CHANCELLOR ANGELA Merkel will have taken little comfort from her party’s minor two-percentage-point gain in the weekend’s Berlin city state election. The CDU’s vote, at 23 per cent, remains well down on the party’s regional standing of 40 per cent plus in the 1980-1990s, and leaves it five percentage points behind the Social Democrats (SPD).
But for Merkel the big story will have been the annihilation in the capital of her troublesome coalition partners, the “liberal” FDP, whose vote plunged to less than a quarter of its 2006 level, wiping out its state representation. It is the fifth time this has happened in the Länder this year and poses more questions about the party’s viability as a coalition partner at federal level.
Such drubbings have led the party to adopt a stridently Eurosceptic position against EU bailouts, and in that regard, paradoxically, Merkel’s hand would seem to have been politically strengthened by the FDP’s defeat ahead of a crucial vote in parliament in two weeks to give the European Financial Stability Fund (EFSF) more powers. “The best part of the result tonight,” SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel argued with some justice, “is that the voters showed the FDP they won’t get anywhere with populist attacks against Europe.” This is very good news for Dublin.
Yet Merkel’s options are limited. Ditching the difficult FDP would only make sense if the SPD seemed inclined to form a “grand coalition” to obviate the need for an early election. It is not. The party is on a roll – why would it extend a lifeline to a lame chancellor? It has now won six out of seven regional elections this year, and is set to retain control of Berlin, probably in partnership with the Greens, under the SPD’s charismatic, openly gay mayor Klaus Wowereit. The latter’s success in his “poor but sexy” capital has also boosted his chances of becoming the party’s nominee to take on Merkel at the general election next year, if not sooner.
Berliners, it seems, have also decided to spice up their parliament at the FDP’s expense by electing for the first time members of the quirky Pirate Party. Originally a Swedish phenomenon, the group has campaigned for free downloads of film and music from the internet, greater personal data protection, and “liquid democracy”, under which the public would regularly determine political issues by voting online. The party also backs a minimum wage, decriminalising travelling without a ticket on public transport, and legalising marijuana. A case of Ming meets WikiLeaks.