Angela Merkel has seen support for her party slip amid Germany's vaccine shambles
Credit: Pool/Getty Images Europe
Germany is set to get its first glimpse of life after Angela Merkel this weekend, and the signs are that it will not be comfortable viewing for her Christian Democrat party (CDU).
Growing discontent over the country’s shambolic vaccine roll-out looks set to hit the party hard in key regional elections, and could leave the race to succeed Mrs Merkel as chancellor wide open.
Two states are set to elect new regional governments on Sunday and the results will be seen as a bellwether for September’s general election, when Mrs Merkel will step down after 15 years as chancellor.
Just a month ago, the CDU appeared to be on a triumphant procession to yet another term in power. It was far ahead of its rivals in the polls and Mrs Merkel, widely praised for her handling of the pandemic, looked set to hand the keys of the chancellery safely to Armin Laschet, the newly elected party leader.
All that has unravelled in a matter of weeks, as it became clear Mrs Merkel’s decision to hand control of Germany’s vaccine orders to the European Union has left it lagging far behind the UK and US, with no prospect of catching up before summer.
Europe – Percentage of population vaccinated
When she told Germans they had another two or three hard months ahead of them this week, it did little to improve the national mood.
The CDU has seen its lead in the polls plummet by 6.5 points in just five weeks, and it looks set to suffer salutary defeats at the hands of its two main rivals this weekend.
In the crucial southern state of Baden-Württemberg, a historic CDU stronghold, the Green Party has opened up a seemingly unassailable 10-point lead.
The western state of Rhineland-Palatinate is closer, but most polls put the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD) two to three points ahead.
There was an air of panic at Adenauer House, the CDU headquarters in Berlin, this week as the party realised it could be about to start a defining election year with two significant defeats.
“This general election is wide open. Possibly more so than any previous election. Because the corona crisis is tearing up all political certainties,” Spiegel magazine said this week, before going on to enumerate the government blunders that have thrown it into disarray.
“The vaccine was developed in Germany, but not enough doses were ordered. The coronavirus app protects data rather than people.
"The government reacted too late to the second wave, imposed a month-long half-shutdown without consequence or goal, did nothing to prevent the start of the third wave, ordered rapid tests too late and made unfulfillable promises of reopening.”
The centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD) are making a comeback in Rhineland-Palatinate
Credit: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg
Last week Spiegel said the only reason it was not calling for Mrs Merkel’s resignation was because “it would plunge Germany into a political crisis in the middle of the pandemic”.
The CDU has yet to agree its candidate for chancellor in September. Mr Laschet should be a shoo-in but many in the party are having second thoughts.
The trouble is there aren’t many alternatives. Jens Spahn, the health minister, is only just clinging onto his job. The only other contender, Markus Söder, isn’t even a party member — he’s the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the CSU.
To cap off a terrible month, the past week has seen three MPs from the CDU and CSU forced to resign over corruption allegations — two of them over accusations they took backhanders for brokering government contacts for facemasks.
CDU grandees fear they are facing a repeat of the corruption scandal that brought down Helmut Kohl and ushered in seven years out of power — so much so all the party’s MPs were ordered to sign a declaration they have not taken any backhanders this week.
It is against this backdrop that Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate will vote this Sunday. It is hard to overstate the importance of Baden-Württemberg.
The home of Mercedes and Porsche, the state is an economic powerhouse. It is also one of the three big states that between them account for more than half of Germany’s population, and a traditional vote bank for the CDU.
More postal votes than usual are expected in the coronavirus lockdown
Credit: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg
Sunday’s vote in the state will pit the CDU against its closest rival in September’s elections, the Green Party. The Greens have made dramatic advances in Germany in recent years and at one point appeared to have usurped the SPD as the second major party — and nowhere is as central to that success as Baden-Württemberg.
The CDU ruled the state uninterrupted for 58 years until the Greens and the SPD joined forces to oust it in 2011. The ensuing coalition proved so popular the Greens won convincingly in 2016, and they look set to extend their lead on Sunday.
The regional Green Party, and in particular its leader, Winfried Kretschmann, have blazed a trail for the idea the Greens can be a responsible party of government, and the party’s success in the state has served as a blueprint for its reinvention on the national stage.
Under Mr Kretchsmann the Greens dropped many of their more hardline stances and adopted a pragmatic approach — recent years have seen Mr Kretschmann’s government defending the state’s car industry from attempts by more radical environmentalists to ban older cars from city centres.
An election poster showing Winfried Kretschmann, who has blazed a trail for the Greens as a party of government
Credit: Michael Probst /AP
Meanwhile in the smaller Rhineland-Palatinate the SPD looks to be cementing a recent comeback in the national polls that has seen it neck-and-neck with the Greens.
The party saw its vote share drop to a historic low in 2017’s national elections and has been struggling to recover while serving in coalition under Mrs Merkel.
But the pandemic has allowed the party to differentiate itself from the CDU. Olaf Scholz, the finance minister and SPD candidate for chancellor in September, has won praise for his economic rescue programme and is widely considered to have had a good pandemic.
All the signs are that Mrs Merkel’s fateful decision to hand control of vaccine orders to Brussels may have left her fighting not only for her legacy, but also for her party’s grip on power.
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