The Economist 07Dec2019

The EconomistDecember 7th 2019 37

1

“W

alter who? Saskia what?” Bild, a

tabloid, posed the question many

Germans will have asked on November

30th when members of the Social Demo-

cratic Party (spd) elected Norbert Walter-

Borjans and Saskia Esken as co-leaders.

The obscure left-leaning duo triumphed by

53% to 45% over a rival pair led by Olaf

Scholz, Germany’s finance minister and

the spd’s best-known politician. Their win

instantly raised the prospect of an early

end to Germany’s coalition, which has al-

most two years to run.

The pair’s victory resulted from a deep

mood of gloom that has settled on the spd

base. The party has spent ten of the last 14

years as junior partner to Angela Merkel’s

Christian Democratic Union (cdu) and its

Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social

Union (csu), and has shed piles of votes

along the way. After a dismal result in the

2017 election, the spdreluctantly signed up

to another cdu/csu-led coalition, securing

a rich haul of cabinet jobs and several con-

cessions in the coalition agreement. Yet

the slump continued. Today the spdbattles

for third spot in polls with the hard-right

Alternative for Germany (afd), well behind

the Green Party.

In June the malaise claimed Andrea

Nahles, the spd’s previous leader, after a

string of poor election results. Mr Scholz

reluctantly threw his hat in the ring, but

many party members recoiled at the con-

tinuity option he represented. Neither Mr

Walter-Borjans, an undistinguished for-

mer finance minister in the state of North

Rhine-Westphalia, nor Ms Esken, a little-

known mpspecialising in digital policy,

looked like charismatic agents of change.

But their flirtation with the idea of bringing

down the government turned them into a

repository for discontent. Irritation with

the high-handed manner of the party lead-

ership also contributed to Mr Scholz’s de-

feat, says Wiebke Esdar, one of the few spd

mps who backed the winning duo.

Now frustration must be translated into

results. On the campaign trail Mr Walter-

Borjans and Ms Esken laid out a number of

demands, including reopening a recently

agreed climate-change package, raising the

minimum wage to €12 ($13.30) an hour and

approving a ten-year €500bn programme

of public investment funded by debt. They

railed against the government’s no-deficit

“black zero” policy, a cducontrivance writ-

ten into the coalition agreement and faith-

fully executed by Mr Scholz. They said the

spdhad to be ready to leave government if

the cdukept its “blockade mentality”.

Yet the new leaders have their work cut

out, for two reasons. The first is that the

cdu’s own difficulties make compromise

hard. Several of its politicians are jostling

for the right to succeed Mrs Merkel, who is

in her last term as chancellor, and kowtow-

ing to Social Democrats does not win votes

inside the cdu. Ruling out a rewrite of the

coalition agreement, Annegret Kramp-Kar-

renbauer, the party leader, said it was not

the cdu’s job to act as a therapist for the

spd. Salvation may come via a clause in the

coalition agreement that allows for policy

German politics

Under new management

BERLIN

The Social Democrats’ new leaders threaten the stability of Germany’s

government

Europe

38 NATO comes to London

39 France f aces huge strikes

39 Malta’s prime minister to quit

40 China and the Czechs

41 Charlemagne: Five fading Stars

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