Germany's 2025 Snap Elections
While the world was still processing Donald Trump's victory in the United States 2024 elections, the German population had to deal with the government collapse in their country. If you are a devoted conspiracy theorist, you may believe that this has been planned for a long time. While I would rather not engage in such theories, what is clear is that the German government coalition was on the verge of failing for quite some time.
A Failing Government
It started out as a great dream: finally, after sixteen years of being governed by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) under Angela Merkel, the social democrats (SPD) are appointing the chancellor. In German, the Ampelregierung, which translates to "traffic light government," is a coalition between the SPD, Free Democratic Party (FDP), and the Greens. The name comes from their respective party colors: red, yellow, and green, resembling those of a traffic light.
The new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, promised to tackle what has been neglected over the last sixteen years: climate protection, digitalization, and economic transformation. But his government was not set up for a great start. After sixteen years of the same government under Angela Merkel, the German population was, on the one hand, excited for the new start, but the new government also worked in the shadow of Merkel's legacy and had to prove that it could continue a stable political landscape. What was even more challenging for the new government, evident for all Germans but may not be evident from the foreign perspective, was the coalition partners and their vastly different politics.
While the Greens and the SPD were always near, both advocating for social politics, equality, and education, their choice of coalition partner, i.e. FDP, was rather surprising. In contrast to the Greens and the SPD, the FDP is pro-free markets, wanting to reduce the tax burden and encourage free trade. The newly appointed finance minister, Christian Lindner, was not ready to make the investments that the Greens and the SPD perceived to be necessary. In the end, the conflict about government finance may have been one of the main breaking points of the coalition.
The Government Collapse
The break of the coalition did not come as a surprise to most Germans, many had hoped for it for months, but the how and when took everyone by surprise. Chancellor Olaf Scholz released his finance minister, Christian Lindner, and subsequently, all four of the other FDP ministers (minus one who left the party) resigned from their positions. Right now, the SPD and the Greens are governing in a minority coalition, leaving them with practically no real political power.
Now, Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to ask the Bundestag (the federal parliament of Germany) aVertrauensfrage, translating to a "question of confidence." The Vertrauensfrage is originally intended to reassure a chancellor of its government's support. Now, with only a minority coalition left, Chancellor Olaf Scholz hopes to lose the Vertrauensfrage to call on snap elections. After some discussion, the snap elections are scheduled to take place on February 23, 2025.
A Better Future?
After four eventful years of the Ampelkoalition, many German adults are looking forward to the early elections. But whether the new elections will make everything better, is rather unlikely. In the Sonntagsfrage ("Sunday question," a traditional survey asking, "If the election would be this Sunday, for whom would you vote?") the perspective on all current government parties, including the FDP, does not seem too great. The Greens and the SPD will surely be elected into the Bundestag again, but as of now, they will have to face huge losses of votes. The FDP, currently at around four percent, has to fear not getting into the Bundestag at all.
In Germany, a party must at least win 5% of votes to be part of the parliament.
The clear winners of the next election will be the CDU and the AfD ("Alternative for Germany"). The CDU has already governed Germany for 16 years. Some are afraid that the country will just go back to the status quo. What unsettles many more, however, is the huge share of votes for the AfD, the German right-wing party. In some parts of the country, the party is under supervision from the constitutional court, and AfD members are repeatedly indicted for anti-constitutional speech and actions. In the current surveys, a coalition without the AfD, which all other parties have ruled out, will be challenging.
As many countries around the world have experienced during the super-election year 2024, Germany may experience a big shift to the right in the 2025 elections. The future that is ahead for us Germans is questionable. We all hope for a better, more stable coalition. But the current surveys are not raising too many hopes.
