Why are the CDU so weak even though Germans hate their government?
Dear Reader,
I hope you had a great New Year!
If polling is to be believed, Olaf Scholz is the least popular chancellor in German history at the heads of one the country's most unloved governments.
Regular polling by broadcaster ARD tells us that Germans see Scholz as out of his depth, directionless, and a rhetorical gnome; his ministers from the Greens and the Free Democrats are seen as unable to agree on anything.
In terms of policy, voters are distressed by the government's inability to cut high levels illegal migration. (Even a large majority of voters for the pro-refugee Green party want asylum seekers to be held far away from Germany while their cases are assessed.)
Meanwhile, people are seething at plans to cut CO2 emissions by banning fossil fuel-based technologies. When the coalition announced its intention to make heat pumps obligatory from 2024 onwards, public satisfaction with their work slumped by eight points.
Perhaps the only thing people agree Scholz got right was his early promise to bring about a Zeitenwende in military spending. It’s certainly not a coincidence that the only popular member of his cabinet is Boris Pistorius, his gruff defence minister.
The fact of the matter is that, with the election less than two years away, Scholz' coalition of three (!) parties is on course to win a combined 33 percent of the vote.
Amid such widespread dissatisfaction, Germany’s main opposition party, the Christian Democrats (CDU), should be having a field day.
After all, the CDU aren’t any old opposition party - they are the party of German government.
Nothing tells the story of their success better than the fact that, in the twenty federal elections held since the Second World War, the CDU have won the largest vote share in all but four (one of those was a dead heat; they lost two others by a whisker).
While the intricacies of coalition building mean that they haven’t always been able to appoint the chancellor after winning, the CDU gave us most of the towering figures of German politics: Konrad Adenauer, Ludwig Erhard, Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel.
In terms of legacy, the Social Democrats only have Willy Brandt.
In their own words, the CDU are a Partei der Mitte (party of the middle) rather than a straight up conservative party. As the architects of the German welfare state, the CDU built their incredible electoral success on combining wealth distribution with cultural conservatism.
Going on past form alone, the CDU should be polling at least 40 percent when handed the easy task of playing opposition to an unpopular left-wing government.
Instead, they are hovering around the 30 percent mark and don't seem to be able to go any higher. Voters abandoned ship Scholz throughout 2023, but the CDU barely profited. Instead, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) saw their figures double to over 20 percent.
It is hard to escape the impression that Germany’s long-standing love affair with the CDU is over. But why?
For those on the conservative wing of the party, the answer is clear. Angela Merkel steered the party too far to the left during her 16 years in power. In doing so, she opened a Pandora's Box that the party can't close anymore.
“The CDU is caught in the Merkel trap,” argues conservative columnist Hugo Müller-Vogg. “What went wrong in the sixteen years of her chancellorship is now a millstone around the CDU’s neck. Without Merkel's ‘welcome policy’ in the refugee crisis, the AfD would never have become so strong."
“Merkel was praised for her open-door refugee policies by those who never voted for the CDU anyway. But this, together with some socio-political reforms, has alienated many conservative voters and many of them won’t be won back from the AfD,” argues Müller-Vogg.
There is certainly evidence to back up this theory. Mass migration, shutting off nuclear power, introducing the minimum wage - these were all policies of the Merkel era.
At the zenith of her power in 2015, polling showed that a majority of Germans saw the CDU as a left-wing party. Two years later, a survey of CDU members found that a majority thought the party leadership was “clearly to the left” of their own worldview.
According to many on the right of the CDU, the party needs to make a clear break with the Merkel era by going on the attack against the Scholz government's migration policies and by admitting that policies such as the push towards renewable energy were mistakes.
The problem here: trying to move on from Merkel is the exact path that new CDU leader Friedrich Merz has pursued.
When Merkel was awarded the highest honour of state for her services to the country last year, Merz' right-hand man, Carsten Linnemann, questioned the decision, saying that she made "grievous mistakes" as chancellor.
In his style and temperament, Merz is the polar opposite of the cool and calculated Merkel. Fiery, combative and impulsive, he is constantly getting in trouble for making non-pc remarks about migrants or welfare payments.
Ask most ordinary people what they know of Merz and they will tell you about his complaint that Muslim school boys act like “little pashas” who don’t respect their female teachers.
But pulling the CDU further to the right hasn't helped convince AfD voters that Merz is the man to bring back conservative common sense.
While many Germans may privately tell you that they agree with some of Merz' outbursts, they don’t seem to see him as a future leader. Polling shows that even CDU voters don’t see him as a natural chancellor.
And here we come back to the question of personality.
Whatever Merkel's policy errors, her self-effacing persona was a big part of what made the CDU an election winning machine on her watch.
When Merz took a break from politics for a decade (so that he didn't have to take orders from Merkel), he took a job with hedge fund Blackrock. He famously owns his own private jet. That's not a good look in a country that is deeply distrustful of ostentatious wealth.
Others in the party are unhappy that Merz has spent so much time trash talking Merkel's legacy. They warn that there is no point in dancing to the AfD's tune on immigration. People motivated by this issue will vote for the original anyway, they say.
Head of this camp of moderates is Hendrik Wüst, the young and suave governor in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany's most populous state.
Wüst clearly has his sights on the chancellery (he regularly says that state leaders should have a say in deciding who runs for the CDU). He sees that path back to the country's top office as being sign-posted by the famous Merkel Raute (which marks a perfect symmetry between left and right).
Whereas Merz has struggled to ever say a nice word about his old rival Merkel, Wüst awarded her the Westphalian Staatspreis last year.
Barely able to hold back his admiration, Wüst cooed that: "She made history as an outstanding personality, a formative politician of our time and a great stateswoman." Her most controversial decision - opening the country’s borders to refugees - “made a significant contribution to preventing a humanitarian crisis," he argued.
It is too early to tell whether Wüst has what it takes to drive the party back up to 40 percent. He is still too unknown at the national level for anyone to make a good guess about his popular appeal.
Zoom out a bit though and the answer to why the CDU are in such a rut might not be found in Germany at all. In some ways they are bucking the trend across Europe where the traditional centre-right parties are slumping into electoral ignominy.
In France, Italy and the Netherlands, the old conservative parties are being pushed out by populist rivals. The question for Merz and Wüst may not be how to get the CDU back up to 40 percent... but how to hold on to the 30 percent they still have left.
For what it’s worth, my own feeling is that a more personable and persuasive CDU leader than Merz would be able to push the AfD back down to around 10 percent. A lot depends though on the EU level and whether Brussels can figure out a way of controlling levels of illegal migration.
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I am one of those voters who have would have been a natural CDU voter but have moved to the AFD (with minor reservations) for the simple reason I don't trust them - I see them as part of the elite who have discarded the norms that made the post war Germany/Europe prosperious. Choosing instead to embrace the wacy/woke left. From the green insanity (your podcast on that was excellent) to opening the flood gates of migrants to come and "sponge off the system" while at the same time calling anyone who asks questions a far right Nazi. How can I believe anything will change simply because someone else i in charge.
The second point, more important point, is when does a democracy become just a farce - You vote the wrong way no issue we'll just cancel your vote. As you pointed we have these ridiculous coalition governments all designed to keep the AFD out of power - But as the "elite" are finding out, it doesn't help, it simply drives more moderate voters like myself to them.
Keep up the great work I'm really enjoying your analysis!