German elections: a quick guide to what's really going on

The more one looks at the German election result, the more one wonders. On the one hand, it is a clear majority (well, 48.4%, but who’s counting?) for a coalition with a clear ideological direction; on the other, a colourful spectrum of intriguing possibilities. The Social Democrats put in their worst performance in the history of the Bundesrepublik; but then so did Merkel’s CDU/CSU, on a record low of 33.8%. In a system where a 5% hurdle was built in to keep out the nutters, Germany has now entered the age of five-party politics: this would still be the case had the hurdle been 10%. How different from the old days, when there was Left and Right and a little liberal party in the middle holding the balance, ensuring that Hans-Dietrich Genscher retained the Foreign Minister slot with the dogged unshiftability of the Vicar of Bray.

But the real attention will of course be on the new government, which will probably take two or three weeks to fit its disparate parts together. Yes, they’re all singing from the same hymn-sheet as regards capitalist conservatism of a faintly Cameroonish tinge: but there are considerable differences which will need bridging. Even Merkel’s own party is actually two parties, linking the solid but open-minded Protestant work ethic, from which the Chancellor herself hails, to the stuffier do-as-you’re-damn-well-told types from what might be called the Ratzinger country. Add in the bouncy, terribly progressive, turbocapitalists of the FDP – hedge funders meet the Stop the War Coalition – and you’ve got quite a rich mixture. The FDP want to slash taxes – Merkel, who happily endorsed a raising of the top rate in her outgoing government, does not appear to see that as a panacea. The FDP want to run down participation in the “war on terror” to a point just short of open revolt against the US; Merkel remains a solid Atlanticist. This might be even more exciting than the three-party squabble over the future of the Left on the other side of the house.

We shall see. But I would bet that, amid the sound and fury, German politics will trundle along its well-worn paths with the same dour predictability with which their monumentally unexciting football team keeps bloody well winning things.