Help
wanted: turn-around expert to lead German SPD
Sigmar
Gabriel’s leadership of the center-left party is in doubt — as is
the future of the SPD itself.
By MATTHEW
KARNITSCHNIG 5/9/16, 5:32 AM CET
BERLIN — Running
Germany’s Social Democrats was long considered one of the most
coveted political positions in Europe.
For decades, the
job, once held by party icon Willy Brandt, guaranteed power,
prestige, even adulation.
These days, party
officials jokingly refer to the position as a Himmelfahrtskommando,
German for kamikaze mission.
Last week, the SPD
fell to a record low of just 20 percent in German public television’s
benchmark poll, known as Deutschlandtrend. That puts the Social
Democrats, a party that traces its roots back to 1863, just five
percentage points ahead of the populist Alternative für Deutschland,
founded just three years ago.
In the past, such a
dismal showing would have triggered a leadership battle. Yet current
party leader Sigmar Gabriel, who took over the post in 2009, faces no
revolt. The reason is neither loyalty to him nor support for his
strategy, but simply that so no one else appears willing to step in.
“Grand coalitions
have always led to disillusionment among their electorate” —
Josef Janning, ECFR
A rumor on Sunday
that Gabriel planned to resign in the coming days sparked a hasty
round of denials from Social Democrats, who called the reports “utter
nonsense.”
The SPD, as the
Social Democrats are known in Germany, suffers from much of the same
malaise as other established center-left parties in Europe. In
Europe’s post-industrial societies, the labor movement’s
traditional message long ago lost most of its resonance. Today, faced
with a populist resurgence, the parties have struggled to hold on to
their clientele.
The SPD’s recent
decline has been particularly dramatic, however. After suffering
several crushing defeats in regional elections in March, the party’s
poll numbers have continued to drop.
Political scientists
may diverge on the details of what ails the SPD, but there’s broad
consensus on the root cause of the party’s current crisis: its
grand coalition with Angela Merkel and her center-right allies.
“Grand coalitions
have always led to disillusionment among their electorate,” said
Josef Janning, head of the Berlin office of think tank European
Council on Foreign Relations.
Cost of coalitions
The SPD agreed to
the grand coalition with Merkel in 2013 after her previous partner,
the liberal Free Democrats, failed to meet the 5 percent threshold
for inclusion in parliament.
By their nature,
grand coalitions risk leaving the two parties indistinguishable. At
the time, there were reservations, especially in the SPD, over
renewing the pairing just four years after the last grand coalition.
The SPD had won 26 percent of the vote and appeared to have regained
momentum after a disastrous 23 percent result in 2009. Given the
conservatives’ dominant position, many SPD officials worried the
deal would end up marginalizing them.
Many voters no
longer identify the SPD with the traditional social issues it was
built on.
Those concerns were
justified. If the first grand coalition under Merkel, which ended in
2009, left the SPD bruised, the current one has left it battered.
The biggest problem
for the SPD may be the chancellor herself. Over the years, Merkel has
shifted her party further to the left, co-opting SPD themes and
positions on issues as varied as pensions, rent control and refugees.
The
result is that many voters no longer identify the SPD with the
traditional social issues it was built on.
Only 32 percent of
Germans still consider the fight for social justice a core SPD
competence, for example, down from 38 percent in 2015, according to
last week’s Deutschlandtrend poll. Just 26 percent of Germans give
the party high marks for its expertise on retirement policy.
While the SPD
succeeded in introducing a minimum wage, a longtime goal, voters
appear give it little credit. The reason: At $8.50 an hour, it’s
well below what most Germans already make.
Gabriel, who is also
economy minister and vice chancellor, hasn’t helped matters by
sending mixed messages on key policy questions. Over the past year,
he as at times argued both for and against the transatlantic trade
agreement, known as TTIP.
Though he has
supported Merkel’s line on refugees, he warned against not doing
enough “for our own population.”
Only 13 percent of
Germans would support Gabriel as chancellor. That compares to 49
percent for Merkel, who, despite the difficulties she has faced over
the refugee issue, remains one of the country’s most popular
politicians.
Volkspartei in
danger
The big question now
is whether Gabriel will be his party’s candidate for chancellor
next year. He wants to put off the decision until after May 2017
elections in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany’s biggest state,
according to a weekend report in the Bild newspaper. The federal
election is scheduled for the fall.
The drop in support
for the SPD has put the party in striking distance for both the
Greens and the AfD.
In the 2013
election, with Merkel heavily favored to win, Gabriel stepped back,
allowing former finance minister Peer Steinbrück to carry the
mantle. Party officials say he can’t duck another run.
Though he served as
premier of Lower Saxony, Gabriel inherited the post from a party
colleague and has never won a major election.
The recent
speculation, denied by the party on Sunday, is that he would hand the
chairmanship to Olaf Scholz, the popular mayor of Hamburg. Martin
Schulz, the European parliament president, is often named as a
potential candidate for chancellor.
Gabriel’s health
problems have fueled the rumor mill. Last week, he was forced to
cancel a major trade mission to Tehran due to a breakout of shingles,
a viral condition often associated with stress.
Whether he survives
as party leader or not, questions about the SPD’s future as a
pillar of Germany’s party system, what Germans call a Volkspartei,
will remain.
The drop in support
for the SPD has put the party in striking distance for both the
Greens and the AfD. In the state election in Saxony Anhalt in March,
the SPD won less than 11 percent of the vote, finishing fourth behind
the AfD and the Left party. In Baden-Württemberg, a prosperous
industrial area, it won just 13 percent, a historic low. In both
instances the SPD fell by about 10 percentage points from the
previous election.
If the Social
Democrats suffer similar declines at the federal level, party leaders
won’t have to worry about the perils of the grand coalition any
longer. The SPD would be would be too small to qualify.
Authors:
Matthew Karnitschnig
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