Red-Green euphoria dwindles amid German state election woes

Almost two decades after Germany’s so-called “Red-Green” alliance ended the Kohl era, hopes are fading that a revival can end the Merkel era in September.

Support for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and its traditional Green Party allies is wobbling, as euphoria over new SPD leader Martin Schulz gives way to political sobriety.

On Sunday in Germany’s small northernmost state of Schleswig-Holstein, the limits of the so-called “Schulz effect” were apparent.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) finished in first place while the outgoing coalition, an SPD-Green alliance with a small party representing the Danish minority, lost over five points, according to exit polls.

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“This is a bitter day for my government and a bitter day for me – we were unable to win a majority,” said Torsten Albig, outgoing SPD state premier in Schleswig-Holstein.

With an uncertain future for Red-Green up north, another drubbing looms for the Red-Green alliance that rules the western state of North Rhine-Wesphalia, home to one in five Germans.

While the SPD is likely to return to power in their political western heartland next Sunday, a slump among its Green coalition partner could see the smaller party banished to the opposition benches – or even outside the Düsseldorf parliament door.

The SPD and Greens’ respective weaknesses, when combined, have dampened hopes that Angela Merkel’s third term will be her last.

Last January’s arrival of former European Parliament leader Martin Schulz as leader in Berlin saw the ailing SPD lift off like a rocket in polls, catching up with Merkel’s CDU for the first time in over a decade

Hangover

But three months on, the SPD is nursing a Schulz hangover amid voter impatience at how the new party leader plans to deliver his promise of greater social fairness without weakening the economy.

Landing with a bump back at 30 per cent in national polls, Mr Schulz and his SPD team face a tricky task: to win back disillusioned left-wing SPD voters without scaring away centrist supporters and business leaders – and all the while distinguishing himself from Germany’s centrist chancellor.

On Monday morning, with expectation at breaking point, Schulz will give a first preview before an invited business audience in Berlin. Across town, the SPD’s traditional Green allies will be licking their wounds in what is both the best, and worst, of times.

After polling a stable 13.5 percent in Schleswig-Holstein, Green Party leaders in Berlin know there is no chance of a repeat next Sunday. The NRW election will be decided on security, infrastructure and schools, three areas where the SPD-Green alliance is struggling.

As the opposition rides high, playing the law and order card, SPD-Green support has been squeezed by a resurgent liberal Free Democrats (FPD), and the rising far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AFD).

The problem for the Greens is not just the arrival of other smaller parties but the bigger parties’ green-washing – in particular Merkel’s embrace of renewable energy over nuclear power – that has robbed the Greens of once unique selling points at the polling stations.

‘Realo’ wing

Compounding Green difficulties was a fateful personnel decision to appoint as party campaign leaders two Berlin insiders and members of the party’s more conservative “realo” wing.

With growing Green pressure to reboot their campaign and personnel, expectations are growing the party will parachute in Robert Habeck, the Green Party environment minister in Schleswig-Holstein, as a rugged leader at national level.

That would help calm the party’s “fundamental” left wing, and suspicions of many Green voters, that existing Green leadership are game to serve as junior partner not for the SPD, but for Merkel’s CDU.

If there is any way the long-serving chancellor can be outfoxed, the Schleswig-Holstein election has renewed speculation that Red-Green’s only hope of taking office in September is to woo Merkel’s former partner, the FDP, into a three-way coalition.