Merkel’s a hit with youth for her ability to stay the course

German Chancellor looks set for a fourth term because she is viewed as a symbol of stability

In Iceland, it’s the Pirate Party. In Spain, it’s leftwing Podemos. In France, the communistbacked “La France Insoumise.” Across Europe, the anti-establishment parties noisily demanding radical political change are the ones attracting the youth vote. Until you get to Germany, at least. There, youth are largely lining up behind the country’s centre-right, three-term, 63-year-old chancellor as the country heads toward federal elections on September 24.

And unlike many of their rebellious European peers, German youths say it is precisely Angela Merkel’s promise to maintain the status quo that earns her their vote.

Merkel’s secure position, with her party polling comfortably ahead of all her rivals, is partly due to the turbulent state of affairs today. From the unpredictable pronouncements made by President Trump, to the missiles launched by North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, to the terrorist threat closer to home, many young German voters, like older ones, believe Merkel’s steady hand is precisely what the world needs right now.

But experts also believe youths, faring well in Germany compared to their European Union peers, are generally more conservative today than in the past. And the pro-EU Merkel herself has made conservatism more palatable, by adopting policies on the left that have blurred political ideology.

Vanessa Grothe, who is completing her masters in North American studies in Berlin, says that while many in her circle of friends vote on the left, she has joined the youth wing of Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU). “What Merkel does very well: She stands for stability. And I think that is simply important for many people,” she says in a cafe in the hip Berlin neighbourhood of Kreuzberg. “Not just to make a wishy-washy policy, but a stable one.”

In a survey by the German polling firm Forsa in June, 57 per cent of first-time voters said they back Merkel as chancellor. Germans youths have it comparatively better than those around the continent. With its vaunted apprenticeship program and strong economy, Germany has the lowest youth unemployment in the EU, at 6.7 per cent, compared with France at 21.6 per cent or southern countries such as Greece, which has the highest rate at 46.6 per cent. So Merkel’s promise to keep things the same resonates. “Merkel is telling them, ‘You can trust me. I’ll secure your life’,” says Gero Neugebauer, a political scientist at Berlin’s Free University.

In a YouGov poll that surveyed values of European youths, it was only in Germany that the polling agency found a majority of young people satisfied with their government. Eighty-seven per cent of Greek youths, for example, are dissatisfied with theirs.

“Younger voters usually tend to vote for rather leftwing parties or left-wing candidates, whereas in Germany we have quite the opposite phenomenon,” says Peter Matuschek, head of political and social research at Forsa. He says it has something to do with the long incumbency of Merkel — first-time voters don’t know anyone else. But also, he says, “there is not really a longing, neither in the electorate as a whole nor among younger voters, for fundamental change. We have got this feeling, which would help the opposition parties, that we really need a turnaround.”

Of course, not all German youths want things to stay the same — or want Merkel for another term in office. In the east especially, many are voting for the left and far left. It is there also where the far-right Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) has gained the most traction, both because of Merkel’s ‘open door’ refugee policy at the height of the crisis in 2015 and much higher unemployment. Mandy Marx, a 23-year-old mother, says she will not be voting for Merkel. “She’s spent billions of euros for refugees but we can’t even get teachers here!”

But elsewhere, youths rallied around the humanitarian stance on refugees coming from the centerright. In fact, Merkel’s policies have often crossed ideological lines, making it harder for her competitors to differentiate themselves. Schulz, for example, enjoyed a bounce when he first announced his candidacy in January, but it quickly fizzled.

Since then Merkel supported a law allowing samesex marriage, which Schulz had thrown his support behind. Merkel also took the wind out of the sails of the Greens, when she announced plans to end Germany’s dependence on nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima meltdown in 2011. This stymies her opponents — some have increasingly argued she is damaging democracy by muting debate, including during the one between between Merkel and Schulz on Sunday night.

Yet her policies make it easier for those across the political spectrum to support her. “I think Merkel stands for sort of a soft conservatism that is much more accessible to a lot of young people than the Christian Democrats and their conservatism in the past,” says Joerg Forbrig, a transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the US in Berlin. “If I go back 20 years to the time I was a first-time voter the Christian Democrats were sort of more hard-line conservatives at the time and with it a lot less appealing to young people.”

She’s still more popular among older people. According to a recent Pew Research Centre survey, 87 per cent of respondents over age 50 said they trust Merkel to do the “right thing” regarding world affairs, while for the 18-29 per cent group it was 73 per cent. For all those Germans who applaud Merkel’s European policies, she angered many young leftists with hard-line austerity placed on Greece. Youth unemployment is low but many new jobs are so-called “mini jobs,” far from the quality standards enjoyed by the older generation.

Ulrich Schneekloth, senior director at Kantar Public in Germany, says while it is true that Merkel is trusted among young Germans, whom so many young people feel is unknown, her party itself is not their party of choice. For that reason he says it’s not a given where the youth vote will go September 24.

Merkel seems not to be taking these vulnerabilities for granted, especially as one poll in late August showed nearly half of German voters still undecided. Merkel

has sought to woo young people, campaigning at a computer-gaming convention last month for example, and doing a live YouTube interview where she revealed that her favourite emoji is the smiley face – with a heart emoji added too on particularly good days. It’s unlikely these kinds of moves will change perceptions of Merkel among young Germans. A poll by the German arm of YouGov among teens showed many found her “far away from young people,” and “boring.”

But that’s just fine, says Grothe. “Politics should not be about entertainment, as it has now become more or less in the US,” she says. “We do not need rock stars in politics. This is the responsibility of the entertainment industry.” —Christian Science Monitor

Sara Miller Llana is the Monitor’s European Bureau Chief based in Paris and Rachel Stern

is Correspondent with Monitor