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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
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| How Germany’s Mutti Merkel has turned blandness into gold | How Germany’s Mutti Merkel has turned blandness into gold |
| (25 days later) | |
| Gerry and the Pacemakers, contemporaries of the Beatles, once had a hit called How Do You Do It? As the German elections draw nearer and Angela Merkel seems to be coasting towards a fourth term as chancellor, politicians all over the world might well ask: how does she do it? She is uncharismatic and rhetorically leaden and has made political blunders that would have ruined most other politicians. And yet she seems unbeatable. | Gerry and the Pacemakers, contemporaries of the Beatles, once had a hit called How Do You Do It? As the German elections draw nearer and Angela Merkel seems to be coasting towards a fourth term as chancellor, politicians all over the world might well ask: how does she do it? She is uncharismatic and rhetorically leaden and has made political blunders that would have ruined most other politicians. And yet she seems unbeatable. |
| A year and a half ago, at the height of the refugee crisis, after the horror of the mass molestation of women at Cologne railway station, only the brave would have taken odds on Merkel surviving. Backbenchers from her own Christian Democratic party were constantly steering journalists into corners and giving them tips on an imminent coup that would install Wolfgang Schäuble, the flinty finance minister, as an interim chancellor until a conservative rising star could be presented to lead the party and the country back to the ideals of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl. | A year and a half ago, at the height of the refugee crisis, after the horror of the mass molestation of women at Cologne railway station, only the brave would have taken odds on Merkel surviving. Backbenchers from her own Christian Democratic party were constantly steering journalists into corners and giving them tips on an imminent coup that would install Wolfgang Schäuble, the flinty finance minister, as an interim chancellor until a conservative rising star could be presented to lead the party and the country back to the ideals of Konrad Adenauer and Helmut Kohl. |
| Earlier this year, there was a surge for the new Social Democrat (SPD) leader, Martin Schulz, which led him to believe for a few sweet weeks that he was the German Barack Obama. But since then Schulz has become an object of pity as he battles on against the odds, still claiming: “I want to be chancellor.” Only one question interests the pundits, however. Will the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), or the Greens, or a combination of the two, gain enough seats to enable Merkel to form a coalition with them instead of the “grand coalition” with the SPD that she has led, with one short interruption, since 2005? | Earlier this year, there was a surge for the new Social Democrat (SPD) leader, Martin Schulz, which led him to believe for a few sweet weeks that he was the German Barack Obama. But since then Schulz has become an object of pity as he battles on against the odds, still claiming: “I want to be chancellor.” Only one question interests the pundits, however. Will the liberal Free Democrats (FDP), or the Greens, or a combination of the two, gain enough seats to enable Merkel to form a coalition with them instead of the “grand coalition” with the SPD that she has led, with one short interruption, since 2005? |
| Why vote for Schulz when his party has played loyal second fiddle to Merkel all these years? | Why vote for Schulz when his party has played loyal second fiddle to Merkel all these years? |
| Which is one reason for Merkel’s success. Why vote for Schulz as chancellor seeing that his party has played loyal second fiddle to Merkel all these years? Another is her sheer blandness. Under Germany’s proportional representation system, coalition governments become inevitable. And since the extreme left – already represented in the Bundestag by the ex-communist Die Linke party and the extreme right Alternative für Deutschland, as yet not in the Bundestag, but hoping to gain about 10% – are neither fit for nor interested in governing, this leaves the parties of the centre left and centre right clumped up in the middle and almost indistinguishable. Merkel, known as Mutti (Mummy), is so unobjectionable that none of the other parties has a problem forming a coalition with her. The SPD and the FDP already have and the Greens are positively dying for the chance. | Which is one reason for Merkel’s success. Why vote for Schulz as chancellor seeing that his party has played loyal second fiddle to Merkel all these years? Another is her sheer blandness. Under Germany’s proportional representation system, coalition governments become inevitable. And since the extreme left – already represented in the Bundestag by the ex-communist Die Linke party and the extreme right Alternative für Deutschland, as yet not in the Bundestag, but hoping to gain about 10% – are neither fit for nor interested in governing, this leaves the parties of the centre left and centre right clumped up in the middle and almost indistinguishable. Merkel, known as Mutti (Mummy), is so unobjectionable that none of the other parties has a problem forming a coalition with her. The SPD and the FDP already have and the Greens are positively dying for the chance. |
| But there is more to it than that. The magic Merkel formula goes by the name of “asymmetric demobilisation”. Or, in plain English: pinching the opposition’s ideas. Merkel did this when she abandoned atomic energy after the Fukushima disaster, leaving the Greens without a cause, and when she introduced a minimum wage, a hobbyhorse of the Social Democrats. Just recently she gave another virtuoso performance in this genre when she gave up her resistance to gay marriage. | But there is more to it than that. The magic Merkel formula goes by the name of “asymmetric demobilisation”. Or, in plain English: pinching the opposition’s ideas. Merkel did this when she abandoned atomic energy after the Fukushima disaster, leaving the Greens without a cause, and when she introduced a minimum wage, a hobbyhorse of the Social Democrats. Just recently she gave another virtuoso performance in this genre when she gave up her resistance to gay marriage. |
