Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is a paid election analyst for The Conversation. His work for The Conversation can be found here.
In early November, the German federal governing coalition of centre-left SPD, Greens and pro-business FDP collapsed owing to a split with the FDP. In mid-December, the government was defeated in a no-confidence vote, with new elections to be held on February 23, about seven months before they were due.
Germany uses the Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) system. Voters cast two votes: one for their local MP elected by first past the post, and one for their party. The party vote determines the number of seats each party is entitled to. After the 2021 election, there were 736 MPs owing to “overhangs”. Electoral reforms will limit the next parliament to 630 MPs.
To qualify for a proportional allocation of seats, parties must either win at least 5% of the national vote or three single-member electorates.
Polling has been dismal for the coalition parties since mid-2023, when the far-right AfD moved into second place ahead of the SPD. Current polls have the conservative CDU/CSU at about 30%, the AfD at 19%, the SPD at 16%, the Greens at 13% and the economically left but socially conservative BSW at 6%. The FDP is likely to miss the 5% threshold.
While the CDU/CSU and AfD are likely to easily win a combined majority of seats, the CDU/CSU has said it won’t govern in coalition with the AfD. But forming a government without the AfD is likely to require support from either the SPD or the Greens.
South Korean and French updates
On December 14, the South Korean parliament impeached conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol over his December 3 declaration of martial law by a 204-85 vote, just above the 200 needed for a two-thirds majority of the 300 MPs. The opposition centre-left Democrats and allies have a 192-108 majority, so 12 MPs from Yoon’s People Power Party voted for impeachment. This vote came a week after the first impeachment vote failed owing to a PPP boycott.
After the impeachment vote, Yoon was suspended and replaced as acting president by the PM, a Yoon appointee. The Constitutional Court has until June to decide. It normally has nine judges, but currently only six owing to recent retirements. If the Court upholds the impeachment, Yoon will be removed and new elections required within 60 days. On Friday the PM was impeached over failure to appoint additional judges and replaced by the finance minister as acting president.
On December 13, French President Emmanuel Macron appointed centrist François Bayrou PM after the fall of conservative Michel Barnier’s government nine days earlier. This appointment is unlikely to fix Macron’s parliamentary problems that I covered previously, which are the result of an election he called three years early. Macron can’t call a new parliamentary election until July 2025.
Iceland, Romania, Botswana and Uruguay
The 63 Icelandic MPs are elected by PR with a 5% threshold. At the November 30 election, the centre-left Social Democrats won 15 seats (up nine since 2021), ahead of the conservative Independence on 14 (down two). The Social Democrats formed government with the assistance of two smaller centrist parties. The Left-Green Movement lost all its eight seats after falling below the threshold.
I previously covered the December 1 Romanian parliamentary election. Right-wing to far-right parties made large gains at the expense of the centre-left PSD and conservative PNL, who had been in a coalition government since September 2021. These two parties formed another coalition government on December 23, but also needed the support of the Hungarian minority party UDMR.
Of the 69 Botswana MPs, 61 were elected by FPTP with the remaining appointed. At the October 30 election, the centre-left UDC won 36 seats (up 28 since 2019), the social democratic BCP 15 (up eight) and the conservative BDP four (down 34). The BDP had governed continuously since the first Botswana election in 1965.
At the November 24 Uruguayan presidential runoff election, the left-wing Broad Front’s candidate defeated the incumbent conservative National by a 52.0-48.0 margin. Both parliamentary chambers were elected by PR on October 27, held with the first round of the presidential election. The Broad Front won 16 of the 30 senators (a majority), and 48 of the 99 seats in the Chamber of Representatives, two short of a majority.
The greatest and lasting legacy of Biden Presidency is that US and its political allies political systems in West and East are in tatters.
For example, UK, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Canada.
Do you know why Bangladesh political system and country is in tatters? Biden administration asked ex-Bangladesh PM Shiekh Hasina to give St. Martin’s Island for US Military base. She refused to do that. So Biden administration enabled downfall of her government by supporting Bangladesh opposition and Pakistan ISI to cause chaos. After Hasina was deposed, US installed their puppet Mohammad Yunus, who was at the time in US, as acting PM.
Worth noting that Scholz deliberately called for the no-confidence motion knowing that he’d lose, and could reset.
I think everyone knew a few years ago that the FDP would bail. The SPD were really hoping that die Linke would get enough seats to be the third coalition partner with them and the Greens.
Next government will be Jamaica coalition, or maybe another Grand coalition.
Ven says:
Saturday, December 28, 2024 at 7:39 pm
The greatest and lasting legacy of Biden Presidency is that US and its political allies political systems in West and East are in tatters.
For example, UK, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Israel, Canada.
While it’s true that incumbent parties have been struggling electorally in recent years, it’s absolutely mistaken to attribute this to actions by the US administration. We live in challenging times. Real wages have been under sustained pressure in industrial economies for most of this century so far. This is only going to worsen as reactionary, neo-imperialist industrial policies and the effects of climate change combine with demographic forces to undermine the well-being of peoples in the industrial/post-industrial economies. This has nothing whatsoever to do with Biden, who has tried too some extant to reverse the trends that undermine prosperity.
Jamaica coalition won’t happen. Grune and FDP have too many disagreements and were lucky to have been able to work together for the last 3 years.
