Collapse: German centrist parties in 2013 took over 70% of vote, now less than 50%

The Euro-elite hope that Sunday’s German election marks the beginning of a German renaissance that lifts the European Union up with it. Perhaps. It’s just as likely to mark the end of the German post-war era, with an uncertain future ahead.

Optimists can point to the clear win by the Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian partner, the Christian Social Union. The pair’s 28.6 percent of the vote was below expectations, but was still comfortably head of the second place Alternative for Germany’s 20.8. 

This showing gives the centre-right CDU/CSU 208 seats in the Bundestag, enough to combine with the third-place Social Democrats’ 120 seats to form a clear, if tight, 328 seat majority in the 630-seat chamber.

This government will likely prioritise higher defence spending and continued support for Ukraine. Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, a noted advocate for both positions, is likely to replace Chancellor Olaf Scholz as the SPD’s leader and assume a key role in the grand coalition.

Such an outcome would delight the Brussels elites. They would do well, however, not to overlook the clear warning signs that a more complete reading of the election results provides.

Sunday’s outcome was the first time in the post-World War II era where the CDU/CSU, SPD, and the Free Democrats combined received less than 50 percent of the vote. The three parties have dominated German politics since 1949, capturing over 70 percent combined as recently as 2013.

This collapse shows how quickly Germans have grown disillusioned with the centrist bargaining that has long characterized German politics.

Even this weak showing masks likely future slippage for the legacy parties. Their majority rests purely on senior citizens. Voters 60 years old and up cast 40 per cent of the ballots and gave the three traditional parties 64 per cent of the vote. 

Young voters, on the other hand, largely rejected these parties in favour of the most radical alternatives. Voters under 25 gave the post-Communist left, Die Linke, 25 per cent, and the right-populist AfD 21 per cent. Combined with 6 per cent for left-populist Sarah Wagenknecht’s party, a majority of Germany’s youth backed the Russia-friendly, anti-centrist “extremes”.

The legacy parties also face a class divide similar to that found elsewhere. The AfD easily won among workers and the unemployed. Indeed, those groups gave a majority of their votes to the three “extreme” parties.

A clear educational divide also manifested itself. The AfD won 29 per cent among voters with lower levels of education.  Voters with higher education tended to reject the populists, but 18 per cent backed the Greens and 11 per cent supported Die Linke.

Merz’s challenge is thus as clear as it is difficult. He must turn around the economy quickly so that those suffering most – the workers, the less-educated, and the young – see significant improvements in their prospects. But doing that in coalition with the SPD, who largely remain opposed to the market-friendly reforms Merz proposes, will prove taxing, to say the least.

Merz also faces a regional divide that he cannot ignore. The AfD won almost every constituency in the former East Germany and Die Linke won most of the others. All five former East German states gave majorities to the three Russia-friendly parties. 

Merz cannot overlook attitudes in the East, then, and must strive for more economic development there even as the quickest route to prosperity might be revitalising the West.

The AfD also made significant inroads in the old West Germany. It won the party vote in two Western constituencies, Gelsenkirchen and Kaiserslautern – firsts for the party. It finished second in the party vote in 110 other Western constituencies, almost all of which were won by the CDU/CSU.

Merz must thus look over his right shoulder as he is forced to move Left to govern with the SPD.

His Bavarian counterpart, CSU leader Markus Soder, will make sure he does. Soder has positioned the CSU in its traditional role as the conservative wing of the centre-right. 

He and his party have ruled out governing with the Greens, as they want a quicker and more dramatic departure from the costly climate-change policies that party insists on. Merz will want to comply, but the SPD may insist on keeping more of those policies than Soder finds optimal.

Migration policy is another area where Merz may be caught in the middle. Merz has taken a firm stand in favour of significantly tightening Germany’s borders and expelling more migrants. 

But the SPD voted against his measures in the Bundestag and will surely resist fully adopting Merz’s measures in government.

One might think the 69-year-old Merz, who has never before held the chancellorship, will not be up to this task. But the legendary German statesman Konrad Adenauer was 73 when he took his first term as chancellor.

Adenauer, who was dubbed Der Alte –“the old man” — made modern Germany, ruling for 14 years and laying the groundwork for its prosperous, pro-Western orientation. Perhaps Merz can become der zweite Alte — the second old man — and perform a similar miracle.

If not, the winds of change will surely finally blow down the old order at the next election.