Present-day politics in Germany.

US to force Germany into unhappy marriage with unloved chancellor, by Dmitry Bavyrin for RiaNovosti. 09.22.2024.

It is easier to guess the name of the next German chancellor than the next US president. If everything goes on as usual, Kamala Harris will become president. If another economic "bubble" bursts, Donald Trump will take revenge. But both have a chance.

But you don't even have to guess the name of the German Chancellor. Even though there's still a year until the elections, and a lot will have time to change, his name is Friedrich Merz , the leader of the CDU party . He will head the German government regardless of whether the Germans want it or not.

They don't want to, by the way. According to opinion polls, less than 20% of German citizens name Merz as a suitable chancellor. But there is no choice, even if the procedure is formally connected with elections.

Everything was decided when Merz's potential rivals within the party renounced their claims to power in his favor. At that moment, in the Berlin district of Dorothea, an old lady known to everyone as Angela Merkel sighed sadly . She is one of those Germans who cannot stand Merz.

It is difficult to like him in principle. Firstly, Merz is unbearably boring. Murderously tedious. Outdated in every way. Take a dusty doll out of grandma's chest and hand it to a modern child - you will get the average reaction of the German voter to Friedrich Merz, even if there are still some fans of the old days among them.

To be fair, charisma is not the most important thing for a German politician. Having been burned by the rabid charisma of the thirties and forties, the Germans have sincerely come to love office boredom and are not upset if their leader is as charming as a cabbage. Both the current Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his predecessor Merkel lack charisma. Frau Chancellor successfully exploited the image of the all-German mother or grandmother, and mothers and grandmothers are loved regardless of whether they have charisma or not.

The country was touched, for example, by grandma's modesty: all the years of Merkel's chancellorship she lived in her small apartment in Dorothea. Merz is a multimillionaire with two private jets, which he manages himself. But even while managing his private jets, he manages to remain boring.

For a German politician of his stature (the future chancellor is no joke!) he is unique in that he has no experience in public administration, which has not happened to chancellors since the time of that same rabid charismatic. Merz became an MP and an expensive lawyer early on, is known as a brilliant financial specialist and a talented legislator, but has never risen to power. Because as a politician, Merz is a chronic loser.

Merz passionately fought with Merkel for power in the party, representing the conservative wing. The conservative wing of the CDU is distinguished by a caricatured hatred of communism and extreme liberalism in the economy, which in the modern world only suits Trump. Merkel herself had a leftist bias. She tried to please all the moderates, succeeded in this - and ate Merz. He could not bear the defeat and left politics for many years, announcing his return only when Merkel herself announced her retirement.

Upon his return, Merz lost the fight for the party leadership to two successors of Merkel in a row. And only after the CDU lost power, he finally overtook his obviously weak competitors. He crushed everyone with his stubbornness and disarmed them with his stifling boredom.

And in 2025, his CDU, together with its Bavarian confidant, the CSU, will win the federal elections. Recession, deindustrialization, falling living standards, an influx of migrants, social contradictions - all this will ensure the defeat of Scholz's "traffic light coalition", and it will not be able to fix the situation, there is neither money nor ideas for this.

Merz also has neither money nor ideas for the Germans. But he will become chancellor even if the CDU-CSU bloc (currently the most popular political force in the country) loses the elections to the Alternative for Germany party, taking only second place. According to the principle nicknamed the "firewall", the remaining parties unite into any motley and internally contradictory coalition, just to keep the AfD out of power and the wind of change out of Germany.

Therefore, reform in the brothel is possible only by rearranging the beds. Despite the intention of the Germans to remove from the government the characters who have become boring and have failed, they will not be allowed to do even this in full. The current Chancellor Scholz will most likely remain as head of the Foreign Ministry or the Finance Ministry, his SPD will become the "junior partner" of the coalition led by Merz, and this coalition will pursue more or less the same policy that is being pursued now, causing mainly irritation among citizens.

