Voice # 111 - Continue? The GroKo after the state elections
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How do the party leaders of the SPD and the Union deal with the results of the parliamentary elections in Saxony and Brandenburg? What does this mean for the grand coalition in Berlin? And can the CDU party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer now take a deep breath?
In the new episode of the Voicemail Podcasts, we discussed the effects of the elections in Saxony and Brandenburg with our colleagues Florian Gathmann and Veit Medick.
They explain why the Grand Coalition, despite the strong loss of votes in the two state elections, is not yet finished, how the treatment of the governing parties differs with the AfD and the consequence of the election result on the SPD's chairman search.
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The complete transcript
[00:00:02] Yasemin Yüksel Welcome to Stimmenfang, the political podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE. I am Yasemin Yüksel.
[00:00:09] Paul Ziemiak (CDU) Ladies and gentlemen, these results from tonight, these mixed feelings ...
[00:00:14] Manuela Schwesig (SPD) Behind us is an election evening with mixed feelings ...
[00:00:17] Yasemin Yüksel Somewhat contrite, both the CDU General Secretary Paul Ziemiak and the acting SPD leader Manuela Schwesig reacted on election Sunday. Without a doubt - the parliamentary elections in Saxony and Brandenburg have consequences for federal politics. Which these are, whether the pressure on the grand coalition now increases. I want to find out today with my colleagues Florian Gathmann and Veit Medick. Veit, you write in the capital office of SPIEGEL about the SPD and Florian, you write about the CDU / CSU. I am very happy that you two are here today, hello.
[00:00:46] Florian Gathmann Hello.
[00:00:48] Veit Medick Hello.
[00:00:48] Yasemin Yüksel Let's start with you [Veit]. Olaf Scholz, Vice Chancellor and Minister of Finance, surprised me on election night. There he stood in Brandenburg and said the following:
[00:00:57] Olaf Scholz (SPD) First of all, this is a state election, I think that one should not now mix everything together. But I'm really happy for the Social Democratic Party. We can win elections. That is the message that emanates from today. And that's why it has to go on and on over the next few years.
[00:01:06] Yasemin Yüksel Veit, is the joy of Olaf Scholz appropriate? Because in Saxony again, the SPD has again brought its worst state elections result of all time. Is there any cause for pleasure for him?
[00:01:16] Veit Medick I would say she is reasonably realistic. He says so cautiously, this is a state election, because of course, exactly the reproach already suspects that you would otherwise oppose him: Wait a moment, but in Saxony, they have completely ousted. I believe that the Brandenburg election was a huge relief for the SPD. If you look at the framework conditions: devastating performance of the party leadership in Berlin, the polls, which were still very different three weeks ago. Then the 26 percent, I would say almost sensational. Thus the SPD can already live very, very well, because of course it is straight in a totally sensitive situation. The party is divided on the question of how to proceed with the grand coalition, they are looking for a new party leadership. And to have such a moment of reassurance in this phase is, I believe, very, very valuable for the party.
[00:02:04] Yasemin Yüksel Florian, at the CDU ... You were in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus at the beginning of the week.
[00:02:07] Einspieler To the press conference the day after the state elections in Brandenburg and Saxony with party leader and defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.
[00:02:19] Yasemin Yüksel What did you observe there, how was the mood there?
[00:02:22] Florian Gathmann I would say that there is a certain parallelism between the SPD in Brandenburg and the CDU in Saxony. Because the almost 33 percent that Michael Kretschmer has brought in Saxony, then for the CDU have also been beyond the expectations and they just give the party and especially the party leadership to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer a little air.
[00:02:46] Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) We have known for months that this will not be an easy choice. We knew we had to fight for each vote. And if you look at the number of very tight constituencies alone, then that's a confirmation.
[00:03:01] Florian Gathmann Even months ago, it was quite possible that the CDU would not be in first place in Saxony, that the AfD would be in first place there. It was not clear until shortly before the election, whether the top candidate and Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer ever wins his own constituency in Görlitz. That too worked. These are all so small things that helped a bit on the party's election night. She is now far from happy. That's nobody. But you breathed a bit.
[00:03:33] Yasemin Yüksel Would you like to say at the end of the line that these Landtag elections results mean that now for the first time there is peace in the Grand Coalition in Berlin? Does that have a stabilizing factor, Veit?
[00:03:43] Veit Medick For a while, yes, I would say. Of course, there can be no total peace in this Grand Coalition because the calendar is already so restless in the coming weeks and months and so unpredictable that everyone in the coalition is sitting there wondering: we do not really know exactly how can go on. It is true that they now want to focus on the essential - so it seems to me at least - on the essential content points, and then also in front of their respective parties to step - especially in the SPD - to say: See we've done a little something in this Grand Coalition. So please give us the mandate now.
