Angela Merkel’s veteran ally ousted
GERMAN politicians and media questioned how long Angela Merkel could carry on as chancellor on Wednesday after her conservatives ditched a longstanding ally as head of the parliamentary party, defying her wishes and dealing a blow to her waning authority.
The upset, before an October 14 election in Bavaria in which her CSU conservative allies face heavy losses, follows the third crisis in as many months for her loveless coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD).
“Can Merkel Still Be Chancellor?” splashed top-selling Bild with a photo of the 64-year-old pulling a grim face.
SPD lawmaker Thomas Oppermann tweeted it was an “uprising against Merkel” and Free Democrat Alexander Graf Lambsdorff said it was “the beginning of the end of the grand coalition”.
In an unexpected vote that underscored growing discontent among conservative lawmakers after 13 years of Mrs Merkel as German chancellor, Volker Kauder, lost out to Ralph Brinkhaus in a secret ballot for the party post.
However, many commentators point out that Mrs Merkel’s continued weakness will result in little change in terms of policy.
Lawmakers had gone against the wishes of Mrs Merkel and CSU leader Horst Seehofer who had both called on them to reelect Mr Kauder, a trusty lieutenant who over 13 years helped secure the support of parliamentarians in the euro- and migrant crises.
Many conservatives are still angry over Mrs Merkel’s decision three years ago to let in more than a million migrants.
“The vote shows a desire for renewal,” conservative premier of the state of Schleswig Holstein Daniel Günther said. “There was clearly a certain discontent over national politics,” he told broadcaster NDR.
He added that Mr Brinkhaus wanted to give more weight to lawmakers’ views in policy decisions.
Mr Brinkhaus is not widely viewed as a rebel who wants to oust Mrs Merkel. Although he is slightly to the right of her and more hawkish on financial policy, he has so far been at pains to stress he is on her side.
“I want to support her,” he told public broadcaster ZDF late on Tuesday and he has also dismissed the idea of Mrs Merkel calling a vote of confidence in parliament as “nonsense”. Mrs Merkel’s spokesman also said she would not call a vote.
Mr Brinkmann has specialised in budget and financial affairs and criticised generous aid packages during the euro debt crisis. He also said he wanted to strengthen social integrity.
“Much has been broken in the last three years,” he told ZDF.
In her trademark nononsense style, Mrs Merkel said she would not “sugarcoat” the result and that defeats were part of democracy.
Mrs Merkel is still largely indispensable both to her party and to the “grand coalition”.
Holger Schmieding, economist at Berenberg, said the coalition parties would not gain from bringing her down and triggering early elections as the biggest winners would be the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Greens.