In Focus: Torn Down the Middle? German Politics after Merkel
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| Author | Benjamin D. Hennig |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/20419058211066516 |
20 POLITICAL INSIGHT • DECEMBER 2021
In Focus
Torn Down the
Middle? German
Politics after Merkel
Benjamin D. Hennig plots Germany’s post-electoral political map.
When Germans went to
the polls in September,
they were tasked with
answering one big
question: who would decide their country’s
political direction in the post-Angela Merkel
era? From the outset, the outcome of the 2021
General Election was highly unpredictable.
The aftermath of Brexit, an ever-increased
awareness of the need to tackle climate
change, and an overall surge of the political
right across the continent, provided a
turbulent pre-election backdrop.
In the end, German voters decided that
neither of the main parties, Merkel’s centre-
right CDU/CSU and the centre-left SPD, had
the answer for life after ‘Mutti’. The two main
parties combined secured less than 50 per
cent of the popular vote for the rst time
since 1949. The SPD, with their candidate for
Chancellor Olaf Scholz, reached 25.7 per cent,
up 5.2 per cent from the 2017 Election, while
the CDU/CSU with their main candidate Armin
Laschet polled 24.1 per cent, down 8.8 per
cent on four years earlier.
A rst glance at the new political map
of Germany suggests a major change in
direction. The pair of population-weighted
maps comparing the winners of the popular
vote in the 2017 and 2021 Federal Elections,
surely show some remarkable changes not
seen since Merkel came into power. CDU/
CSU, the two sister parties at the centre-
right largely lost their dominance across the
country, other than in the traditionally more
conservative South and some rural fringes
in the West. Most of these constituencies
are now in the hands of the SPD. Though in
the southern states of the East, the far right
AfD managed to gain some ground from the
CDU, though overall it lost 2.3 per cent of the
vote and now stands at 10.3 per cent.
However, it is important not to overstate
the shift in German politics. Neither of the
two main parties were able to form a coalition
with one of the smaller parties. This is not
new: political reality has forced the CDU and
the SPD into three ‘grand coalitions’ with each
other in the past four legislative sessions.
More remarkable though, is the increasing
visibility of the Green Party (Grüne). The Greens
managed to win 16 constituencies outright,
up from just one in 2017. With 14.8 per cent
of the votes, the Green Party made the largest
gains, up by 6.4 per cent, and also secured
their best ever result in a federal election.
The party nevertheless did not do as well as
some hoped, having polled well into the 20s
and at times even polling as the largest party
during the election campaign. Their strong
performance made it clear though that a
future government would not be possible
without them.
The Free Democrats (FDP) – often dubbed
pro-business and economically liberal – used
to be the coalition partner holding the balance
of power between CDU/CSU and SPD through
much of the 20th century. In 2021, their
Political Insight December 2021 BU.indd 20Political Insight December 2021 BU.indd 20 18/11/2021 14:2018/11/2021 14:20
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