The elections in Germany are over. It is clear who won and who lost, and the political landscape has changed a lot. The real drama, however, did not take place between the main parties, but on the margins of the political scene.
Chancellor Angela Merkel is celebrating a resounding victory, and her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) nearly won an absolute parliamentary majority. However, this triumph is mainly due to the collapse of its liberal coalition partner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which for the first time in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany will not be represented in the Bundestag.
Liberals have always been a key part of German post-war democracy; now they are gone. The responsibility for this lies primarily with the FDP. No ruling party can afford such woefully incompetent ministers and leadership; In the past four years, Merkel could only stand aside and watch the public suicide of liberals.
And the opposition parties have paid the price for their failure to come to grips with reality. The economy is thriving, the unemployment rate is low, and most Germans are better off than ever before. However, instead of focusing on the government's weaknesses - energy, Europe, education and family policy - they played the social justice card. Merkel's overly optimistic campaign was much more in tune with the sentiments of German voters than opposition parties' pangs of working-class woes, rightly seen as a tax-raising tactic.
Ruling majorities (and thus elections) in Germany are always won in the center. Merkel's predecessor, the leader of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Gerhard Schroeder, knew this well. However, this time her opponents - the SPD, the Left and the Greens - cleared the center and devoured each other on the left. Leadership issues made the situation even worse - SPD leader Per Steinbrück and the Greens' Jürgen Tritin never stood a chance against Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.
The only new factor that could introduce structural changes in German politics is the rise of the new Alternative for Germany (AfD). Although it failed to pass the five percent threshold for entering the Bundestag, the party performed surprisingly well. If its leadership builds on this success, AfD will be the talk of the European Parliament elections next spring.
Indeed, the AfD did well in eastern Germany, where elections in three states will be held in 2014 – taking a lot of votes away from the Left. This implies that the AfD could permanently position itself on the German political scene, which could further complicate the return of the FDP.
Nevertheless, despite the collapse of the FDP and the disastrous electoral strategy of the opposition parties, Angela Merkel needs a coalition partner. The left is not an option, and any attempt to create a coalition with the Greens - a party that will take some time to recover from a shocking defeat - would cause instability.
Therefore, the Germans will get a large coalition - as they wanted. The SPD will reconsider, hesitate and finally give in because Merkel has a powerful disciplinary measure: she could call new elections, in which the CDU would probably win an absolute majority.
A grand coalition is not the worst option. Nothing fades as quickly as the glow of an election victory, and the German idyll will soon be shaken by harsh reality - the simmering crisis of the European Union, Syria, Iran and energy policy.
The need for consensus is particularly strong given the tough decisions about Europe that the German government now faces. Greece needs additional debt relief. The European banking union with shared responsibility cannot be delayed much longer. The same is true for many other issues. Angela Merkel is facing a winter of discontent, followed by campaigns for the European Parliament, which will likely bring the CDU to the ground.
However, no one should expect a significant change in Merkel's policy towards the EU or in her approach to foreign policy and security issues. A large proportion of German voters accepted her position on these issues; and most people, including those in high positions, do not change so easily when they reach a certain age. In addition, on these topics, there is no longer much difference between the center-right CDU and the center-left SPD.
A grand coalition could be more flexible in solving the euro crisis, but less so in matters of foreign and security policy. In this respect, however, Germany would gain a lot from the chance to craft a proper foreign policy within the Western Alliance, which in recent years has had a dangerous void where Germany once was - though this is more a vague hope than a concrete expectation.
It will also be interesting to see if and how Merkel handles Germany's transition to a low-carbon economy, the most important domestic project of her term. Either it will succeed or it will be a huge embarrassment for Germany and a disaster for the German economy. The decisive questions are whether he will find enough courage to concentrate all the necessary responsibility for this mega project in the Ministry of Energy and whom he will entrust to oversee this Herculean task.
The late editor of the Spiegel weekly, Rudolf Augstein, who never liked former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, wrote a comment after German reunification with the headline "Congratulations, Chancellor!" For Merkel, this election opened the door, especially in terms of overcoming the euro crisis and deepening European integration. However, I won't congratulate her until she gets through them.
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