This German election is confusing and unpredictable, because Merkel, who has been in power for 16 years, does not seek re-election. This situation is very rare in German politics and is called "predictable".
After Merkel, her coalition party launched the Prime Minister's Office in Laschet. Although Merkel herself stood on Rachel's podium many times before the general election, it is a pity that Rachel failed to carry the banner in the end, and the Coalition party lost to the former ruling partner Social Democratic Party with a gap of 1.6% (preliminary vote count).
After the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance Party, the Green Party won 14.8% of the votes. In addition, the Liberal Democratic Party, the German Choice Party and the Left Party won 1 1.5%, 10.3% and 4.9% of the votes respectively (all the above are preliminary vote counting results).
202 1 Preliminary Counting Results of German Federal Parliament Election
Since the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance Party are almost tied, it is still full of suspense who can successfully form a cabinet in the future. Why did this happen in the German election? What are the options for the next cabinet negotiation? What uncertainties will emerge in German politics in the post-Merkel era, especially in China policy?
Around the above questions, I interviewed Jiang Feng, a researcher at Shanghai International Studies University, Cui Hongjian, director of the European Institute of China Institute of International Studies, and Zhu, a researcher at the German Research Center of Tongji University.
Cui Hongjian said: "From the fact that Social Democratic Party candidate Schultz dressed himself as Merkel's successor, it can be seen that Merkel still has great influence in German politics. Whoever becomes the new leader of Germany in the future may live under the influence of Merkel for a certain period of time. Whether it is personal ability, personal reputation or policy framework, everyone will consciously or unconsciously compare him with Merkel, which may be the pain of her successor. "
Zhu believes that Schultz played the card of "Merkel's successor" to Merkel's classic diamond gesture, which perfectly catered to the psychology of German voters "seeking change on the surface but not changing in their bones".
In terms of forming a cabinet, the above two scholars believe that it is very reluctant for the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance Party to return to the "Grand Alliance". It is very likely that the Social Democratic Party or the Coalition Party will take the lead and the three parties will form a cabinet together. However, Jiang Feng pointed out that a "grand alliance" is entirely possible, because there has never been a complicated situation in German history in which three parliamentary groups support one government.
Laschet (left) and Scholz (right) know the preliminary vote count results.
Why did you choose this?
In this German general election, 62 1 1 candidates from 47 political parties will compete for at least 598 seats in the Bundestag. The preliminary vote count shows the votes of six political parties that finally entered the Bundestag in the last general election:
Social Democratic Party (SPD), with 25.7% of the votes, stands for red, and its political position is left. Chancellor candidate Schultz is currently Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, and was the mayor of Hamburg.
The Union Party, with a vote rate of 24. 1%, represents the black people, and its political stance is correct. The Alliance Party consists of CDU and CSU, which is a sister party only active in Bavaria. Chancellor candidate Rachel is the chairman of CDU and the governor of North Rhine-westfalen, the most populous German state.
Die Grünen, 14.8% of the votes, representing green, left-leaning political stance. The candidate for prime minister is Anna Lena Berber, one of the party chairmen.
The Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), with the vote rate of 1 1.5%, stands for yellow, and its political position is center-right.
The German Alternative Party (AfD) won 10.3% of the votes, representing the blue and far-right political positions.
Di Kelin, who won 4.9% of the votes, represents the red color, and his political position is extremely left.
Preliminary vote count results
For this election result, Jiang Feng, Cui Hongjian and Zhu all expressed their expectation.
"Now the gap between the two parties is too small, even if the gap between the preliminary vote count and the final result is not too big, it may be more important," Cui Hongjian said. Under normal circumstances, the two results are the difference after the decimal point, but now the election between the two parties is so tight, it is really hard to say. It's like a sports competition. It's starting to score points.
Zhu said: "As far as Scholz and Rasheed are concerned, Scholz is strong and Rasheed is weak, but as far as parties are concerned, the Social Democratic Party is not as supportive as the Coalition Party. In history, the Social Democratic Party has not been in power for a long time, and more time has been in power in the Coalition Party. Therefore, from the perspective of the party, it must be that the Coalition party has a slight advantage. If these two aspects are balanced, there will be such a result. "
Jiang Feng said that the results of the German election reflected the weakness of the traditional big party, and the tradition that the traditional big party alternately dominated German politics and political life became history. Even if the two major parties unite, it has reached the weakest moment in history, and even reached the point where it is impossible to form a government. This situation has never happened in German history, which is a historic change.
