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With the “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht,” the Bundestag could grow to include another party in the next legislative period. In the long term, majorities could only be achieved through coalitions with many parties.
Initial surveys predict a good ten percent of the vote for the “Alliance Sahra Wagenknecht” (BSW) – this would mean that the newly announced party would enter the Bundestag. Of course, there is still a long way to go until then. However, it would at least theoretically be possible that after the upcoming federal election, nine parties would be represented in the Bundestag with the CDU, CSU, SPD, Greens, FDP, AfD, SSW, BSW and the Left Party – more than ever since reunification.
However, that would also mean that forming a government could become increasingly challenging – especially since, at least so far, a coalition with the AfD has been ruled out by the other parties.
“It’s basically true, of course: more parties, more fragmentation, makes finding a majority in a parliament more difficult,” says Thorsten Faas, political scientist at the Free University of Berlin. “At the same time, however, it depends on one thing: Does the BSW withdraw votes from forces that are not involved in the government formation process anyway – or from the ‘center’?” In the first case, not much would initially change for the parties forming the government.
Coalitions of two parties have so far been the norm
A coalition of just two parties could become increasingly rare. It used to be the rule: Since reunification, there have always been governments in the German Bundestag with only two coalition partners until the traffic light coalition – traditionally consisting of one of the two larger parties, the SPD or Union, together with their “junior partners”, the Greens or the FDP.
However, since this has not always been possible in the recent past, a so-called grand coalition of the SPD and the CDU/CSU emerged in 2005, 2013 and 2017. In 2017, however, the alliance only received 53.4 percent of the vote. Here, only a three-party alliance would have been possible for both parties if they had not decided to continue the grand coalition.
In the last federal election, even the SPD and the Union together only got 49.8 percent, which, at least theoretically, would have been enough for a majority in the Bundestag – but the parties decided differently. For comparison: In the 1990s, the two “people’s parties” together received more than 70 percent of the vote.
Longer ones Coalition negotiations possible
Reimut Zohlnhöfer, a political scientist at the University of Heidelberg, believes it is unlikely that the SPD and the Union will regain their former strength. “I think you have to assume that the current situation is a permanent situation. This is not atypical even in international comparison if you look at Belgium, the Netherlands or Israel,” he says. “We already have incredibly fragmented party systems. And that means that there are coalitions made up of more than two parties much more often.”
In the Netherlands, the last coalition consisted of four parties before it collapsed this summer. In Israel, five parties or alliances are involved in the government, and in Belgium there are even seven.
One of the consequences of such fragmented party systems is the duration of coalition negotiations, said Zohlnhöfer. “This results in much longer coalition-building processes. We now have significantly longer coalition negotiations in Germany than in the 1990s or 2000s.”
It took the traffic light parties a total of 73 days to form a government, It only took significantly longer in 2017, when the negotiations between the FDP, the Greens and the CDU failed and the coalition between the SPD and the CDU was re-established. In Belgium, the last government formation took a total of 493 days, more than a year.
Looking at other countries, Zohlnhöfer also shows that coalitions with more than two parties are potentially more unstable. In recent years, coalitions with multiple parties have dissolved prematurely in several countries, including Israel, Italy and Belgium. However, there are also enough examples that show that such coalitions can certainly be successful.
minority government as option?
Another way to govern despite a fragmented party system is to form a minority government. This does not have a majority and therefore relies on the support of MPs from opposition parties to pass laws and make political decisions. This concept is particularly widespread in the Scandinavian countries, and there is currently a minority government in Canada.
However, a minority government in Germany would face some problems, says Faas. “Fundamentally, many of the rules of the Basic Law are already very much geared towards stable majorities and we are experiencing again, especially in Thuringia, that we have difficulty with minority governments in Germany.” In Thuringia, Prime Minister Bodo Ramelow of the Left Party governs together with the SPD and the Greens, without having a majority in the state parliament. It is the only federal state with a minority government.
At the federal level, Faas believes that the election of chancellor could be difficult for a minority government. “The Chancellor basically needs a Chancellor majority – that’s where it starts.” That means: The Chancellor must be elected by the Bundestag with an absolute majority – i.e. by more than half of the MPs. If this is not successful after several rounds of voting, the candidate with a simple majority, i.e. the most votes, wins.
In addition, minority governments pose great difficulties, especially “when parties want and want to distance themselves from the margins,” says Faas. “In addition, you simply have to say: We are not used to this. Even in the committees, we are used to having majorities in the end. All of this would no longer be the case and would certainly involve longer adjustment processes.”
Switzerland with a special model
In Switzerland, on the other hand, there is a tradition that the four strongest parties are always represented in the government, the Federal Council. As many different parties and therefore political views as possible should be represented. But this model is also rather unsuitable for Germany, says Zohlnhöfer. Because of the strong role of direct democracy, the parties in Switzerland could make their positions clear, for example through referendums.
“The SVP, the right-wing populist party, actually does opposition work in the government by repeatedly taking initiatives that all other coalition partners don’t want,” says Zohlnhöfer. However, this is not possible in Germany because these elements of direct democracy do not exist. There would be a risk that such a model would give voters the impression that the parties could no longer be distinguished from one another in terms of content.
Faas and Zohlnhöfer also do not consider expert governments, which consist of independent experts who are not members of a party, to be a permanent solution. In the past, such governments have been installed on a temporary basis in Italy and Greece, for example, in times of crisis.
majority formation According to experts, no problem
Overall, according to Faas and Zohlnhöfer, it is unlikely that forming a majority in the Bundestag will become a major problem in the foreseeable future. On the one hand, the BSW would have to overcome the five percent hurdle without having primarily wooed away voters from other opposition parties. On the other hand, there are still sufficient opportunities for the parties to form stable majorities – even if certain parties are excluded.
The fragmentation of the party system also has the advantage that parties can better reflect what their voters want.