Merkel’s
refugee policy a political winner for rivals
The
chancellor’s center-right allies face electoral setbacks in three
critical German states this weekend.
By JANOSCH DELCKER
3/10/16, 5:30 AM CET
FREIBURG, Germany —
In Germany’s economic heartland in the conservative southwest,
Angela Merkel’s refugee policy is winning votes — for her
political rival.
The 61-year-old
chancellor’s dominance in national and EU politics is in sharp
contrast to her poor track record in regional elections. On Sunday,
Merkel wants to set that right when three German states go to the
polls, but the results look likely to be the same as in the past —
or even worse.
Merkel’s problem?
In Baden-Württemberg, the largest of the three states, her Christian
Democrats (CDU) are slipping in opinion polls while incumbent state
premier Winfried Kretschmann of the Greens scores points by
championing her plan to reduce the influx of refugees through
European cooperation.
It was the CDU’s
own man in Baden-Württemberg, Guido Wolf, who gave his Green rival
an opening to capitalize on Merkel’s refugee policy. Wolf tried to
distance himself from it for fear of losing supporters to the right
wing.
“Merkel has taken
action to reduce the number of refugees and to put the influx to
Europe and to Germany in order,” said Kretschmann in his most
recent burst of praise for Merkel, which has earned him the nickname
“stalker” in CDU circles.
The conservatives
demanded Merkel end her chummy relationship with the Green premier
and she obliged, cancelling a joint appearance with Kretschmann in
state capital Stuttgart, but holding a previously scheduled rally of
her own in the university town of Freiburg.
“I want to be
clear about this,” Merkel told a crowd of 800 people in a concert
hall last week. “I am telling the citizens of Baden-Württemberg
that everyone who wants to support my refugee policy should vote for
the CDU on March 13, and nobody else.”
The loss of
Baden-Württemberg in the 2011 election was a major upset in German
politics.
The refugee crisis
has turned Germany’s political scene upside down. In recent polls,
the Greens pulled ahead of Merkel’s CDU by five points. If they
maintain that lead, they could secure a majority in a coalition with
the Social Democrats (SPD), the third largest party in the state,
which is Merkel’s coalition partner in the federal government.
That would keep
Kretschmann in power and deal a huge blow to Merkel, who has made it
her priority to win back the longtime CDU stronghold of
Baden-Württemberg. Germany’s third largest state is home to car
manufacturers, making it one of the wealthiest regions in the EU.
The loss of
Baden-Württemberg in the 2011 election was a major upset in German
politics, putting the CDU in the opposition there for the first time
in 58 years and turning Kretschmann into the first ever Green
politician to govern a German state.
After the Fukushima
accident, the anti-nuclear Greens had scored 24.2 percent and more
than doubled their share of seats. Although they got 15 percentage
points less than the CDU’s 39 percent, it was enough for the Greens
to form a coalition with the SPD.
The CDU saw
Kretschmann’s rise to power as an “accident” and trusted that
the conservatives had enough support to ensure he was a one-term
wonder.
It has not worked
out that way.
In office,
Kretschmann’s popularity steadily grew. He engaged with the public
and capitalized on disenchantment among CDU supporters, who
complained they had not been heard by “elitist” CDU leaders who
had lost touch with the party’s grassroots.
Although perplexed
at the Greens’ popularity, Merkel’s conservatives were polling at
40 percent in Baden-Württemberg in September, around the time that
Merkel announced that Germany would welcome thousands of
aslyum-seekers trapped in Budapest. However, early this week,
Merkel’s CDU had plunged to 28.5 percent in opinion polls, with the
Greens at 33.5 percent.
“My mother-in-law
is 88-years-old, and she’s voted for the CDU all her life,” said
Andreas Perrin, a 55-year-old member of the Greens. On Sunday,
Perrin’s mother-in-law will also vote for the Greens, Perrin said
at a campaign rally near the border with France. “She told me,
‘Kretschmann is someone I would like to keep seeing as premier.’”
Such defections
could be part of a trend in Baden-Württemberg, largely driven by
67-year-old Kretschmann, who has been instrumental in the Greens’
movement closer to the political center that has made them more
attractive to conservatives.
“It’s largely
due to his performance during the last two years, and because the
state is doing well,” said Ulrich Eith, a politics professor at the
University of Freiburg. Unemployment in Baden-Württemberg, for
example, is just 4 percent, versus the 6.6 percent national average.