Grand Coalition is more probable. I don’t see the Greens supporting Merz since he is quite more to the right than Merkel was. Maybe Markus Soder could be a compromise candidate but he is part of the CSU (sister party of the CDU in Bavaria)
Don’t rule out a Scholz comeback with a good campaign, And remember it’s been decades since Germany has had a 1-term government. Actually as far as I’m aware, since 1949, there has been no 1-term government. All chancellors usually last more than 1 term.
SPD will probably recover to 2nd place during the campaign but not enough to win more seats than the CDU/CSU but can’t rule it out completely, especially if the AfD can chip into more right-leaning CDU voters, Could be a 3 way race for 1st and that could result in the combined CDU and SPD not having enough seats to govern so possibly a CDU/SPD/GRN gov (Kenyan coalition) on the cards.
A further critique of Ven’s comments that, “The greatest and lasting legacy of Biden Presidency is that US and its political allies political systems in West and East are in tatters.”
Incumbent governments globally have been on the back foot mostly due to an inflation problem initiated in Covid and made worse by the Ukraine War. It’s misguided for right wing supporters to somehow blame centre-left governments on this, eg. Labor here came into government with inflation over 6% and rising. Centre-right and right wing governments won’t find the landscape any easier, the classic example here is Trump already walking back boasts he will reduce prices. People should try to look objectively at the evidence in determining trends rather than being guided by their political bias to make all sorts of usually false assumptions.
This same influence from inflation has supported the LNP but it is interesting to note that first term governments nearly always go underwater in the TPP at some stage and yet mostly win a second term. A win for Labor in this case may be a minority government given the growing third party vote but likely still an overall preference for centre-left policies. Overall, it is interesting to consider how some voters might use polling to send a message to governments mid-term and yet bring their vote home in an election, similar to the way they vote in a bye election.
die Linke appear to be yesterday’s men (weren’t they always) and may end up with 1-2 constituency seats in Berlin. Will BSW be maintained as the new force on he left, currently polling up to 8%, or will the inconsistencies within SW’s program be revealed?
Helpful graphic I got from the German language version of the wikipedia page of their opinion polling.
Also from that page is the seat projections according to the last INSA poll on 23 December (can be more easily read if put through Google Translate).
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundestagswahl_2025/Umfragen_und_Prognosen
Union: 212 (+15)
AFD: 133 (+50)
SPD: 110 (-96)
Green: 86 (-32)
BSW: 55 (+55)
FDP: 34 (-57)
Left: 0 (-39)
If these turn out to be the numbers, a Union/SPD “Grand Coalition” will fall just short of the 316 seats needed.
Oh derp, I made an error in the last post.
Union 212 + SPD 110 = 322 seats so enough for a Grand Coalition majority.
Although it’s hard to justify calling it a grand coalition any more.
I don’t think the Germans have a concept of an official ‘Opposition’, but if they did on those numbers a grand coalition would give the title to the AfD.
As the AfD’s upward trend continues, it is becoming harder and harder to form any sort of coalition without them. Unless there’s a turnaround soon it will just be a matter of time before some other party decides to bite the bullet and include them in negotiations.
The AfD may be a pariah party, but if they get enough votes, well, that’s democracy for you.
The opposition isn’t technically a thing in the way it is here or in the UK. (Edit: informally it is the leader of the largest non-government party, so the AfD have held it once already, but it isn’t an official position on paper. The only thing that it allows you to do is customarily they have right of first response to the government ministers in parliamentary debate).
Culturally though, Germans do still think of CD(s)U vs SPD as the big two and the “opposition” in people’s minds is whichever of those isn’t in power. This is diminishing over the years, but the old 2 party view dies hard.
@Oakeshott it’s more likely for die Linke to pick up a seat somewhere like Leipzig than in Berlin these days. However, their chances of getting any seats at all anymore have a Sahra Wagenknecht-shaped hole in them.
Cricket. DRS sucks, the system tracked a ball from Starc from it hitting the front pad.
But it deviated onto the back pad and would have hit middle stump. Out!
Kirsdarke, Do you think a CDU/SPD/GRN gov is more likely than not? Although the SPD will likely recover 2-3% before election day, not enough to threaten the CDU but still enough to possible make CDU/SPD have enough for majority unless SPD is taking support from CDU and not the other parties.
Expat, Definitely. I had a support worker from Leipzig who was on a visa here in Australia and she said she supports Die Linke. It’s Die Linke territory.
I have a feeling turnout in Germany will not be the 76% of the last two elections, but more like 70%. It would seem that AfD voters might be more committed, but I expect they won’t get to 20% nationally.
In 2021 they got around 20% in the old “East Germany” but only 8.5% in the old “West Germany” – I expect this pattern to continue, and this to limit their total vote. Their vote in the East may get close to 30% but that population is much smaller and the Bundestag after the 2023 reforms will be shaped only by the total “list” vote.
Daniel @ #13 Monday, December 30th, 2024 – 3:53 pm
I don’t think the German Greens would want to go into coalition with a government that has Friedrich Merz as Chancellor, but they probably would give a supply and confidence agreement to keep AfD out of power.
Scholz is level pegging with Merz on ‘preferred Chancellor’ polling – he may pull ahead a bit like last time against that hopeless CDU guy whose name I’ve just forgotten (was governor of one of the states and a moderate but made bad gaffes which saw his popularity plummet).