Will Angela Merkel remain the Chancellor after 2017?

A year is left before the national elections in Germany. And so far it is unknown whether the acting Chancellor Angela Merkel will be nominated once again as a candidate for this position. And it is not about a lack of desire – no analyst doubts the fundamental willingness and intention of Merkel to lead the government for another four years. The central problem is the lack of support in her own camp because of the immigration policy of the Chancellor. The situation is exacerbated by the growing popularity of the right-wing populist party "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), along with the parallel massive outflow of voters from the CDU. The victorious march of the AfD in the regions of Germany seriously concerns all the traditional parties. Baden-Württemberg, Saxony-Anhalt, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: after the recent elections to the local parliaments in these federal lands, the CDU positions have been seriously shaken. Soon elections in Berlin will take place, and the forecasts for the Christian Democrats are not comforting. These are not the best conditions for the re-election of Merkel.

The problem of Horst Seehofer

Two ‘sister parties’ as they are called in Germany, the CDU and the CSU (the Christian Social Union, popular in Bavaria, has traditionally been represented in the Bundestag as a single faction with the CDU), have fallen out due to the Chancellor’s 'open doors’ policy towards refugees from the Middle East. The CSU chairman Horst Seehofer was initially very skeptical of the optimistic slogan of Merkel: "We will cope with it!’’ The German press received a document prepared by Seehofer’s  party, in which there are fairly stringent requirements for immigrants and the immigration policy of the state as a whole. The requirements in many respects are contrary to the position of the Chancellor. For example, the CSU insists on the introduction of a maximum limit for the number of refugees received per year – their number should not be higher than 200 thousand per year. Furthermore, the document states that preference should be given to refugees from the Christian European civilization. As the publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Berthold Kohler, says, the CSU may refuse to support the candidacy of Merkel as the Chancellor at the next elections to the Bundestag if their conditions are ignored. For one simple reason: the CSU, being a regional party, can accept the role of the opposition at federal level, but will never accept losing the elections to the local Bavarian Parliament. The CSU’s support for the current policy of Merkel will inevitably pull the party down. The previous week a rumor ran in the German media that Seehofer will not invite Merkel to the annual congress of the CSU party this year, violating the existing all-party tradition.

Horst Seehofer

The fight against the AfD weakens the positions of all the traditional parties

Another challenge for the parties represented in the Bundestag, in particular for the CDU, is the development of a strategy for interaction with the AfD. Until now, all the established German parties rely on the isolation of the right-wing populists, excluding the possibility of their inclusion in a ruling coalition at the level of the regional parliaments, in which they have been represented. However, such a strategy of deterrence of the AfD has one serious drawback. The right-wing populists have 15-20% of the seats in some state parliaments, and the ‘moderate’ political forces have to conclude triodities to create stable coalitions. For example, a coalition was made up of the ‘Green’ party, the CDU and the Socialists in Saxony-Anhalt. Will such a motley coalition work effectively, taking into account the conceptual differences between the parties? It is obvious that in these conditions a policy of "neither yours nor ours" might be carried out, and many mutually exclusive campaign promises will not be fulfilled, which, ultimately, will damage the image of each of the parties participating in the coalition. That is, short-term isolation of the AfD threatens to be costly to the parties in the medium term and further increase the popularity of the right-wing populists.

There is no alternative to Merkel

If the CSU refuses to support the candidacy of Merkel in the upcoming elections, then the question arises of who the CDU/CSU will put forward as a possible Chancellor. A variety of names are cited, such as Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen, vice chair of the CDU Julia Klöckner, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière and the Prime Minister of Hesse, Volker Bufer. However, these projections are no more than guesswork for the moment. The credibility and popularity of the current Chancellor before the migration crisis were almost immovable, and all her colleagues were in her shadow. Her popularity was so great that among the supporters of the current Chancellor an opinion even rooted that there is no alternative to Merkel, which is strongly reminiscent of the arguments of the ruling elites in many post-Soviet countries. But even the opponents of the policy course of Angela Merkel acknowledge that there is no certain substitute candidate in the CDU at the moment. ‘’The politicians of modern Germany are quite shallow, it is extremely difficult to distinguish a charismatic figure among them,’’ a recently retired senior German diplomat said in an interview with the author of these lines. "The Germans will still choose Merkel, because there is no other choice,’’ he said. The media close to the conservatives has also expressed confidence that Merkel will announce her nomination for the post of Chancellor during the party congress in December this year.

It is quite obvious that majority of conservative voters will again give their votes to the Chancellor, who is losing her popularity, and the party led by her. Even the serious discontent with her policy on immigrants does not automatically make German citizens supporters of the AfD. Perhaps the German legislators should consider the introduction of the opportunity to vote "against all". It seems that many of the voters who vote for the right-wing populists to express their protest would like such an innovation.