[00:04:19] Florian Gathmann I also see it like Veith. Peace will not come, because in truth there has never been peace in this coalition. And a coalition, I believe, will remain a hangover until the last day of its existence because it was a hanging game from the start. I mean, we all still remember how this coalition came about. She was a total emergency nail.
[00:04:41] Yasemin Yüksel Now aside from this alliance of the Grand Coalition - a party emerged very self-confidently from this election Sunday and it is the AfD. Here we hear Andreas Kalbitz, the leading candidate of the AfD in Brandenburg:
[00:04:53] Andreas Kalbitz (AfD) Yes, I would have wished that we would be the icing on the cake as well. But one thing clearly shows this result, this prognosis and then the result: The AfD has come to stay. There will be no politics around us anymore.
[00:05:14] Yasemin Yüksel Would you say that the ruling parties have now found a way or found their strategy to deal with the AfD?
[00:05:22] Veit Medick Well, I would say if it's a strategy, I do not know ... But the clear message, at least from the Union side, is that we do not co-opt with the AfD. Of course, this is a real problem for the AfD, as it is actually in the political power deadlock. She has 25 percent here and 27 percent there, but she does not really know what to do with it. She sits there fat and fat in the parliaments, but is ultimately no more than an opposition party. And she has a similar problem as the Left Party in the Bund, which has also been sitting in the Bundestag for 20 years and has made fundamental opposition for years in the belief that it can somehow exploit a huge potential for protest. But because she has never turned her strength into real power, there is now some disappointment. The same could also threaten the AfD - would now be my thesis. If their supporters ever ask: wait a minute, we'll choose them, but somehow much more than sending a protest note to Berlin, that's not true. Maybe it will take ten years, but I do not consider it impossible that then, as it were, the AfD success could also do by itself, because just lack of connectivity to the bourgeois camp.
[00:06:36] Florian Gathmann I also believe that real strategy is not. And in nuances, there are indeed quite different approaches. I would say, Dietmar Woidke in Brandenburg has been much harder against the AfD occurred.
[00:06:48] Dietmar Woidke (SPD) I believe that it is really crucial that non-voters this year vote for a choice that will be crucial to the direction of the country, not offenders and To become right-wing populist.
[00:07:00] Florian Gathmann That was basically. These are the Nazis and we are the good guys. That's not what Michael Kretschmer did for the CDU in Saxony. He has deliberately said: We are indeed the friendly, positive face. But he did not say that anyone who chooses the AfD is a Nazi immediately and that this is just a Nazi party. It's a bit different and yet I think Veit is absolutely right. You can only make opposition and in truth you can tell in Berlin. It is this stubborn objection and that naturally leads to the fact that the people, as Veit says, who used to vote for the Left Party in protest, are now more likely to go to the AfD. But that could get tired someday, because they also notice that everything has nothing at all.
[00:07:45] Yasemin Yüksel However, we already notice that the AfD sometimes by their presence in the opposition massively tightened the debates and distorted draws in a direction that we probably all at the table not necessarily want to go along.
[00:07:56] Florian Gathmann That's right, that's right. But then, for example, I would like to take a different look at it, just as the colleagues of the taz have done these days, who have also pointed out: The AfD leads of course - already in recent years, but now also with this strong result - that basically politics becomes more interesting again because other parties have to work harder because other parties are challenged to be better, to be more concrete, more with the people ...
[00:08:28] Yasemin Yüksel to be a dispute ...
[00:08:31] Florian Gathmann -... to be more argumentative. This is really exhausting. We notice that every day in Parliament too. It is partly up to the almost physical confrontation then between the deputies. But that also offers opportunities.
[00:08:43] Yasemin Yüksel But that leads me to another question and that sounded to you, Veith, actually already a bit through. I believe that a general statement, which we can now also conclude on the elections there to Saxony and Brandenburg, is that these, as we are used to, are twins in coalitions - this time is more or less over. Does that have to be bad per se? That it is more difficult - without question. I sign that. But does it always have to be bad?
[00:09:06] Veit Medick I would say no. To be honest, the Grand Coalition in Berlin was mostly a coalition of three partners in the last year and a half. Since CDU and CSU are now really not as a single block occurred. Of course, that made it hard, you have to say. This has not simplified the decision making process. Of course this is a huge spread, if one imagines that in Saxony now possibly the CDU, which is under pressure from the right side of the AfD, must be in coalition with the Greens, who consistently speak against the coal. If they have to coalesce together, that's a pressure situation, which is not so easy to bear.