This is a pan-German Groundhog Day, running in circles around an axis, where the axis is Berlin's de facto subordination to Washington . Merz is an ideological Atlanticist, so it no longer matters what he thinks about migration (he criticizes) or even about the conflict in Ukraine (he used to demand that Kiev be armed to the teeth, now he advocates the start of peace talks).

The loss of industrial competitiveness, the need to spend billions on Ukraine, the destruction of economic cooperation with Russia , the energy crisis - all this is only a consequence of Germany's orientation towards the United States. Whoever is president, Biden, Trump or Harris, Merz fervently believes in America as a reference point, and Scholz did not believe it before, but now he still obeys.

If Germany's external governance is further simplified, with no change of faces even within parties, Merz will still be working as Foreign Minister for the new-old Chancellor Scholz in five years. Since it was not possible to escape from this vicious circle during the period of prosperity, which coincided with the Merkel period, now there will be even less strength.

This is truly a deathly melancholy. In other words, Friedrich Merz.

https://ria.ru/20240922/germaniya-1974048810.html

Scholz's party wins at home against Scholz without Scholz, by Vladimir Kornilov for RiaNovosti. 09.23.2024.

On Monday night, the news feeds were full of headlines: "Scholz's party beats the far right in the elections in the federal state of Germany." This is written about by English, French, American and, let's face it, some Russian publications. In Germany itself, it is difficult to find such headlines. Because everyone there knows that the "merit" of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in this conditional victory of the Social Democratic Party he leads is only that he was completely pushed out of the campaign in Brandenburg. That is, the Chancellor not only did not participate in it, but his name, portraits, even the logo of his party were nowhere to be found.

The most striking thing is that Brandenburg is Scholz's place of residence. His apartment is on the central square of Potsdam , literally two steps away from the Landtag building, where the deputies are elected. Moreover, his wife Britta Ernst worked for six years as the Minister of Education in the Brandenburg government, but last year she was expelled from there by Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke, that is, in some way, Scholz's subordinate along party lines.

The entire campaign of the Social Democrats was built around Woidke, who has headed the Brandenburg government since 2013. They created a personality cult of their state leader, who is much more popular than Scholz. And that is why Scholz was categorically required not to interfere in the local campaign, and Woidke carefully avoided personal meetings so as not to be seen in the same photo with the "toxic" chancellor.

Only once in recent months have they found themselves together at a summer party festival, where, despite the Brandenburg premier's attempts to avoid meeting the chancellor, photographers nevertheless caught them together once. The Tagensspiegel newspaper reasonably suggests: "Woidke would probably have preferred to avoid this joint photo. Because he declared the chancellor persona non grata during his election campaign in Brandenburg." In the end, Scholz even voted by mail, explaining that he had to be in New York on election day.

It should be noted that Brandenburg has always been the patrimony of the Social Democrats. That is, in absolutely every election since the reunification of Germany, the SPD has taken first place, sometimes with a result well over 50%. But it was the failure of the "traffic light" coalition and the personal unpopularity of Scholz that almost led to a catastrophe for this party even in this land. According to some polls, at the beginning of the summer of this year, the SPD in Brandenburg was even in fourth place, behind not only the confidently leading "Alternative for Germany" (AfD), but also the Christian Democratic Union ( CDU ) and the Sahra Wagenknecht Union (SW).

It was then that the local Social Democrats decided to distance themselves completely from Scholz and build their campaign exclusively around Woidke. Portraits of the Brandenburg Prime Minister were everywhere. Even his baldness was played up - towards the end of the campaign, most SPD posters bore the slogan: "If we're going to have skinheads, then Woidke is better." And the main PR move by the Social Democrats' headquarters was the printing and mailing of 1.2 million copies of the glossy magazine "Woidke," where every page featured his photo - with his wife, his children, his voters, the contents of his refrigerator, a playlist of his favorite songs. Just one of the 16 pages briefly listed three points from his political program. And imagine, all this was supposed to make voters vote for the entire party list!

