Wednesday 7 October 2009

Two for the price of one – Results in Germany and Portugal

On Sunday 27th September, we saw, amongst other events, the national elections in Germany and Portugal.

My apologies in the lateness of this post and that I haven’t produced an article prior to the Portugal election (this is due in part to my own state of health and lack of readily available sources on Portuguese politics).

Clearly the Grand Coalition is not going to continue, with the CDU able to form a coalition with their preferred partners the FDP. Although there is likely to be something of a shift, particularly on economic policy, the continuation of the CDU in government will lead to a certain degree of consistency, marked particularly in Merkel’s pragmatic approach, along with, to some extent, constraining forces within the coalition such as the CSU. In saying this, the FDP have enjoyed substantial gains, giving them nearly 3/10ths of the seats (93) in the new coalition, and thus potentially more leverage than they have enjoyed in past governments (their best previous result being 79 seats in 1990).

The damage to the SPD has been so great as to reduce them to merely 2/3 of the size of their CDU/CSU rivals. In terms of potential coalitions, it is interesting that, even without personality preferences, neither of the SPD options outside a Grand Coalition, a traffic light coalition or red-red-green variant, would be able to achieve a majority unlike in 2005 (307 or 290 seats respectively, out of a required 312).

Whilst I do not necessarily subscribe to the view of some commentators that this defeat marks the end of the SPD, the poor result would seem to suggest that, short of the effect of ‘events’ and governing crises, we could be looking at another extended period of CDU/FDP rule, like that of the 1980s and 90s, with no workable alternative coalition. If they are to recover, the SPD will also have to work hard to recover voters that have gone to the Left Party or Greens or even simply not bothered to vote.

In Portugal, by contrast, we have seen the ruling Socialist party re-elected, but without a majority in the parliament. Although there are other left-wing parties with sufficient representation to give them a majority, a coalition here seems unlikely. It is more likely that we will see a series of informal issue-by-issue arrangements such as occurred between 1995 and 1999 (inspired by this, I will, at some point in the future, write a fuller comment on minority governments).

It is even possible that we may see such a minority government situation emerging in Germany in the future, bearing in mind the multiple party blocs, some of which are increasingly limited in their choice of potential coalition partners.

(comment on last Sunday's Greek election will follow in due course)