The big, biggest and only one

He may speak, but hardly anyone listens anymore. Chancellor Friedrich Merz on September 17th. Campaigned in vain in the Konrad Adenauer House in Berlin

The two-party system still seems intact here: SPD news and CDU news on a hiking car park in Helden (Attendorn), 2024.

He may speak, but hardly anyone listens anymore. Chancellor Friedrich Merz on September 17th. Campaigned in vain in the Konrad Adenauer House in Berlin

When the results of the state elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania were known, the media and party representatives did not react particularly calmly. Barely a week after the elections, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung headlined: “The Germans have voted out their market economy.”

The AfD and the Left Party were the election winners, but the latter only in Berlin. High-ranking Union politicians in particular seemed unsettled. In an attempt to give the impression that justice was also an issue for the CDU, Chancellor Friedrich Merz noted at a press conference that those with private insurance found it easier to get appointments with specialists than those with statutory health insurance: "If the population sees this as such a massive problem, and I share their assessment, then we have to change something about it." This had not previously been agreed with the specialist politicians in the government coalition and triggered a public debate about a fundamental redesign of the health insurance system. The CSU chairman and Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder threatened to question the financing of the capital through the state financial equalization if the Left Party were to govern in Berlin - although after the AfD's election victory in Saxony-Anhalt two weeks earlier, he had insisted that the state financial equalization should not serve to punish certain voting behavior. Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche (CDU) used her ministry's Instagram channel to warn against the expropriation of real estate companies, but without mentioning the name of the Left Party. However, using the communication channels of ministries for political disputes between parties is illegal.

A cursory look at the reactions after the elections on September 20th might seem that the election victory of a left-wing social democratic party with a leading candidate from a migrant family in Berlin was a bigger problem for the CDU than the rise of the right-wing extremist AfD. However, this impression is deceptive in that the CDU suffers from great uncertainty in its dealings with the AfD, while it is on familiar ground with the Left Party, especially in the once divided Berlin. The loud reactions to their Berlin election victory are primarily intended to drown out the helplessness regarding the AfD. Because after the election results in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Berlin were known, Merz quickly identified the CDU's fundamental problem.

When asked whether the CDU was still a "people's party," he replied: "Only in parts." This is a cautious admission of the party's political defeat, which was preceded by fundamental changes in the political structure of the Federal Republic. The term “people’s party” refers to the political system that emerged in Western European countries after the Second World War. For a long time, political events were dominated by two major camps: a conservative Christian democratic and a social democratic one, which demonstrated the integration of the workers' movement into the democratic-capitalist state. The respective parties succeeded in representing groups between which there were major differences in interests. For example, the conservative parties included workers from religious backgrounds as well as entrepreneurs. These parties, but also the party system itself, were held together by pressure from outside: the system competition with the bloc of real socialist countries and the concern that left-wing or right-wing extremist opposition parties could gain popularity and seek fundamental social upheavals led the Union and the SPD to try to politically represent and integrate as large parts of the population as possible.

The parties were also stabilized by the fact that organizations close to them - women's, youth and social associations, sports clubs, consumer cooperatives and educational institutions and, last but not least, trade unions and churches - played a role in the everyday lives of voters. In addition, in the administrative apparatus of Western European welfare states, membership in one of the two major parties could be a prerequisite for a professional career. This party system began to collapse in the 1980s and 1990s. On the one hand, the social milieus structured by the parties' preliminary organizations dissolved, and on the other hand, global political and economic changes such as the collapse of the Eastern Bloc caused cohesion in the two major camps to dwindle.

In Berlin, only eight percent of 16 to 24 year olds voted for the CDU, and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania only two percent voted.

In the Federal Republic it was the SPD that first began to collapse; This development began with the rise of the Greens. The latest election results show that the CDU is now also affected by this development. Just two years ago, Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder claimed that the Union was "perhaps the last remaining large, largest and only people's party." Today, the chairman of the Junge Union, Johannes Winkel, warns in an interview with the Bild newspaper about the end of the CDU: "If it doesn't change fundamentally, there will be no reason to vote for the CDU." And further: "Parties that don't change die. It's simple." It's not surprising that this warning comes from the Junge Union, as only eight percent of 16 to 24 year olds in Berlin voted for the CDU, and in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania only two percent voted.

The CDU is faced with the problem of not knowing how to change to prevent its decline. The example of the SPD, which has failed in this task for 20 years, is a warning to her. Among young voters in Berlin, the party only achieved one percentage point more than the CDU. The electoral success of Manuela Schwesig (SPD) in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is not a turnaround. Schwesig consistently campaigned against the federal government and her own party leadership. Something like this can't be repeated too often without completely dismantling the party.

The two-party system still seems intact here: SPD news and CDU news on a hiking car park in Helden (Attendorn), 2024.

And so Christian Democratic politicians and party groups are currently demanding contradictory things almost every day. Some demand “leadership” from Merz, while others want him to vacate his post. The desire for a consistent continuation of the austerity policy with all its social costs is offset by the interest in being a “people's party” again and being perceived as socially just. Some want to finally get closer to the AfD, others are threatening to leave the party if this happens.

Given these incompatible interests and positions, an enemy like the Left Party that can be dealt with publicly is a gift for the party leadership. However, it seems highly doubtful that the Left Party is capable of creating cohesion in the CDU, as the so-called “communist threat” since Adenauer did before 1990. Given the housing shortage in Berlin, the CDU has also lost voters to the Left Party. And it seems unlikely that the fight against left-wing anti-Semitism is capable of creating harmony in a party in which individual officials with classic anti-Jewish sentiments come to public attention every few years.

Germany's political system will change fundamentally as a result of the decline of the two major parties, which has now also affected the CDU. It is uncertain what will replace the previous system of popular parties. The winners of the most recent state elections, the AfD in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the Left Party in Berlin, do not base their electoral success on long-established social milieus, but on political movements that see themselves as radical and oppositional. The loyalty to the respective party is often weaker than it might seem in view of impressive successes. As far as future political conditions are concerned, not only in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, a lot will depend on whether and how the current election winners manage to maintain the favor of the voters so that they can survive participation in government, which is inevitably accompanied by disappointment. In this respect, the new movement parties and the old popular parties are more similar than the former would like.