But the decisive factor in the last three weeks before the vote was the success of the AfD in the elections in Thuringia and Saxony . This is where the entire arsenal of intimidation of the left-wing voters of Brandenburg was turned on. "Us or them. Only the SDP can stop the victory of the Alternative" - ​​this was the main argument that was heard from all irons. In fact, the technology of the second round of the parliamentary elections in France worked , when left-wing voters were called on to vote tactically in order to prevent the victory of Le Pen's party. And in the end, Woidke generally resorted to a kind of ultimatum, declaring that he would immediately resign if the Alternative took first place. And the tactics, in general, worked.

But this turned out to be a double-edged sword. By calling for a vote "against the far right", the Social Democrats were draining the votes of their potential allies - primarily the Left and the Greens. The latter even called the SPD vampires that were sucking out their voters. As a result, the Greens failed to get into the Brandenburg Landtag for the first time since 2009, failing to overcome the five percent barrier.

The fate of the coalition is now in the hands of the SSV, which took third place. Only by uniting with it (and the SPD categorically rejects an alliance with the Alternative), will the Social Democrats be able to gain a majority. Here we will see how true Wagenknecht's supporters are to her promise to make the partners' refusal to supply weapons to Ukraine a condition of any coalition . In any case, immediately after the vote, representatives of her political force in Brandenburg declared their readiness to form a bloc with the SPD on the condition that it would be "right for the people of Brandenburg" - Ukraine was not mentioned.

Well, the Alternative also claims success, emphasizing that it has become the party that is most supported by young people. "If you're not far-right, you're not cool," The Times quotes a student at a local elite gymnasium as saying, claiming that belonging to the Alternative has become a countercultural social status indicator for Generation Z. Immediately after the election, AfD supporters did not seem upset, declaring that they are looking to the long term and are the "party of the future" of Germany.

It is therefore not surprising that the "victory of Scholz's party" (as it is presented by foreign media) has not removed the question of the German Chancellor. On Tuesday, the SPD leader is expected to return from America and discuss the party's future strategy. Following the results of the elections in Brandenburg, it became clear that the Social Democrats are performing better without Scholz, and the "traffic light coalition" is dragging the party's ratings down. Therefore, the voices calling for replacing the party leader before the federal elections are becoming louder. The main candidate is the much more popular Defense Minister Boris Pistorius . Thus, the "victory of Scholz's party" could be Pyrrhic for him personally.

https://ria.ru/20240923/germaniya-1974161584.html

The political situation in Germany is changing not in Scholz's favor, by Anastasia Kulikova for VZGLYAD. 09.23.2024.

Experts assess the results of the state elections in Brandenburg.

Olaf Scholz's SPD party won the election in Brandenburg, but its lead over the Alternative for Germany is only one percent. Moreover, in order to create a state government of the majority, the SPD will have to negotiate with another political opponent - the Union of Sahra Wagenknecht. What is happening in the German political system?

The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, won the state elections in Brandenburg by a small margin. According to the final results , 30.89% of voters voted for it. In second place with 29.23% of the votes is the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Next comes the Sahra Wagenknecht Union (SWU) with 13.48%. The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) rounds out the top four with 12.1%.

The Greens and Free Democrats (FDP), members of the ruling coalition, failed to enter the regional parliament because they failed to overcome the five percent barrier. The Left Party failed to overcome the electoral limit. The electoral commission reported that the turnout in the elections was 72.9%.

According to the data provided, the SPD and AfD have improved their positions in the region since the last elections (2019), while the CDU showed a lower result than five years ago. Let us recall that in the elections in Brandenburg, the Social Democrats have traditionally gained the majority of votes since 1990.

Elections in the eastern states of Germany generally produce extremely sensational results. Thus, at the beginning of September, the AfD won in Thuringia , gaining 32.8% of the votes. The CDU and SSV also made it into the top three, while the SPD managed to secure the support of only 6.1% of voters.

In turn, the Christian Democrats emerged as leaders in the elections in Saxony with a result of 30.6% . However, AfD lost to them by only 1.3%. Sahra Wagenknecht's party also managed to exceed the expectations of skeptics: 11.8% of Germans voted for it. Even then, the co-chairs of the Alternative Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla called the results of the campaign a "historic success", ZDF reported .