[00:09:46] Florian Gathmann I also do not think that a three-party coalition has to be worse than the one of two parties. The question is, of course, where these parties come from and the specific problem that now also Saxony stands for is that, with the CDU and the Greens and the SPD, there are three parties that, according to conventional teaching, stand in two different camps , That makes things a bit more complicated.
[00:10:14] Veit Medick Of course there is a small danger with such an unconventional threefold coalition as Kenya or so that of course it is easier to get the impression that the established parties bend so much, only to ...
[00:10:28] Florian Gathmann ... to stay in power ...
[00:10:29] Veit Medick ... preventing the AfD as a power factor in politics and of course that also supports the narrative of AfD supporters, to say: Look, this system is against us or we are against it the system. We against the. And this narrative is already somewhat strengthened by it.
[00:10:44] Yasemin Yüksel Let's take a step closer and look at the top staff of the SPD and CDU. Florian, you were in the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus earlier this week, watched the press conference of Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and the top candidate from both countries.
[00:10:57] Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) We knew it was a hurdles race and it was part of the truth, we did not take some of these hurdles the way we intended to.
[00:11:09] Yasemin Yüksel Did you get the impression that Kramp-Karrenbauer is gaining security after the elections?
[00:11:14] Florian Gathmann I do not know if she's stronger, but she's not weakened either. I would say that is already a small success at the moment.
[00:11:21] Yasemin Yüksel I find it surprising how Michael Kretschmer has positioned such a small tip. He said when he was on the podium together with, among others, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer:
[00:11:31] Michael Kretschmer (CDU) And if I went through the country and had these discussions now for 20 months, then not only to explain, but to make concrete policy out of what I've heard , I've done many things in Saxony - we still have others ahead - but I've also come across many things that are clearly federal politics.
[00:11:52] Yasemin Yüksel So some criticism of her as party leader.
[00:11:54] Florian Gathmann Yes, that's right. He also always tried to make it clear in the election campaign: People, this is not about a federal election, but this is about state election, this is about Saxony. The federal CDU is something different than the state CDU. This is in truth but also a common practice of state politicians who somehow just not have a federal trend that helps them totally. But the truth also means that at the same press conference he unasked again took the floor and raised a hymn of praise on Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer ...
[00:12:25] Michael Kretschmer (CDU) I think that such an electoral success is never a person alone. This has happened a lot in Saxony, but I am very grateful to the party leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer for her support. I would not know a topic in which we have a different opinion in terms of content. But I could tell you a lot of things where she personally helped me.
[00:12:50] Florian Gathmann ... after which one has wondered again whether the fact that he says something like that is not even a sign of how much she needs support. But the fact is, he explicitly praised her and said: We are not really apart in any field and thanked for their support and so on and so forth.
[00:13:09] Yasemin Yüksel And again, Veit, when we look at the SPD. There is such a strange situation, because there is not really a party leadership. There is an acting trio on the party leadership, but there is not really anybody - so it seems to me - whom you know now - would it be successful or it might cling to failure. Manuela Schwesig then joined the Willy-Brandt-Haus at the beginning of the week and said the following:
[00:13:32] Manuela Schwesig (SPD) Behind us is an election evening with mixed feelings and I would first of all like to take this opportunity to thank the voters who have chosen the SPD in these difficult times. It was clear that there would be heavy elections in Brandenburg and Saxony.
[00:13:49] Yasemin Yüksel What is the SPD doing, what is this acting leadership trio doing with the results from Sunday in the two countries?
[00:13:56] Veit Medick Honestly? I think the three presidents do not care about most of the SPD right now because they'll be gone in a few weeks anyway. The SPD is busy finding a new leadership. It is now only about these eight couples who compete and the one individual candidate.
[00:14:12] Einspieler 17 applicants take the Mammoth Tour across Germany. In just two and a half hours the candidates are supposed to convince the comrades every evening. A total of 17 comrades arrive. A single candidate and eight pairs. In Saarbrücken, eight candidate duos will be competing for the first time ...
[00:14:28] Veit Medick These three chairmen are something of a notary in the process right now. Of course they somehow intervene, have intervened, but for the three and their standing in the party, these two elections have had no particular impact. Who can suck a bit of honey out of it, is Olaf Scholz - I would say - because, at least with regard to Brandenburg, he can say: Look, governing does not have to be bad. We can also defend a premiership in difficult times.
[00:14:58] Yasemin Yüksel Therefore, as a reminder: We heard him at the beginning of the episode when he stood on the election night in Brandenburg and said: The SPD can still win elections.
