The FDP was a one-issue party under Guido Westerwelle and needs a broader appeal, writes DEREK SCALLYin Berlin
GUIDO WESTERWELLE was the Icarus of modern German politics. Just 18 months after flying his Free Democrats to unheard of election heights, he has crashed out after just a decade as party leader – all this and he has yet to turn 50.
His remains a remarkable feat: returning the FDP to office in 2009 after 11 fallow years in opposition while, simultaneously, allowing the party become an irrelevance in Germany’s political life.
That proved an unforgivable state of affairs for party grandees who remember the days when the FDP was the glue holding together West German democracy.
A proud organisation with the most experience in office of all parties – about 43 years in total – the FDP was, for decades, the kingmaker to both the Social Democrats (SPD) and the Christian Democrats (CDU) – memorably jumping ship from Helmut Schmidt to make Helmut Kohl chancellor in 1982.
It offered voters an alternative to the two large parties, a strong programme including market liberalism and a vehement defence of civil rights.
Since becoming leader in 2001, however, Westerwelle narrowed the party’s focus to fiscal matters. He sidelined competent potential rivals and assembled an army of adoring foot-soldiers to refashion the party around his own personality.
The problem with this strategy is that, for many German voters and journalists alike, Westerwelle was the man you loved to hate: charming and compelling yet irritable and irritating, he never managed to shake off the image of the insecure school swot, despite his undoubted rhetorical skill.
One leading conservative dubbed him a political lightweight – a label that stuck – as did the damning verdict of one former cabinet colleague: “Always a tad too shrill”.
The passing years in the public eye failed to improve his image, though it didn’t suffer either when he went public about his homosexuality in 2004, stealing the show at Angela Merkel’s 50th birthday party by arriving with his long-time partner.
After refashioning the FDP around himself, he reduced the 2009 election campaign to one issue – tax cuts – and scored a record 14.6 per cent by promising only to sign a coalition agreement that left more money in everyone’s pay packet.
The document he eventually signed promised tax cuts “where possible”, a get-out clause Chancellor Angela Merkel exploited immediately.
She said that the financial crisis made tax cuts impossible for the foreseeable future, stripping Westerwelle of his remaining political credibility.
The party vote collapsed by two-thirds to 5 per cent and has yet to recover as Westerwelle failed to capitalise on the popularity bonus German foreign ministers usually enjoy.
His successor faces a daunting challenge: to overhaul the FDP during its remaining two years in office. Party elders want a fresh start but, to avoid a split, will force the new leader to retain experienced faces such as Rainer Brüderle.
The situation remains unstable for the coalition headed by Merkel: after undermining Westerwelle, she can only hope the new FDP leader can regain support quickly by broadening the party’s appeal to win back young, urban professional voters drifting away to a more conservative Green Party.
“At present the FDP is a one-issue party – tax cuts – and it won’t be taken seriously by voters until it broadens itself again back to classic areas of a traditional liberal party, such as civil liberties and human rights,” said Prof Gerd Langguth, political scientist at the University of Bonn.
“Westerwelle is leaving after a series of failures, the last of which was to become foreign minister when he would have been more suited for a domestic portfolio.”