The current regional elections are attracting enormous attention from European experts. Thus, the Bild publication reported at the end of August that this vote could change German policy forever by significantly strengthening the opposition AfD and SSV. The Vzglyad newspaper also examined how the campaign in the territory of the former GDR could affect the volume of Berlin's aid to Ukraine.

"The elections in Brandenburg can hardly be called democratic. The SPD won only thanks to collusion," says Waldemar Gerdt, a former member of the Bundestag. He believes that after the failure in Thuringia and Saxony, they deliberately united with traditional political forces against the Alternative for Germany. "Their main argument was that the victory of the AfD would trigger a series of processes that would be unpleasant for the ruling authorities," the source explained.

That is why, for example, some politicians from the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) openly campaigned for the SPD, Gerdt pointed out. "Angela Merkel's party was counting on the fact that as a result of this collusion, small parties - the Greens and the Liberals - would lose votes, and these players would remain a potential partner for the coalition.

However, in reality, the manipulation of voters' votes turned out to be a shot in the knee.

The CDU has shown a lower result than five years ago. They can no longer govern alone," the politician specified. Moreover, plans to stop the growth of AfD's popularity are also doomed to failure, he added. "Alternative" is the future. Although it must be recognized that the issue of modernization has matured within the association: being an opposition force is one thing, but governing a country is quite another," Gerdt reasons.

According to his forecasts, difficult negotiations on the creation of a state government will take place after the elections in Brandenburg. "It is possible that the SPD will have to negotiate with the SSV. However, there are significant contradictions between them, one of which is assistance to Ukraine," the speaker said.

"If a coalition is formed, either Wagenknecht will "go into reverse" and nullify all his previous statements on the issue of interaction with Kiev, or the Social Democrats will be forced to make concessions. Then, by the way, the role of the SSV will also be clear - was it not created in order to divide the AfD," the interlocutor reasons.

However, he allows for a scenario in which the CDU and SPD come together and Brandenburg becomes a state with a minority government. "This has happened before. If this scenario is realized, we should expect serious fights and battles in parliament on every issue," Gerdt added. In his opinion, despite the success of the right-wing forces, their voice is not decisive -


It will be virtually impossible for them to influence Berlin's actions.


"If you add up the results of the SVS and AfD, it turns out that about 43% of people voted against Berlin's policies, as well as the current German government," the speaker noted. He pointed out the paradox: the SPD is considered the party of workers, but it was during the rule of this political force that the largest reduction in jobs and the number of business bankruptcies were recorded.

"The German population should give a tough assessment of the SPD. I think the western states will also start to wake up, and this will be reflected in the results of the Bundestag vote. Of course, if we do not fall into unrest before that moment, which will make the elections impossible," Gerdt reasons.

Germany is on the threshold of changes in the political landscape, believes German political scientist Alexander Rahr. "The emergence of the SSN and the growing influence of the AfD weaken traditional parties. The liberal elites have accepted this challenge and will now seriously fight for power," he noted. According to him, the local politician Dietmar Woidke, who "fought the elections using populist methods," won in Brandenburg. This is precisely why, according to the interlocutor, the SPD won.

“However, there are difficult negotiations ahead on the creation of a land government.

“It is currently unclear how the SSV, SPD and CDU will find a common political foundation,” Rahr pointed out.

Political scientist Yegor Belyachkov, who specializes in German studies, in turn drew attention to the fact that traditional parties, despite the victory of the SPD, are losing support from voters, especially among East Germans. According to the expert, in this situation, it is advantageous for the AfD to remain in opposition. "A year before the Bundestag elections, such tactics leave the field open for active criticism not only of the parties of the "traffic light coalition", but also of the "Sahra Wagenknecht Union", if it enters the state government," he explained. In essence, we are talking about a potential coalition of the SVN and the SPD.