| For years opposition to “marriage for everyone” had been a hallmark of the CDU and its Bavarian sister, the CSU (Christian Social Union). In order to preserve the grand coalition, the SPD had suppressed all attempts by the Greens to have a vote on the issue in parliament. But when the leader of the FDP, in a bid for the gay vote, announced that he would not enter any coalition that did not support gay marriage, Merkel let it be known – in an aside during an interview with a women’s magazine, and without consulting her party – that she would favour a vote in parliament in which MPs would vote according to their conscience and not along party lines. | For years opposition to “marriage for everyone” had been a hallmark of the CDU and its Bavarian sister, the CSU (Christian Social Union). In order to preserve the grand coalition, the SPD had suppressed all attempts by the Greens to have a vote on the issue in parliament. But when the leader of the FDP, in a bid for the gay vote, announced that he would not enter any coalition that did not support gay marriage, Merkel let it be known – in an aside during an interview with a women’s magazine, and without consulting her party – that she would favour a vote in parliament in which MPs would vote according to their conscience and not along party lines. |
| Within a week gay marriage was legal in Germany. Merkel herself voted against the law, which signalled to the CDU’s conservative wing that she was on their side, yet said in an interview aimed at first-time voters that she was proud to have enabled a vote, “as I saw that the majorities had shifted”. | Within a week gay marriage was legal in Germany. Merkel herself voted against the law, which signalled to the CDU’s conservative wing that she was on their side, yet said in an interview aimed at first-time voters that she was proud to have enabled a vote, “as I saw that the majorities had shifted”. |
| Precisely. The Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig once wrote of Joseph Fouché, the French monarchist turned Jacobin turned Bonapartist turned monarchist again, that he was “true to only one party: the stronger party, the majority”. The same could be said of Merkel. | Precisely. The Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig once wrote of Joseph Fouché, the French monarchist turned Jacobin turned Bonapartist turned monarchist again, that he was “true to only one party: the stronger party, the majority”. The same could be said of Merkel. |
| She is true to only one party – the majority | She is true to only one party – the majority |
| Her own campaign not only recognises this, but celebrates it. Merkel’s election slogan is: For a Germany in which we live well and feel good (Für ein Deutschland, in dem wir gut und gerne leben). Merkel’s campaign took this slogan, devoid of meaning as it already is, and turned the anagram into the hashtag #fedidwgugl. I kid you not. There is, for instance, a “fedidwgugl house” in Berlin where people can wander about “experiencing” the party’s programme through video games and so on. The hashtag is a stroke of pure and cynical genius, the reduction of politics to a dada word, as if Germany and the west were not facing existential threats, from Putin to Islamist terror; as if Dieselgate had not exposed the lies behind Vorsprung durch Technik and the vulnerability of Germany’s industrial base; as if mass immigration on one hand and the rise of the populists on the other were not threatening the era of good feeling that Merkel represented and that is so neatly summed up by fedidwgugl. | Her own campaign not only recognises this, but celebrates it. Merkel’s election slogan is: For a Germany in which we live well and feel good (Für ein Deutschland, in dem wir gut und gerne leben). Merkel’s campaign took this slogan, devoid of meaning as it already is, and turned the anagram into the hashtag #fedidwgugl. I kid you not. There is, for instance, a “fedidwgugl house” in Berlin where people can wander about “experiencing” the party’s programme through video games and so on. The hashtag is a stroke of pure and cynical genius, the reduction of politics to a dada word, as if Germany and the west were not facing existential threats, from Putin to Islamist terror; as if Dieselgate had not exposed the lies behind Vorsprung durch Technik and the vulnerability of Germany’s industrial base; as if mass immigration on one hand and the rise of the populists on the other were not threatening the era of good feeling that Merkel represented and that is so neatly summed up by fedidwgugl. |
| I say represented, because it is obvious that Germany needs a change and that Merkel has been in power too long to lead that change. It is to be hoped that she will have the good sense to stand down midway through her next term. But who could take her place? The really scary thing about Merkel is that there is no successor in sight. As Gerry Marsden sang all those years ago: “Wish I knew/If I knew how you do it to me/I’d do it to you.” | I say represented, because it is obvious that Germany needs a change and that Merkel has been in power too long to lead that change. It is to be hoped that she will have the good sense to stand down midway through her next term. But who could take her place? The really scary thing about Merkel is that there is no successor in sight. As Gerry Marsden sang all those years ago: “Wish I knew/If I knew how you do it to me/I’d do it to you.” |
| Alan Posener is a correspondent and commentator for Die Welt and Welt am Sonntag in Berlin | Alan Posener is a correspondent and commentator for Die Welt and Welt am Sonntag in Berlin |
| CHANCELLOR’S MILESTONES | CHANCELLOR’S MILESTONES |
| 1991 | 1991 |
| Named Helmut Kohl’s minister for women and youth – her first cabinet position. | Named Helmut Kohl’s minister for women and youth – her first cabinet position. |
| 2000 | 2000 |
| Elected Christian Democrats’ chairwoman amid fallout from a slush fund scandal surrounding Kohl, and Wolfgang Schäuble, party leader. Merkel writes an article calling for the party to separate itself from the old regime . | Elected Christian Democrats’ chairwoman amid fallout from a slush fund scandal surrounding Kohl, and Wolfgang Schäuble, party leader. Merkel writes an article calling for the party to separate itself from the old regime . |
| 2005 | 2005 |
| Elected Germany’s first female chancellor. The CDU and its partners from the Bavarian Christian Social Union, CSU, win 35.2% of the vote - just 1% more than the Social Democratic party. | Elected Germany’s first female chancellor. The CDU and its partners from the Bavarian Christian Social Union, CSU, win 35.2% of the vote - just 1% more than the Social Democratic party. |
| 2009 | 2009 |
| Merkel returns to power after the CDU and CSU win 40.9% of the vote. Merkel forms a coalition with the Free Democratic party. | Merkel returns to power after the CDU and CSU win 40.9% of the vote. Merkel forms a coalition with the Free Democratic party. |
| 2013 | 2013 |
| Wins third term with 45.3% of the vote, forms a coalition with Social Democrats. | Wins third term with 45.3% of the vote, forms a coalition with Social Democrats. |
| 2017 | 2017 |
| On track to win a historic fourth term as chancellor this month. | On track to win a historic fourth term as chancellor this month. |