[00:15:05] Veit Medick Exactly. And he has not said so publicly yet, but as I know Olaf Scholz, he will also attribute this moment of stability to the fact that he entered the race for the SPD presidency. And of course he's the best known - by far in the field - and that alone will of course help him, because many members are not as involved in the political context in Berlin and so are we or others. So let's go after that, who do I know and whom I do not know and whom I can somehow trust a little and who does not. And Scholz already has an advantage, I would say.
[00:15:43] Yasemin Yüksel A completely different question that has arisen for me: Where is the Chancellor? Is it just me or is it strangely invisible? Reaction on the election night, little to no appearance in the election campaign ... What is the Chancellor doing?
[00:16:02] Florian Gathmann The person Angela Merkel is actually absent. She has retired completely from the party. She did not appear in Saxony during the election campaign. She was once in between as Federal Chancellor at the Siemens plant in Görlitz, but that was at most indirect campaigning assistance. That was a very conscious decision of her. She is of course still in the committee meetings. There she is in the office and there she also takes the floor, she has now made again on Monday. But she no longer appears in front of the cameras, she does not speak for the party, she no longer has a party mandate. The political person Angela Merkel is of course still very present. After all, the political person Angela Merkel is one of the key reasons that made the AfD so fat, so this anti-Merkel, anti-refugee policy. That is still the core that made the AfD so big. And that, of course, is a bit of a bizarre political situation, of course.
[00:17:07] Yasemin Yüksel After the elections in Saxony and Brandenburg is still before the election in Thuringia. Finally, let's take a quick look. How calm or not do the two governing parties look at this deadline yet to come?
[00:17:21] Florian Gathmann So of course the CDU has something to lose in Thuringia, even if it does not rule there so far. I would say that the SPD does not have much to lose, because it is weak and weak. After all, the CDU was still the strongest party at the last election, but nevertheless could not win the office of prime minister, because Bodo Ramelow as a left-wing politician has formed another coalition. And the [CDU] want of course necessarily - Thuringia was so far for them a so-called ancestral land, until the last state election, the CDU had ruled, sometimes with absolute majorities - to win back this state chancellery. And for the CDU there is Mike Mohring.
[00:17:59] Mike Mohring (CDU) I take tailwind with me to Thuringia. We are all relieved, I think, about the election result - above all in Saxony. And I realize two things. The Left has lost dramatically in both countries, and Michael Kretschmer has succeeded in defending the State Chancellery and getting a government commission after a fulminating race to catch up. That is an incentive for us in Thuringia.
[00:18:21] Florian Gathmann As I said: The CDU has something to lose, because she desperately wants to get back this post.
[00:18:28] Yasemin Yüksel Let's try a conclusion at the end. We are looking towards the end of the year, which means that the GroKo partners will also draw their so-called mid-term review. How are your forecasts? Have these elections now made the continuance of the Grand Coalition more probable, yes or no?
[00:18:42] Veit Medick I would say, rather yes. I think the grand coalition is holding - just a forecast, it can of course be different. But I would say that stops. Because both parties also have no interest in new elections, because the SPD has to ask, of course, is actually worth it to get out now, where in a good year, anyway, the election campaign for the next federal election begins. I think the SPD would help end this coalition, but I do not think it will get through to it.
[00:19:10] Florian Gathmann In the Union as well, there is hardly anyone who has an interest in new elections - especially not the party leader, because, as long as she is not the undisputed number one, she is not interested at all has a debate that starts right away: Can she become chancellor candidate or not? I also believe that the Grand Coalition will last much longer than we all believed some time ago, or as many believed some time ago. You always have to be very careful with forecasts, Veit is right too. But you can still try it anyway.
[00:19:43] Yasemin Yüksel Thank you two. I'll definitely come back to that. We will certainly talk about it here. Thank you Veit, thank you Florian, that you were there.
[00:19:53] Veit Medick Thank you.
[00:19:53] Florian Gathmann With pleasure, thanks.
[00:19:53] Yasemin Yüksel That was votes, the policy podcast of SPIEGEL ONLINE. The next episode of Stimmenfang they hear next Thursday on SPIEGEL ONLINE, Spotify and in all major podcast apps. If you have feedback, please send us an e-mail to voicenfang@spiegel.de as usual. Or use our voicemail mailbox on 040 380 80 400. You can also send us a WhatsApp message to the same number, ie 040 380 80 400. This episode was produced by Matthias Kirsch and me, Yasemin Yüksel. Thanks for the support to Johannes Kückens, Wiebke Rasmussen, Matthias Streitz and Philipp Wittrock. The voice-casting music comes from Davide Russo.
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