According to the interlocutor, the Alternative for Germany has proven over the past three state campaigns that it can be a party of a "broad electorate". "Also, the electorate of almost all factions has stabilized. The only exception is the Left Party, which is faced with the question of its continued existence. In general, the 2024 state elections have become a "touchstone" before the vote in the Bundestag in 2025," Belyachkov concluded.

https://vz.ru/world/2024/9/23/1288735.html

German opposition leader pressing for change of course on Ukraine, 10.13.2024.

The conflict between Moscow and Kiev cannot be resolved with “more weapons,” Sahra Wagenknecht has said.

Berlin should make more active diplomatic efforts if it wants the conflict between Moscow and Kiev to end, German MP Sahra Wagenknecht told Funke Media Group on Friday. “More weapons” for Ukraine will not bring peace to Europe, she argued.

The veteran politician has repeatedly criticized Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government over its stance on the Ukraine conflict, saying Berlin’s current policy only helps to fan the flames of war.

“We need more diplomatic efforts,” said Wagenknecht, a former member of the Left Party who established her own party this year – the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW).

“There is a good peace plan by Brazil and China. I hope that Germany and the EU will support such initiatives,” Wagenknecht said. In May, the two nations presented a joint six-point proposal calling for de-escalation, negotiations, and an international peace conference recognized by both Russia and Ukraine.

Brasilia and Beijing tried to advance their initiative at a 17-nation meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in September. Kiev immediately rejected their plan, calling it “unacceptable.” Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky branded it “destructive.”

Moscow welcomed China’s and Brazil’s peace proposals and expressed appreciation that they have received international backing. It expressed doubt, however, about Kiev’s willingness to engage in talks.

In Wagenknecht’s view, Germany should put pressure on Zelensky to “force” him to agree to a certain compromise. China could exert influence on Moscow to make talks possible, she said. “There will be no peace without compromise,” the politician stated.

The lawmaker also warned that current Western policy towards the Ukraine conflict is “insanely dangerous” since it gets NATO “drawn ever deeper into this war.” If the US-led bloc becomes a party to the conflict, this would lead to a direct confrontation with Moscow, she warned. “And this conflict will then very quickly escalate into a nuclear war.”

Asked by journalists whether she is doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “bidding,” Wagenknecht replied that it is “not about being a friend or enemy to Russia, but about peace in Europe and [ending] the war in Ukraine.”

“Without peace, everything else is nothing,” she said, adding that it is high time Germany became “an internationally respected voice that mediates in conflicts and advocates diplomacy.”

Moscow has warned that Western military aid to Kiev drags NATO ever closer to direct involvement in the conflict. This summer, Putin said that Western support for Ukrainian strikes deep into Russian territory is a significant escalation that could spark an “asymmetric” response. Last month, he also suggested changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine that would allow a nuclear response in case of a conventional attack by a non-nuclear state that is backed by a nuclear state.

https://www.rt.com/news/605627-german-mp-change-course-ukraine/

Germany Caught Between Trump and Ukraine, by Pëtr Akopov for RiaNovosti. 11.12.2024.

The ripples from Trump's victory are spreading across the Western world - the Germans were the first to react. Of course, not because Donald is German by origin and is set on a showdown (not just trade) with Berlin-led Europe: the ruling coalition had long been cracking at the seams, and the news from overseas only coincided with its impending collapse. The chances that Scholz's government would last until the next elections scheduled for next September were slim, and after the leader of the Free Democratic Party - the smallest of the entire coalition - Finance Minister Lindner refused to support an increase in the budget deficit, everything was predetermined. Scholz fired Lindner, and it became clear that early elections were ahead. The only question was when to hold them: early spring or earlier. Scholz wanted to drag out time, but already on Monday he agreed that the question of a vote of confidence could be raised in the coming weeks. The Bundestag will refuse to support the cabinet, and early elections will be called – most likely for early February. As a result, by March the new American president will have a new main European partner: Friedrich Merz, the head of the CDU, will become chancellor. So everything is so simple and easy?

