Germany: regional elections shake the
government
GERMANY’S
conservative-liberal CDU-FDP coalition was shaken by the result in the
regional elections in the country’s most populous federal state, North
Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), on 9 May. The ruling Christian Democratic Union
(CDU) lost just over one million votes compared to the previous regional
elections in 2005, and the CDU-FDP coalition lost its majority in the
state. Furthermore, Die Linke (The Left party) broke through the 5%
threshold and entered the NRW parliament for the first time, with eleven
deputies.
The national government of
Angela Merkel did everything possible to avoid such an outcome. The NRW
elections are not only seen as a ‘mini-general election’, because of the
state’s size, but the national government has now lost its majority in
the second chamber of parliament, the Bundesrat, where representatives
of federal state governments have to agree legislation which affects the
federal states. Merkel had postponed sharp attacks on social benefits
and living standards. She manoeuvred in the euro crisis trying, but
partly failing, to delay German participation in the Greek/euro bail-out
package until after these elections.
This result increases the
instability of the political situation and the increasingly unpopular
national government despite the fact that there have been no big
struggles of workers in the recent period. The underlying feeling of the
mass of the population is that the government only serves big business.
Alienation from all official institutions continues, reflected in a
further drop in the turnout in NRW to 59.3%.
Completely losing sight of
reality, the leaders of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) celebrated
their second-worst result in the history of NRW (which was the party’s
stronghold for decades) as a success! Why? Because opinion polls had
predicted an even worse result and now there is no governmental
alternative without SPD participation. In comparison to the 2005
regional elections, the SPD lost 383,000 votes, and its 34.5% was also
down – and its lowest since 1954.
The Greens’ percentage
doubled to 12.1%. Scandalously, this party can now profit from
presenting itself as oppositionist and genuine. This is despite the fact
that it was part of the national government (1998-2005) and participated
in the most draconian attacks on the social benefit system and made
rotten compromises with the nuclear power companies.
Die Linke celebrates a result
which really should be a warning to the party. Compared to the regional
elections in 2005, where the two parties which formed Die Linke stood
separately and received 3.1% of the vote, this year’s result is an
increase. But it has lost 354,000 voters compared to the general
elections in September 2009 – 5.6% as opposed to 8.4%. According to
opinion polls, compared to 2005, the party did not mobilise any
non-voters and 20,000 people who voted for Die Linke’s forerunners in
2005 did not vote this time.
Polls also say that, when it
comes to the question of credibility, Die Linke has the worst
performance of all parties. This may have different reasons. But one
element is the party’s participation in pro-capitalist coalition
governments in other federal states which have made social cuts and
privatisations. Also, in most local councils in NRW, Die Linke
does not come across as being fundamentally different to the established
parties.
Die Linke was unable to
mobilise the most exploited and oppressed, the most angry and alienated
in society because it presented itself as a ‘social corrective’, not as
a fighting socialist party which wants fundamental change. Its main
argument was that ‘only a vote for Die Linke can get rid of Rüttgers’
(the outgoing CDU prime minister). However, the closer election day
came, the more the opinion polls showed that an SPD-Green majority
seemed possible only if Die Linke did not make the 5% hurdle. So this
argument boomeranged.
The NRW parliament now has no
majority for any of the usual one big party-one small party coalitions (CDU-FDP,
SPD-Greens, or SPD-FDP). As the CDU has a mere 5,900 votes more than the
SPD, a grand coalition is difficult to form as the SPD does not really
want to ‘serve’ under Jürgen Rüttgers. The FDP is unwilling to discuss a
‘traffic light coalition’ with the SPD and Greens. This led to talks
between the SPD, Greens and Die Linke. At the time of writing, the SPD
says that it will not form a government with Die Linke, claiming that
the party is not reliable. This reflects the more left-wing character of
Die Linke in NRW, and its declaration that it is not prepared to
participate in social cuts or job losses.
While this is positive, the
fact that Die Linke’s leadership in NRW entered talks and said that it
could imagine a coalition government with the SPD and Greens was a
mistake. It sowed illusions in these pro-capitalist parties and put the
parliamentary questions to the top of the agenda. It would be a fatal
mistake for Die Linke to join any pro-capitalist SPD-Green government
that inevitably leads it to sharing responsibility for cuts at a certain
stage.
Unfortunately, the forces in
Die Linke which put forward a principled position are small and consist
mainly of the members of Sozialistische Alternative (SAV – CWI Germany)
and some others. Other left forces in Die Linke propagate the illusion
that a ‘change of policy’ could be possible with the SPD and Greens.
They have pursued a completely parliamentary orientation, with no public
campaigning since election day. This reinforces the impression that Die
Linke is not a fundamentally different party. A failure to campaign to
explain its position with meetings, posters and leaflets, etc, leaves
Die Linke disarmed in the face of media attacks.
Instead of talking solely
about government participation, the leadership of Die Linke in NRW,
which includes one member of the United Secretariat of the Fourth
International, should have used the increased media coverage to explain
a clear socialist approach, call on workers and youth to participate in
the school and university strike on 9 June, and the two big 12 June
demonstrations, under the slogan: ‘We will not pay for your crisis’. It
should be calling on people to get organised in trade unions and Die
Linke to take their fate into their own hands and fight the attacks by
governments and big business.
At the same time, the party
leadership could have proposed publicly a number of pro-worker and youth
measures for the regional parliament to agree. This could have
effectively challenged the SPD and Greens by putting pressure on them to
support concrete measures in parliament in the interest of workers and
young people. Die Linke should also say that it is prepared to deselect
the sitting conservative and racist prime minister Rüttgers and, by
this, not stop the formation of a SPD-Green minority government. Such a
government could get the support of Die Linke MPs for any progressive
measures it took. But Die Linke should not support it unconditionally or
in an unprincipled way.
Die Linke’s future depends to
a large extent on the question of whether the party continues to join
pro-capitalist governments, as it has done in eastern Germany in the
past. The potential exists to build a mass left-wing workers’ party,
especially as governments on national, regional and local level will
launch an avalanche of attacks in an attempt to make the masses pay for
the capitalist crisis.
In such a situation, a
socialist party must stand firmly on the side of those trying to resist
such attacks and help them fight back, while providing a political
alternative which goes beyond capitalism. A party which practices a
policy of the ‘lesser evil’, and leads it to implement cuts, increase
fees for council services and privatisation, will end up in conflict
with the masses and lose support. The question of government
participation is a life-and-death question for the building of a mass
socialist party in Germany. The Marxists in and around SAV will do what
they can to win support for a combative and anti-capitalist strategy in
Die Linke.
Sascha Stanicic
