Berlin round for election: The hour of advances

Black-green-yellow or red-green-yellow: These coalition models will be wrestled over the coming weeks. The first advances were already in the Berlin round made. One in particular went on the offensive.

There they are now, the party chairmen and top candidates of the Bundestag parties, in front of them an election result that creates unclear conditions, will demand difficult negotiations and some unpleasant questions. And so depends a few hours after the closing of the polling stations in the Berlin round A quick look ahead: Which coalition model is conceivable, can succeed in 2021 what failed after torturous weeks in 2017, namely an alliance of the Union, the Greens and the FDP? Or does the Union have to go into opposition because the SPD, Greens and FDP are coming together?

If Olaf Scholz had his way, the result would be read “very clearly” – namely as a “very clear mandate” from the voters to the SPD to form the new government. Scholz can refer to the projections that his party saw at the time of the broadcast with one percent in front of the Union, and he tried the development of the past weeks, in which the “bars” for the SPD went up. Who will Scholz call first? The Social Democrat left the question open this evening.

While it is difficult to say with Scholz whether he is the serenity of the winner or whether he is only true to himself in his pridefulness, the former can be ruled out with Armin Laschet. The CDU chairman has to explain the worst result of his party so far in a federal election, and he admits that the CDU’s losses are “not nice”. But he does not want to dwell on it for long, briefly refers to the lack of office bonuses for all candidates, and then comes to his actual plan that evening: the role of the mediator who brings parties together “from the middle of the Bundestag” into a coalition.

Sometimes the audience suspects that Laschet is courageously using the instruments of one of his predecessors as Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, namely Johannes Rau, who wanted to conquer the chancellorship in 1987 with “Reconciliation instead of splitting”, albeit for the SPD . Rau failed at the time, and it has not yet been decided whether Laschet will suffer a similar fate. In any case, he announced his intention to “reconcile” and to form a coalition “that one likes to do” – which was no longer the case in the end.

Söder supports Laschet

Markus Söder, on the other hand, is certainly not too offended if you attest to him that reconciliation is not his thing, and so the CSU boss Scholz initially holds that he received a slap because he favored red-red-green and thus failed. But that’s pretty much the only jostling that evening in the group that comes across as remarkably calm, which in this situation may also be due to the fact that Scholz simply punishes Söder’s attack with disregard.

However, anyone who expects Söder Laschet to count will be taught better. Söder declares all of his attacks and the attacks by the CSU on Laschet to be “yesterday’s news” and with a sincere look, which perhaps only Markus Söder is capable of, that Laschet was “done a lot of injustice” in the election campaign.

Lindner’s offer

It is then up to Christian Lindner to submit an initial proposal on how the parties can deal with this election result. The FDP leader, who can claim to be a success of having led his party into the Bundestag for the second time in a row, emphasizes the independence of his party and recalls the different coalition models used by the liberals in various federal states involved. And he pays the Greens the surprising compliment that, together with the FDP, they are the party that wants to overcome the status quo. And that’s why both parties should speak to each other first – before Laschet or Scholz invite you to a consultation.

However, this would be a new approach for federal politics and is accepted by the Green Chancellor candidate Annalena Baerbock insofar as she takes the view that the logic that one calls everyone else has been overcome with this election day. However, Baerbock leaves it open whether she will sit down with Lindner right away. But it makes sense that different parties speak to each other in different combinations.

It should go quickly

Lindner then added it again later by declaring, after pointing out the great similarities between the Union and FDP, that the coming federal government would “be much more ecological” and expresses his wish that the Union and FDP “deal with the Greens much more fairly than.” Union and Greens 2017 with the FDP “.

The trauma of these leaden coalition negotiations, which ended spectacularly in the end with the withdrawal of the FDP, appears again and again in this round. Whether Union, SPD, Greens or FDP – they all affirm that things should go faster this time. Laschet also mentions a few international aspects – the G7 presidency in the coming year, the expectations of the EU partners, and he praises Baerbock’s appearance in the group as “very helpful”. A new coalition should be “in any case before Christmas”.

Scholz is a bit more sober, but also wants nothing to do with the leadership understanding of his social democratic predecessor Gerhard Schröder, who had always clearly emphasized to the Greens who was a “cook” and who was a “waiter”. It comes at eye level, Scholz remarks soberly and, with a view to any difficulties in forming a three-way alliance, only adds: “It will be fine,” which is also shown by the experience of other countries. Scholz also wants to finish the coalition negotiations before Christmas.

AfD and left have to watch

The AfD and the left are condemned to watch. AfD top candidate Alice Weidel is nonetheless “very satisfied” with her result and refers to the explanation of “special effects” such as the “Free Voters” or the “The Basis” party, who were in the water of the AfD. If you add that to the calculation, the AfD was even more successful than it was four years ago.

For the left, co-party chairwoman Susanne Hennig-Wellsow attributed the poor result to mistakes in the past – “no clarity was shown” on some issues. Her party is asking the right question, but after 30 years in the Bundestag it is difficult to show that she is ready to take responsibility.

pleasure instead of frustration

Bearing responsibility, moving the country forward – there was no lack of commitment to state political common sense. Söder called for a common philosophy to be developed here for a renewal of the country and “massive decisions” and innocently invoked the age factor – after all, Lindner, Baerbock, Habeck and he “partly” belonged to a generation.

That is calculated generously, if you take into account the age difference of 20 years between Baerbock and Laschet. For Laschet, the question of whether he belongs or not also arises in other ways. After his poor performance, will he first seek the post of parliamentary group leader of the Union in the Bundestag and thus oust Ralph Brinkhaus? Laschet did not answer this question. It’s about shaping the coming years with pleasure – and not with frustration. For every participant, however, the following applies: To avoid frustration, alliances must be formed, and whoever will succeed was after this Berlin round only a little clearer than before.