No. Firstly, because the Bundestag elections themselves will be a test for the German political system, and secondly, because one of the main topics of the election campaign will be support for Ukraine. More precisely, it has already become one - Chancellor Scholz accused Lindner of wanting to finance Kiev at the expense of German pensioners: "There are not many other countries that can afford to direct more than 12 billion euros to support another country that is at war, while saying: we will do this at the expense of the budget. We have tried this several times.

But now we have reached the point where, according to the plans of the former finance minister, the talk is about financing by cutting pensions, by taking money from local communities, by using funds that are not enough to modernize our country. Among the proposals was a small change in the pension calculation formula, which ultimately always means cutting pensions. Should citizens, pensioners, men and women pay for this? The answer is no."

If we add to these words of Scholz his statement yesterday that he decided to talk to Putin in the near future ("Soon"), it might seem that the outgoing chancellor has decided to change his policy towards Ukraine. But this is not so: the Ukrainian issue is simply becoming an increasingly important domestic political factor, so the SPD led by Scholz will play it up in every possible way in the fight against its competitors.

And they are absolutely all the other parties that have a chance of getting into the Bundestag - except for the SPD, there are five more. The Social Democrats are guaranteed to lose the post of chancellor - the new coalition will no longer be formed under their leadership. But they may well remain in power as a junior partner - already under the leadership of the CDU headed by Merz. This option - the so-called grand coalition, which has already formed more than once in the history of the FRG - now seems the most likely, but for it to become a reality, the SPD needs to perform well in the elections.

"Good" means not to fall below 15 percent, and to do that they need to do everything they can to drown their rivals. The Social Democrats cannot take votes away from the CDU: Merz's party will get more than 30 percent, if not all 35. The Alternative for Germany will be second: they will have around 20 percent, or even more. The SPD seems to be guaranteed third place, but it is one thing if it is with 15 percent, and quite another if it is with 10-12 percent. Then they will be closely followed by the heavily weakened Greens and the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance , which will enter the Bundestag for the first time. The alliance attracts former SPD and Left voters. That is, the Social Democrats need to stop the flight of their supporters and make themselves the only partner for the CDU - and the Ukrainian issue is best suited for this.

When Scholz accuses Lindner of wanting to help Ukraine at the expense of German pensioners, he practically sinks the liberal FDP - it is already teetering on the edge of the five percent barrier to enter the Bundestag (if there are no liberals in parliament, the CDU will not have the opportunity to invite them into the coalition). Talking about plans to talk to Putin, Scholz signals to that part of the voters who are against escalating the conflict with Russia and for negotiations with Moscow : why should you go to Sahra Wagenknecht, we are also ready for a settlement. Will they believe Scholz? Unlikely, but the chancellor can't come up with anything better.

The Social Democrats, the oldest party in Germany, have already effectively sunk into the ranks of minor parties, and the rise of the newborn "Sahra Wagenknecht Union" is a death sentence for the SPD. Of course, they will not be dealt a fatal blow in this election, but their relative "victory" may well be Pyrrhic.

Because, by entering into a coalition with the openly Atlanticist CDU (Merz proposes to issue an ultimatum to the Kremlin to cease hostilities, and in case of its rejection to start supplying long-range missiles), the SPD will finally lose its face. They will do to it the same thing that it did before (for example, during Merkel's time) to junior coalition partners, that is, "they will suck all the blood." And the "Sahra Wagenknecht Union", which is in opposition, will gain popularity and by the next Bundestag elections it will be able to overtake the SPD.

The Alternative for Germany will not waste any time either: while the Alliance criticizes the new government from the left, targeting the SPD, the AfD will strike from the right, hitting the CDU. So both participants of the future "grand coalition" will come to the 2029 elections in their worst shape and will not even be able to get a majority of votes together. While the AfD together with the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance will control up to 40 percent of the seats in the Bundestag.

And this will, in essence, mean the collapse of the German political system, built around cutting off the “radicals,” that is, those who do not agree with Germany’s limited sovereignty and the stranglehold of “Atlantic solidarity,” with all the ensuing consequences—for Europe first and foremost.

https://ria.ru/20241112/germaniya-1983170983.html