Germany: Sigmar Gabriel struggles as stand-in chancellor

One of the perks as German vice-chancellor is taking the big boss's chair at cabinet during the summer. But as Berlin's grand coalition reaches its halfway mark and Angela Merkel hikes in the Dolomites, there's little reason to doubt that her third term won't be followed by a fourth. And that vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel, leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), will ever be anything more than Merkel's holiday cover.

Running against Angela Merkel is a thankless job, less a poisoned chalice than pointless chalice, and one that Gabriel has managed to pass on twice in the last years. He is unlikely to be able to refuse a third time in 2017.

If, of course, he gets that far.

A poll in today's Stern magazine suggests that just a third of SPD members think Gabriel has what it takes to unseat La Merkel. Worse: he is the most unpopular politician on the SPD's front bench.

Worst result

Commanding 95 per cent satisfaction, the most popular SPD politician is foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. But Steinmeier already took on Merkel in 2009 – and polled the worst result in the SPD’s 150-year history.

Four years later came Peer Steinbrück, finance minister in the first Merkel grand coalition. But his steady hand on the euro crisis tiller came to nothing when the centrist politician was sent into battle with a left-wing programme.

Voters smelled a rat, and the SPD slipped back into office in 2013, this time as junior partner in the second Merkel grand coalition.

Since then the party has been remarkably busy, pushing through a series of election promises on the minimum wage and rent brakes. It’s strong around the country, too, ruling in 14 of Germany’s 16 state parliaments.

So why is the party flatlining almost 20 poll points behind Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU)?

Mixed bag

Gabriel is considered a competent politician, but his six years at the helm of the SPD has been a mixed bag. As a political protege of former chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Gabriel was handed the governorship of Lower Saxony, which he then lost at the next election. Gabriel’s style, one week gravitas and the next impetuous, has earned him the nickname “Zig-Zag Siggi”.

In the euro crisis, Gabriel both backed and opposed bailouts; he has been good cop on Greece, demanding investment to match austerity demands, and a bad cop backing finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble’s Grexit idea. Days after the proposal proved unpopular around Europe, Gabriel claimed he hadn’t known about it in advance.

This week, Gabriel’s guest spot in the chancellor chair was soured by barbed praise from the SPD’s Thorsten Albig, governor of the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Mr Albig suggested Gabriel would do an “excellent job” as chancellor – but will never get that far, given the incumbent.

“If people could paint their perfect chancellor, they would come up with something like Mrs Merkel,” said Albig to German public broadcaster NDR. “For us to go in there thinking we could win is just stupid; no one would take us seriously.”