Jiang Feng believes that Germany is now "flat in political territory, rich in political color spectrum and scattered in political power."
Regarding the reasons for the current political fragmentation in Germany, Zhu analyzed that the fundamental contradiction in the capitalist world is no longer a simple contradiction between labor and capital, and the contradictions have become more diversified. In the past, the Alliance Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Liberal Democratic Party all looked for their positions in the political spectrum from the perspective of labor relations. Later, with the rise of the anti-globalization German Choice Party and the Green Party concerned about environmental issues, they got a slice of the traditional political parties, which is a very important reason for the fragmentation of political parties. So now the political spectrum has become a multidimensional spectrum. Unlike before, there was only one axis, but now there are many axes.
Cui Hongjian said that this is related to the stage of national development. Before the reunification of Germany, there was strong external pressure, so its direction was clear, that is, to complete the reunification of Germany. The direction is clear, and this so-called political struggle and party interests must give way to this overriding goal.
"But when Germany develops to a certain stage, such as wealth accumulation and economic development, some problems will rise to the political level, such as distribution. This time, some discussions between their political parties on internal affairs mainly focused on distribution issues, such as pension issues and minimum wages. At this time, the demand for interests of all classes will increase, which is reflected in the changes in political ecology. Second, Germany's long-standing centrist political alliance has given some small parties room to some extent. For example, the rise of the Green Party and the Choice Party basically started with opposing policies in a certain field. "
Jiang Feng predicted that German international diplomacy would be "stagnant" compared with Merkel's period, and the overall relationship with China should not be fundamentally changed. However, it will be restricted by this different political force, and there will be some local or short-term interference, but the general direction will not change.
Scholz PK Laschet, why can you win?
At the end of April this year, the support rate of the Green Party, which focuses on environmental protection, soared to 30%, but soon, a series of scandals such as fake resumes and plagiarism of prime minister candidate Berber shattered the political dream of the Green Party, and the support rate of the Green Party quickly fell below 20%.
Rasche, the candidate of the Alliance Party, was criticized for his performance in the COVID-19 epidemic and this summer's floods. When he accompanied German President Steinmeier to inspect the flood area, his untimely laughter was strongly criticized by the outside world, which greatly reduced his reputation.
The laughter and laughter during the inspection of the disaster area became the watershed of the Coalition party election, and the poll data never recovered until it was overtaken by the Social Democratic Party at the end of August.
When German President Steinmeier visited the disaster area, Rachel was photographed joking with her colleagues. Source: German media
Interestingly, Schultz, the prime minister candidate of the Social Democratic Party, generously played the card of "Merkel's successor" and even appeared on the cover of the magazine with Merkel's classic diamond gesture. Agence France-Presse said that despite being considered "boring", Scholz's popularity has always been far ahead of Lacher.
Schultz imitated Merkel during the campaign and put on Merkel's classic "diamond gesture"
Zhu analyzed: "We put aside inappropriate actions such as Rushett's smile. In fact, this person is not very dominant. As the prime minister candidate recommended by the Coalition party, he is naturally in a dilemma, because Merkel was not elected and she retired. "
"People are not satisfied with the Alliance Party now, which is very important because its campaign platform this year is nothing new. But now voters want to change, and when they want to change, the Coalition party launched Rachette, who blindly followed Merkel, but he was a low-key version of Merkel. Voters will think that I am a little tired of Merkel and want to have a new face, but if the new face you come up with is just a low-key version of Merkel, it is not as good as the original. Of course, I am not interested in you. "
So there is a saying in Germany that Rachel fell into the "Merkel trap". Zhu added that Rachel had no way to deny Merkel, because Merkel was undoubtedly very successful. Denying Merkel will put the party in an awkward position and make voters wonder what your party's position is. The Alliance Party has been in power for 16 years. Why should we deny ourselves? But if you don't deny yourself, there will be great losses, because there is no way to change.
