Political fire-fighting and noxious mistrust are putting the chancellor on the rack, writes Derek Scally
EIGHT MONTHS into her second term, Dr Merkel’s promised “dream” coalition has descended into a waking nightmare.
The visibly exhausted German leader is fighting half-a-dozen political fires and a noxious atmosphere of mistrust and name-calling between her Christian Democrats (CDU) and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP).
A majority of Germans doubt the government will run to term, a weekend poll indicated, while this morning's Der Spiegelhas one word of advice for the government on its cover: "Quit!" After months of false starts, Dr Merkel hoped to get her government on track last week with a four-year, €80 billion austerity package.
The ink was not yet dry on the deal, intended to reduce drastically Germany’s structural deficit, when the backlash began. Economists worried the austerity plan would stifle German growth; opposition politicians savaged the mix of immediate cuts for welfare recipients and long-fingered levies for banks and energy companies.
In the days since, amid growing criticism that the package is socially imbalanced, doubt has crept into the hearts of the many CDU MPs, worried about voter revenge if they back the package in the upcoming parliamentary vote.
Many of them would have preferred to generate extra revenue through tax hikes for top earners – until that was ruled out by Dr Merkel out of deference to her junior partner, the FDP.
The pro-business party won a record 14.6 per cent in last autumn’s election on the back of a pledge for massive tax cuts, a plan Dr Merkel cancelled a month ago citing the difficult budget situation. But she knew that forcing through a tax increase now would have been the final humiliation for the FDP and the kiss of death for a party that, according to polls, now has just five per cent support.
A certain electoral wipe-out is now the only thing keeping the FDP MPs on side, ensuring a frosty mood between Berlin’s coalition partners.
At the cabinet table, meanwhile, at least two ministers are itching to quit. Defence minister Karl-Theodor Guttenberg, once the aristocratic golden boy of Berlin politics, feels duped by the chancellor over his radical overhaul of Germany’s system of obligatory military service.
Meanwhile the youthful FDP health minister, Philip Rössler, has watched his equally ambitious health system reforms evaporate before his eyes. Dr Merkel has been forced to block the plan because of huge opposition from her Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU).
Relations are strained between Dr Merkel and leaders of Germany’s federal states after she denied a state guarantee request by GM for its struggling Opel subsidiary, a huge employer in central German states.
In retaliation, state governors have hit the brakes on Dr Merkel’s ambitious education investment plans by refusing to share costs.
With bad tempers all round, fuming state politicians may choose to let off steam at the worst possible moment for the chancellor: the presidential election on June 30th.
The surprise resignation of president Horst Köhler forced Dr Merkel to find a quick replacement. But her choice, Lower Saxony’s stolid state premier Christian Wulff, has generated little enthusiasm in her party, particularly after he refused to give up his day job as governor until after he wins the vote.
Mr Wulff is hedging his bets because he knows victory is far from a sure thing.
Though the CDU and FDP hold a majority in the special federal assembly that elects the president, annoyed politicians from the federal states are toying with the idea of voting instead for Mr Wulff’s opponent, Joachim Gauck.
The East German-born Protestant pastor has been a popular figure in Germany since rising to prominence during the months after fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. He cemented his reputation after heading the agency that allowed access to the files of the Stasi secret police.
A unifying figure of high moral pedigree, Mr Gauck poses a huge problem for the government: not only is he the nominee of the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens but, by comparison, he leaves Mr Wulff looking like a wan bureaucrat.
Dr Merkel has yet another reason for being nervous about the presidential vote: a month after its state election, North-Rhine Westphalia still has no government after endless rounds of fruitless exploratory talks.
The SPD and CDU, each with equal numbers of seats in the state parliament, are determined to head the next government and are locked in a competition without a clear outcome. Whoever wins power wins control of the NRW votes in the June 30th poll.
Normally, the presidential election is a cut-and-dried affair for a largely symbolic office. But these are not normal times in Berlin and Angela Merkel knows that if Christian Wulff fails to become president, the knives will come out for her.