The resignation of Andrea Nahles reignites questions over the future of Germany’s “grand” coalition
A PALL of uncertainty hangs over German politics after Andrea Nahles resigned as leader of the Social Democratic Party , the junior coalition partner, on June 2nd. Ms Nahles, an SPD veteran who has served in previous governments, will step down from both the party chairmanship and the presidency of its parliamentary caucus. She also said she would leave the Bundestag, without naming a date.
Ms Nahles’s departure, long forecast in some SPD circles, was hastened by a week of grim news for the party. On May 26th the SPD sank to a dismal 15.8% in the European elections, down by 11.5 percentage points on its 2014 result, and lost the city-state of Bremen for the first time in seven decades. A recent poll put it at just 12%, less than half the score of the surging Greens.
The SPD’s woes will hardly end with Ms Nahles’s defenestration. The party’s quarrelsome bench is thin on potential replacements. Beyond a parade of ex-leaders who continue to offer views, solicited or otherwise, Olaf Scholz, the vice-chancellor and finance minister, is the only SPD figure with a national profile, and he has plenty of foes himself. More difficult state elections lie ahead, in Germany’s east. The Greens continue to eat into the party’s voter base.
The case against leaving nonetheless remains strong. The SPD is enjoying some policy success in government, in areas such as arms-exports and immigration. Triggering an election - the likely consequence of walking out - would probably wipe out large swathes of its representation in the Bundestag. Under the gaffe-prone Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer the CDU looks more vulnerable than it has for years. Yet the implicit promise of rejoining the CDU/CSU was that the SPD could renew itself in government.
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