Zhu said: "It is not appropriate for Rachel to do anything. It's hard to shine during the campaign, he can only seek stability. If he hadn't made a mistake, he might have waited until Merkel handed him the baton smoothly, but he made a mistake reluctantly. I won't draw a lottery, but I haven't done it yet, so I won't. "
Schultz is Merkel's successor. "But he has the advantage," said Zhu Dui. "He has the advantage because although I am very similar to Merkel, I have changed my political party and catered to the changing psychology of the Germans. But in fact, voters know that in recent years, the Coalition party and the Social Democratic Party have been leaning to the middle. In the past few years of joint governance, the Social Democratic Party has not delayed the Alliance Party. So this drama can be sung by anyone else, and there will be no earth-shaking changes, but it is stable after all. Therefore, Scholz is also trying his luck between change and invariance. "
Cui Hongjian believes that this election was very difficult for the German people from the beginning, especially for the supporters of the Alliance Party. On the one hand, Rachel's support rate is getting lower and lower, but everyone still has basic support for the Alliance Party. "People don't want to choose Rachael when choosing candidates, but prefer to choose the Coalition party when choosing political parties. This may exist, so I think this is the main factor that exacerbates the uncertainty of this election. "
How does the new government match colors?
The Social Democratic Party won the general election and gained the priority of forming a cabinet. How to form a new government will be a major attraction in the future.
Forming a cabinet is the most uncertain stage after the election, which is called "black box". The result of forming a cabinet depends on how political parties negotiate and compromise, not the preferences of voters. In this process, we can see the possibility of forming a cabinet like a palette.
According to the German Constitution, a single political party or a combination of political parties must occupy more than half of the seats in the parliament to form a government. Judging from the current election situation, the new federal government is likely to have three parties in power.
Zhu said: "Although the Social Democratic Party has the priority to form a cabinet, in fact all contacts and games are carried out at the same time. This time, few people chose to form a cabinet. Once the Social Democratic Party's "traffic light alliance" fails to form a cabinet, it can only be formed by the alliance party group. If we do not consider the opinions of other political parties, Laschet and Scholz are almost in a state of reciprocity on the issue of forming a cabinet. "
Source: Observer Network
"This is what we usually call the reaction of German political fragmentation," Cui Hongjian said. With the Social Democratic Party taking the lead in forming a cabinet, the "traffic light alliance" is the most likely.
The "traffic light alliance" is a combination of red, yellow and green, that is, "Social Democratic Party+Liberal Democratic Party+Green Party". But from the political spectrum, the Green Party is more to the left and the Liberal Democratic Party is more to the right. The two parties are farther apart, and their policy propositions are more contradictory.
Cui Hongjian said: "In the traffic light alliance, the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party are more similar, but there are also problems between the Green Party and the Liberal Democratic Party, which is why Schultz does not rule out the possibility of forming an alliance with the left party."
If the Social Democratic Party and the Left Party form an alliance, it will form a "red-green combination", that is, Social Democratic Party+Left Party+Green Party. But at present, this combination may be zero, because the votes of these three parties add up to less than 50%.
Previously, Schultz did not rule out that finding a left-wing party to form a cabinet has also become a major handle for other political parties to attack the Social Democratic Party. Cui Hongjian said, "Because the Left Party and the Choice Party are listed as alternative political parties in Germany, to a certain extent, these traditional political parties are out of reach. Touching it shows that there is something wrong with your policy path. Although the Social Democratic Party was attacked for this, they still did not let go, which shows that the Social Democratic Party still has doubts about the collocation of the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party, and it wants to leave a successor. "
Zhu also said that some political views of the left-wing party are too different. For example, it opposes NATO and advocates Germany's withdrawal from NATO. After Schultz said that he did not rule out the formation of a left-wing party, some European countries were putting pressure on Germany, saying that they did not want to see a left-wing alliance.
