Scrapbook for May

06.05.2025 – SchMerz

In turn bored and disgusted with the political hanky-panky in Germany since the election I couldn't find the will to write any more commentaries on this lunatic pantomime. Let's not be beastly etc.

With today's election of Friedrich Merz as Bundeskanzler, which got him over the line at the second attempt, there was finally something interesting to report. The title is from the tabloid Bild's headline: Schmerz (pain) and Merz. Not so subtle, but fair.

The new coalition consists of 208 CDU/CSU members and 120 SPD members, 328 votes in total. There are 630 members of the Bundestag, so that Merz needed to get 316 votes to be elected Chancellor. It should have been a formality.

However, in the first ballot (in secret) this morning, instead of 328 votes, which would have done him nicely, he got only 310 votes. Since it is hardly to be expected that anyone from the parties outside the coalition would vote for him, this means that 18 members of the coalition parties stiffed him.

The SPD seemed confident that the traitors came not from their party, which is a reasonable assumption, since the SPD had got just about everything it could have wanted from the coalition agreement. After pushing the second largest party (the AfD) into the outer darkness behind his Brandmauer (firewall), Merz was desperate to cobble together the only coalition open to him, that is with the SPD, and he had buckled on every point during the coalition negotiations, ending up with a shopping list of SPD policies. As Donald would have said: 'He didn't have any cards'.

So it seems probable that all or most of the troublemakers who voted their own man down came from the CDU/CSU. Why would 18 CDU/CSU members do this? The simplest explanation is that they were unhappy with Merz's leadership during and since the election and wanted to rain on his parade.

But of course, they didn't know that there would be so many grumblers who would vote against him. The ballot was in secret and had there been any plotting, the party leaders would have certainly got wind of the discontent. But instead of a few troublemakers the rebels turned out to be 18 strong, which upset the apple cart completely.

In the few hours that elapsed before the second vote, the rebels saw what they had done and backed off, their squeak of defiance over. In that second vote Merz got 325 votes, which sufficed. Fifteen gave up the fight completely.

Why so completely? Well, because if they had stuck to their guns and continued voting as they did through vote after vote over the next fortnight, the Bundespresident would almost certainly have been obliged to call a new election, which, if the current polling is to be believed, would have resulted in a huge success for the AfD and another dose of demolition for the CDU, which in turn would have led to all kinds of wonderful upsets in the stodgy world of German politics. The three who stuck to their guns in the second round really must hate Merz with a passion – almost a much as so many Germans now do.

Many commentators are saying that this pantomime has weakened or damaged Merz, leading to a loss of authority. Well, perhaps. After his shambolic performance during and since the election, there is not much authority left for him to lose.

But in the day-to-day operation of the Bundestag, where most voting is not secret, troublemakers get their cards marked very quickly and will never again get themselves onto the lists of candidates that are the basis of proportional representation in Germany, losing the solid salary and huge perks that they receive for not doing very much. And if you are very, very good, one day you will become a minister with a substantial salary, many underlings and a top-of-the-range black limo to ferry you about.