Merkel looking nervously westward. A strong result in NRW could shake up SPD opinion over who should challenge the German leader.

Until now, the SPD candidacy was seen as a race between three men: leader Sigmar Gabriel and two former ministers in the Merkel grand coalition, Frank Walter Steinmeier and Peer Steinbrück.

With polls already giving a NRW coalition of SPD-Green 54 per cent, a strong result in the region could make Hannelore Kraft, outgoing state governor, the SPD’s preferred Merkel-beater.

“She has approval ratings well over 50 per cent and has earned a level of popularity and respect,” said Norbert Walter, political scientist at the University of Mainz.

“SPD-Green has shown in NRW that they can deliver practical politics in a difficult, minority administration. At federal level, meanwhile, power for SPD-Green seems to be within reach.”