Various possible alliance combinations
In the case that the Social Democratic Party is not ahead, it is also very likely that the Coalition Party will take the lead in forming the "Jamaica Alliance", that is, the combination of "Coalition Party+Green Party+Liberal Democratic Party" (the colors of the three parties are the colors of the Jamaican flag, so it is also called "Jamaica Alliance Observer Net Note").
"For small parties, they are definitely more inclined to combine with big parties," Cui Hongjian said. "But now the two big parties are almost the same, which means that the first priority to form a cabinet and the second priority to form a cabinet have almost the same attraction to small parties. In this case, small parties will put their political opinions, especially the demands of power distribution, into the negotiation of forming a cabinet.
However, he also mentioned that if the asking price of these two parties rises, such as taking away all important ministries and commissions such as finance, diplomacy and economy, there will only be one post of prime minister. In this case, whether the Social Democratic Party or the Coalition Party takes the lead in forming a cabinet will be considered, because such a division of power will be very unfavorable to the decision-making of the future government.
Jiang Feng believes that it is extremely difficult for Lacher to form a cabinet. First of all, the Alliance Party got the worst support rate in history, ranking second. In the process of forming a cabinet, the Coalition party will also be pressured by the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party, so it will be very difficult. Before the general election, Sodell, the leader of CSU, said that it was hard to imagine forming a cabinet when the vote rate was not the highest, and he was psychologically prepared early.
Of course, another possibility is to return to the "grand alliance", that is, the Social Democratic Party and the Alliance Party will join hands again. However, Cui Hongjian and Zhu agreed that the possibility of "black and red" joining hands again is extremely small.
It took Merkel nearly half a year to form a major league last time. "It was difficult last time, and it should be said that it is more difficult this time." Cui Hongjian said that the distribution of positions and power is the first problem. In addition, the Social Democratic Party may find it difficult to accept the major leagues. Now it is finally even with the Alliance Party. At this time, we will definitely try our best to win over other groups instead of the "big alliance."
Cui Hongjian also mentioned that back to the current "big league", the combined votes of the black and red parties are only 49.8%, less than 50%, so a third party needs to join to form a "red and black X combination". This competition will be fierce. Green Party or Liberal Democratic Party?
20 17 general election and 20021general election: german election commission.
Zhu analyzed that both the black and red parties are taking a relatively middle line. When the two political parties are together, the characteristics and political orientation of the political parties as small partners in power will become more vague. For example, on 20 17, the Social Democratic Party did not want to form a "grand alliance" with the Alliance Party in any case, because in the "grand alliance", the Alliance Party stole all the Social Democratic Party's issues, "black with red" and absorbed a part of the Social Democratic Party's red spectrum for itself. If the Coalition party has recognized all the major issues of the Social Democratic Party, what is the significance of the Social Democratic Party?
"If a major league is formed this year, the Alliance Party will become a small partner, which is even more disastrous for the Alliance Party. Compared with 20 17, the support rate of the Coalition party has dropped a lot. If he enters the major leagues again, Scholz can take away the issues of the Coalition party backhand. For the Coalition party, it may fall into a dilemma similar to that of the Social Democratic Party and cannot find its own political position. "
"Now both the Liberal Democratic Party and the Green Party have made it clear that they are willing to form a cabinet with anyone. Although the LDP is more inclined to cooperate with the Coalition party because they are closer to the Coalition party in political views, they will not reject the Social Democratic Party. As long as these two small parties are willing to form a cabinet, there is actually no big obstacle, unless they posted another one at that time and temporarily said that I would sit on the ground and start the price. Without this trouble, both the' Traffic Light Alliance' and the' Jamaica Alliance' can be realized. "
Zhu added: "Obviously, the Green Party follows the Social Democratic Party. They made it very clear in the later debate, and now it's up to the Liberal Democratic Party. So now the German media say that lindner, chairman of the Liberal Democratic Party, may be the biggest winner, and in the end it depends on which way he takes. If he gnashes his teeth and doesn't form a group with red and green, it may be the Jamaican Union. "
And if lindner is on Lacher's side, then the ball will fall on Berber, the prime minister candidate of the Green Party, and Berber will make an offer with Lacher. This process is like "playing cards", and they enter a very complicated playing time.