The Greens are not
the only threat to Merkel. CDU members opposed to her dogged
insistence on welcoming refugees, even after more than 1 million
migrants arrived in 2015, are also fleeing to the other side of the
political spectrum. On March 13, the Alternative für Deutschland
(AfD), a far-right party, could increase the number of state
assemblies in which it has seats to eight — meaning it would be
represented in half of Germany’s federal states.
Rainer Leonhardt, a
61-year-old brewery worker, attended Merkel’s rally in Freiburg to
express his outrage at the chancellor’s refugee policy which has
pushed him into the arms of the AfD.
“I’ve always
voted for CDU,” said Leonhardt outside the Freiburg concert hall.
He was standing in a group of about 50 people, some of whom held
banners saying ‘Stop Merkel.’ “Seeing the crime this woman is
committing, and how she is ignoring the opinion of the people, makes
us fear for democracy,” he said.
The outcome of
Sunday’s elections in Baden-Württemberg and two other states,
SPD-run Rhineland-Palatinate and CDU fiefdom Saxony-Anhalt, will do
more than pass judgement on Merkel’s refugee policy: It will
determine her ability to push through legislation on a federal level.
This has to do with
the Bundesrat (federal assembly), which is the 69-seat upper house of
parliament and is composed of representatives of the German states.
Merkel needs its consent to pass several important laws including
much-debated changes to inheritance tax, but her current coalition of
conservatives and the SPD does not have a majority in the upper
house.
If the CDU won
Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, and keeps Saxony-Anhalt
as predicted, she could ignore the Greens in the Bundesrat, where
they have been her main opponents, in particular to the CDU’s
attempts to project firmness in the refugee debate and declare
Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria as safe countries of origin whose
migrants can be sent home.
“We need a
European solution, and you are stabbing her in the back” — SPD’s
Malu Dreyer
Merkel could then
speed up the return of migrants who entered Germany last year
alongside refugees from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq hoping to get
asylum soon. That way, she can continue to offer refuge to people who
flee war and prosecution while scoring points with her conservative
critics by putting a stop to what’s called “economic”
migration.
However, the
chancellor knows she will have a tough time winning the two bigger
states.
In
Rhineland-Palatinate, the CDU’s Julia Klöckner saw her small lead
over the SPD state premier Malu Dreyer slip away. Dreyer successfully
pulled the “Kretschmann card” in a televised debate between the
two female candidates by defending Merkel’s refugee policy against
criticism from her own conservative candidate, Klöckner, who had
tried to hatch an alternative plan for dealing with the refugees
together with Wolf, the CDU candidate in Baden-Württemberg.
“The chancellor is
simply right,” Dreyer said. “We need a European solution, and you
are stabbing her in the back.”
While Klöckner and
Dreyer remain neck and neck in opinion polls, Wolf’s chances of
winning Baden-Württemberg are much lower. Attempting to prop up her
candidate at the Freiburg rally, Merkel said the best way to ensure
the Bundesrat played its role in ensuring the rapid return of
rejected migrants was “to make sure Guido Wolf becomes state
premier.”
The chancellor knows
that 54-year-old Wolf is no match for the charismatic 67-year-old
Kretschmann.
While the CDU and
Greens poll about 30 percent when it comes to party preferences in
the state, the premier scored 64 percent personal approval, versus 17
percent for Wolf. Underlining the Kretschmann cult, even 45 percent
of CDU supporters said they would vote for the Green candidate if
they could elect the premier directly.
Playing to the CDU’s
strengths, Merkel’s conservatives have attempted to refocus debate
in the prosperous state on economic policy, which according to a poll
by public broadcaster SWR is the second-biggest issue for voters
after refugees and security.
Last Monday,
Merkel’s deputy minister for transport and digital infrastructure,
Norbert Barthle, visited the town of Filderstadt on the outskirts of
Stuttgart, the heart of Germany’s car industry. Speaking to mayors,
lawmakers and business leaders — mostly men in suits, gathered in
the meeting room of a haulage company — he emphasized the links
between digital infrastructure and economic success, public-private
partnerships, and the need for new super-long trucks on Germany’s
roads.
“Without mobility,
there is no prosperity,” said Barthle, not uttering the word
“refugee” once in his 45-minute address.
Merkel hit the same
business-friendly notes in her speech in Freiburg, emphasizing her
reputation for cautious management of Europe’s biggest economy,
saying it’s “crucial that we don’t only think about how to
spend money, but also how to earn money.”
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