Germany’s election could bring the biggest political shift for a generation – or almost no change at all

Excitement and uncertainty are not words often associated with today’s Germany, and one reason, perhaps the main reason, is the way the outgoing Chancellor, Angela Merkel, has led the country for the past 16 years.

Dependable, predictable, even boring are the adjectives that come to mind. And that has been something that many, not just in Germany, have been grateful for; in some countries it has inspired envy.

But all that measured calm may be ending, at least for a while. The biggest and richest European country goes to the polls on Sunday and no one has the slightest idea of who will succeed Angela Merkel, still less what sort of a government it will be. For the first time in a post-war election there is no incumbent on the ballot paper. As many as four in 10 German voters say they don’t know who they will vote for – and a record 30 per cent are casting postal ballots, a number partly explained by Covid-19 precautions discouraging many from going to a polling station.

There is, of course, no little irony in the fact that a chancellor so associated with Germany’s stability leaves the electorate gazing into something of a political void – though it is testimony to the strength of German democracy that the rather pleasant life of home, work and school, coffee and cake in the afternoon and a beer in the evening, goes on, with no sense of alarm, or even change – other than the election posters that vie for attention in every street.

At the same time, it has to be said that almost everything that could have gone wrong around Merkel’s exit has done, and not because she indicated any reluctance to depart. She announced when re-elected four years ago that she would not be seeking another term. She resigned the leadership of her party, the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), three years ago with the intention of giving a successor time to make their mark with a view to becoming a credible nominee for Chancellor – and her successor.

Her favoured candidate, however, proved unequal to the job. Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer resigned, while remaining as defence minister, and a scrap began both for the party leadership and for the Merkel succession. The two positions are now held by separate people, with the candidate for chancellor, Armin Laschet, being chosen by a narrow majority.

Rumblings within the party have not helped Laschet’s cause – but neither have his lacklustre style of campaigning or some early gaffes – as when he was caught laughing with colleagues amid the devastation of the flooding in July. The assumptions had been that a combination of his own experience as head of prosperous North-Rhine Westphalia, and the blessing of Merkel, would assure his accession to the chancellery. But that is not what happened.

By mid-August, his poll lead had evaporated. The prospects of the Green candidate, Annalena Baerbock, who was briefly seen as a realistic new-generation contender for the top job, faded, too, after accusations that she had plagiarised elements of her graduate thesis (accusations the Greens have called "character assassination") and her political inexperience had begun to tell. At which point there advanced into the now vacant space a candidate and a party that had been pretty much written off: Olaf Scholz and the Social-Democrats (SPD).

Scholz’s success defies a lot of political laws. The SPD has in the past been punished at the ballot-box (as the Liberal Democrats were in the UK) for being the junior partner in three of Merkel’s coalitions. Scholz himself has been deputy chancellor and finance minister in the current government, so his opposition credentials are compromised. And yet, a combination of natural authority, promises of help to repair social divisions exposed, in Germany as elsewhere, by the Covid pandemic, and not being Armin Laschet, propelled him to a seven-point poll lead.

That lead has been narrowed by a couple of percentage points in the past week, opening the slim chance that he could be caught, especially if – as is possible – there are more “shy” voters on the right than on the left, reluctant to share their intentions with pollsters. So, as the candidates go into their traditional eve-of-poll rallies, all – as they say – is still to play for.

As for now, the see-sawing dynamic of what had been seen as a predictable campaign has revealed some less apparent truths about Merkel’s Germany. As seen from Berlin, the public mood is considerably more downbeat than the near-universal admiration for Merkel abroad would suggest.

She may have shone as Germany’s advocate around the globe, and her administration, through four terms of varying coalitions, may by common acknowledgement have been one of the most modest and diligent of any in the world. But many of her fellow citizens feel that they and their homeland have been neglected, with their much-praised institutions, from education to manufacturing to industrial relations and even government, failing to keep up with the competition.

In all, after 16 years of Merkel, Germany does not seem a particularly happy or contented land. This may be one reason why campaigning as Merkel’s natural successor, as both Laschet and Scholz initially tried to do, may have been more a hindrance than a help. Nor may it assist Laschet that Merkel has been added to the speakers at some of his last rallies. The reception when they appeared together in Stralsund – Merkel’s home constituency this week – was the most hostile I have witnessed for Merkel at any of her “home” appearances over the years. And a newspaper cartoon afterwards showed a large saintly-looking Merkel cradling a “baby” Laschet. Enough said.

This election has also seen some rare questioning of Germany’s electoral system, which exhibits all the disadvantages – as well as the advantages – of proportional representation. The difficulty is less that it produces mainly coalitions, but that the “grand coalitions” Germany has had for three of Merkel’s four terms have the effect – similar to “first past the post” – of excluding smaller parties from the mainstream, potentially depriving them of a political voice (except on the streets and in social media). Why vote, some are saying, if that vote just brings more of the same?

Partly as a result, perhaps, this German election has turned less on actual policies than on loyalties and personal impressions. But it is also a recognition of reality. After all, if the real contest for power is not the actual election but the coalition trading that follows – and if, as this time, the potential combinations are almost infinite as between another “Grand Coalition" (CDU-SPD), a “traffic light” version with the SPD, free-market FDP, and the Greens; a “Red-Green” version (SPD-Green); a “Red, Red, Green” version, with the left-wing Linke added, or a coalition of CDU, FDP and the Greens, few party election pledges are going to stay the course.

Indeed, over the past week, the bargaining has already begun, with the SPD publicly courting the Greens, and Laschet countenancing the prospect of being number two in another “Grand Coalition”. But until the relative votes are clear, any conclusions about likely governments or policies are premature. And this time they are more premature than usual.

One reason is that the Greens have lost some of their distinctiveness, as the climate crisis has arrived in the mainstream. But another is that the big subjects that have not featured in this campaign far outnumber those that have. There has been almost no mention, for instance, of migration, the hot topic four years ago, or of Germany’s place in the EU, or its attitude to the creation of a European military, or to the United States, or how to deal with Russia, or China – all issues that will be high up in any new Chancellor’s in-tray.

The last few days have been dominated by a discussion of Germany’s equivalent of the UK’s anti-lockdown movement, after a cashier was shot dead at a petrol station after what authorities have said was a row over mask wearing. In a way, it continues an age-old argument between conformists and rebels, that has particular resonance in Germany for understandable reasons.

But this is where Germany is, looking determinedly inwards, as it prepares for a vote that could bring the biggest shift in its domestic and foreign policies for a generation – or almost no change at all.