Jiang Feng believes that it is not completely impossible for the black and red parties to return to the "grand alliance", because there has never been a complicated situation in German history in which three parliamentary groups support one government. For the Social Democratic Party, it should also be attractive to lead a new grand coalition government. In the past, two political parties could form a cabinet. If there is a three-party cabinet, it will be a historic change. Therefore, their political communication and coordination meeting will undergo great structural changes.
Since it took 65,438+0,765,438+0 days to form a cabinet after the last general election, it is inevitable that people will speculate that this cabinet formation will last for a long time.
In this regard, Cui Hongjian and Zhu Yu both think that it is not necessarily.
Zhu said that after the Coalition party won last time, the Social Democratic Party refused to form a grand Coalition government with it, and the "Jamaican" alliance formed by the "black, yellow and green" parties became the only choice. However, the Liberal Democratic Party suddenly withdrew from the joint ruling negotiations on the grounds of different political views and lack of mutual trust, so Germany was deadlocked in forming a cabinet. In the end, the Federal President Steinmeier came forward to mediate, and the Social Democratic Party agreed to join hands with the Coalition party again to get Germany out of the political dilemma. However, this year is only a process of negotiation and quotation. This process may be painful, but it may not last long, and it is unlikely that there will be such a situation as 20 17.
Cui Hongjian believes: "The election result of the last general election was somewhat unexpected, because no one expected that the Coalition party could not obtain a majority of seats that were easy to form a cabinet. This time, this uncertainty has been released in advance. Now that everyone knows the situation, it is not excluded that all parties will conduct some private transactions in advance. In this case, a situation may arise. Although this year's election is difficult to predict, the formation of the cabinet will be faster than the last one. "
What was the election like in Germany?
First of all, it needs to be clear that Germans do not directly vote for the prime minister, they choose the members of the Bundestag.
German general elections are Bundestag elections, which are held every four years. On September 26th this year, the German people elected the 20th Bundestag. The Bundestag has at least 598 seats and is elected by voters in 299 constituencies.
/kloc-German citizens aged 0/8 have the right to vote automatically. About 60.4 million people are eligible to vote in the 20021general election, and every vote is equally important. Voters can vote by mail or in person at polling stations. Many German media said that due to the COVID-19 epidemic, more voters may vote by mail in this election.
On each ballot, voters need to check two places, which is actually equivalent to one person casting two votes:
The picture shows the votes obtained by German voters on 20 17, with one vote for the people and one vote for the political party.
The first vote is for the candidate you like in your constituency. The person who gets the most votes in this constituency becomes a "directly elected member" and gets a seat in the Bundestag directly, so the first vote will determine 299 seats.
The second vote is for the political party you trust, and the political party will allocate the seats in the House of Representatives to its own members.
In contrast, the second vote is more important because it affects the seats that each political party can get in the Bundestag and its chances of forming a government. For example, if a political party gets 30% of the secondary votes, it can also occupy 30% of the seats in the Bundestag in the future.
However, if a political party wants to enter the Bundestag, it must obtain more than 5% of the secondary votes, which is to avoid the legislative deadlock caused by too many political parties.
However, if a political party obtains a higher proportion of "directly elected seats" through the first ballot than its second ballot, it will obtain the so-called "excess seats". In order to eliminate the imbalance between the parties, other political parties can also obtain "compensation seats" according to the proportion of votes, which will eventually lead to an increase in the total number of seats in the Bundestag.
When all the members of the Bundestag were confirmed, the formation of the government began.
According to German law, political parties and coalitions of political parties that have won more than half of the seats in the Bundestag can form a cabinet. However, since no political party can directly win more than half, after the election results are announced, all political parties will form a cabinet through consultation to determine the policy agenda and cabinet positions of the new government. Generally speaking, the party with the most votes has the initiative to form a cabinet and produce a prime minister, but there are also precedents in history in which the party with the second most votes has successfully formed a cabinet with other political parties.
After the formation of the cabinet is confirmed, the members of the Federation formally hold the prime minister election, and the prime minister is nominated by the president and the members vote. Since the ruling Coalition has more than half of the seats, its prime minister candidates can usually vote.
We will wait and see how the new government will match colors after this election.