AFTER A disastrous run of lost elections, the knives are out for Germany’s Guido Westerwelle – again.
The foreign minister and leader of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition partner, is “wholly unsuited” for his job and should go, senior party figures said yesterday.
“A party leader who loses crucial elections has to face the consequences as party chairman. Westerwelle has to go,” said Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, a member of the party’s central committee.
On Sunday, the FDP lost half of its support in its one-time homeland of Baden-Württemberg and was ejected from the state parliament in neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate.
Well-placed sources say the belief is growing that the FDP’s only hope of salvation is to dump their leader of 10 years.
The most likely successor is FDP general secretary Christian Lindner, though some suggest that, at 32, he lacks the experience to be a leader – or to topple one.
“Lindner is willing to go against the grain and speak the truth,” said Mr Chatzimarkakis. “He doesn’t slavishly chain himself to the (conservatives) like Westerwelle has.”
By yesterday lunchtime the FDP resignation chorus had swelled to demand the departure not just of Mr Westerwelle but of the whole party front bench.
“This is like a political cabaret,” complained Wolfgang Kubicki, a senior party figure who led an unsuccessful leadership heave last year.
“We can’t go on with the same people. People present policy and we need new policies.”
Mr Westerwelle sailed into office on the wave of a record election result in 2009 – and it’s been downhill ever since. Chancellor Merkel blocked his radical tax cut plans – the party’s central campaign issue – triggering a collapse in FDP popularity, reflected in last Sunday’s state election.
Just scraping into the state parliament in Stuttgart was a new low in a grim 18 months in power for Mr Westerwelle, who has failed to capitalise on the popularity that usually goes with being foreign minister.
Weeks after taking its non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council, Germany annoyed France and others by abstaining from a crucial vote on military action in Libya. The foreign minister’s reputation took a further hit when officials close to Dr Merkel whispered that, had she not intervened, Mr Westerwelle would have voted against the resolution.
Yesterday afternoon, the demand for the party leader’s resignation had spread to the regions, with Christian Schmitt, parliamentary chief in Saarland, questioning his suitability as Germany’s top diplomat. “I don’t think Westerwelle is qualified to be foreign minister,” said Mr Schmitt.
The destabilising risk for Dr Merkel’s government grew yesterday when Westerwelle loyalists, anxious to deflect attention from the leadership question, pushed the nuclear button.
In the light of the Fukushima crisis, senior FDP figures want the three-month shut-down of old German nuclear plants – ostensibly to allow safety checks – to be made permanent, with other nuclear plants to follow.
In effect, the FDP is calling for the Merkel administration to abandon its six-month-old nuclear energy strategy and return to the nuclear shutdown plan implemented by the Social Democrat-Green coalition a decade ago.
Aware of the political humiliation involved, CDU chief whip Volker Kauder has dismissed the demand and said a decision could be taken only after plants were inspected.