Party Politics in the Shadow of the 2009 Elections:
The SPD Party Congress in Hamburg
By Dr. Dieter Dettke

Page One of Two

The 2007 SPD Party Congress: A Tactical Move to the Left
At the SPD Party Congress in Hamburg a few weeks ago, Kurt Beck, the new party leader of the SPD and the centrist governor of the state of Rhineland Palatinate with much experience of governing the state in a coalition with the FDP, did not try to take the SPD back to traditional old left policies. Many - including current SPD members as well as CDU/CSU strategists - would like to see the SPD move in this direction which would be a perfect recipe for defeat in the 2009 national elections. If the SPD could indeed be identified with Oskar Lafontaine's Left Party (Die Linke) it would not only be possible but even very likely that based on the popularity of Angela Merkel as Chancellor, the CDU and CSU could score big in 2009, enabling the CDU/CSU to replace the current Grand Coalition with a new CDU-led government in 2009, most likely together with the FDP. What really happened in Hamburg was a tactical move to the left in an effort to improve the prospects of the SPD for the 2009 national elections.

The decision to introduce a popular amendment to the Agenda 2010 designed to extend from 18 to 24 months the length of time older workers were entitled to receive unemployment benefits had a dual purpose. For one, it sent a message of differentiation and self assertion to the Chancellor and the CDU/CSU coalition partner that being a partner in a Grand Coalition does not mean that the SPD supports CDU/CSU policies. Two, it signaled to all those who turned their back on the SPD because of the social cuts of Agenda 2010 that the SPD did care and that Die Linke was not the only party willing to take care of their concerns. The core of the new policy agenda is expressed in the principal resolution tabled by the party leadership. The essence of this resolution is to forge a 'New Deal' of business, employment, and the environment and to lead the way into an ecological economy. Here the emphasis is clearly on modernization and reform on the basis of a sustainable economic and ecological development.

Competing in a Five Party System
Germany now has a five party system and majority building is getting more and more difficult as the two big parties, the CDU/CSU and the SPD, face problems in winning enough votes in order to form ideologically coherent governing majorities. Assuming that an absolute majority of either of the two big parties is impossible and based on the current strength of the parties in public opinion surveys, five power configurations could emerge theoretically:

• Another grand coalition between CDU/CSU and SPD
• A CDU/CSU - FDP majority
• A CDU/CSU - FDP - Green majority (also called Jamaica coalition)
• An SPD - Green - FDP majority (known as a traffic light coalition)
• An SPD - Green - Die Linke majority

The SPD and the Greens have little chance to win a majority of the votes on their own and the same is true for the SPD and Die Linke. Based on the most recent poll data of Politbarometer, voter preferences for the CDU/CSU are at about 39 percent, the SPD 31 percent, Die Linke 9 percent, the Greens 8 percent, and the FDP 7 percent. Support for the left political spectrum (Die Linke, SPD and the Greens) together is almost even with that of the right spectrum (CDU/CSU and FDP): 48 percent versus 47 percent respectively. For the 2009 elections it will be impossible to put together a governing majority of the left since the SPD has excluded the possibility of forming a coalition with Die Linke under the leadership of Oskar Lafontaine. Even if the left political spectrum in Germany would win a majority of votes and a majority in the Bundestag and try to put together a governing coalition on the federal level, it would be impossible to govern effectively because the upper chamber, the Bundesrat, would be in a position to block almost all of the initiatives of a theoretical SPD/Green and Die Linke coalition. A left experiment of this kind would be a short-lived phenomenon and extremely dangerous for the SPD and the Greens as well. Dreams of a united left merging the SPD and Die Linke will remain dreams for a long time to come.

The SPD's Strategic Dilemma
The only realistic strategy for the SPD as a partner of the CDU/CSU in a Grand Coalition is to prevent a possible majority of the CDU/CSU and the FDP as an alternative to the Grand Coalition. The SPD leadership is well aware of the fact that the best election result the SPD can hope for under the present circumstances is a mandate for the continuation of the Grand Coalition if the strategic objective of the party is to remain in power. A traffic light coalition between the SPD, the FDP and the Greens would be rather shaky from the beginning, if at all possible. Likewise, a Jamaica coalition put together by the CDU/CSU together with the FDP and the Greens would be instable given the tensions between the Greens and the CDU/CSU on the one hand and philosophical differences between the FDP and the Greens on the other.

The current configuration of political forces puts the SPD in a difficult position with limited political choices. What happened in Hamburg is the result of the strategic dilemma of a party in power in a Grand Coalition with no real alternative at hand for the 2009 elections. On the one hand, the SPD was forced to not appear as the junior partner in the present power constellation with Angela Merkel at the helm. This required primarily initiatives with the potential of mobilizing voters not on a social and economic reform agenda, but with a more traditional social democratic approach of achieving social justice and a focus on the environment as well. As a result of Schröder's reform agenda, the SPD suffered additionally from losing party members - the once more than one million members-strong SPD now has less than half a million members and has had difficulties in attracting the younger generation. Voters are disappointed, too, and without Schröder it will be difficult to achieve electoral results that keep the SPD at the level of the last national elections when the party got 34.2 percent, just a little less than the CDU/CSU with 35.2 percent. Most of the voters the SPD lost since the Agenda 2010 reforms now see their best hope in Die Linke.

The SPD has to try to put a stop to the loss of votes to Oskar Lafontaine's party in order to avoid being further weakened by a left wing competition. At the Hamburg Party Congress the author of Agenda 2010, former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder supported party leader Kurt Beck in his effort to soften the hard edges of the Agenda 2010 reforms by saying that the Agenda is not like the ten commandments of the Bible. Moses was yesterday, Schröder said.

Schröder's closest political ally in the thorny road to the Agenda 2010 reforms, Franz Müntefering, now Vice Chancellor and Minister of Labor in the Grand Coalition and a former chairman of the SPD himself, had argued against taking back any of the Agenda 2010 reforms as a matter of principle. Instead of tinkering with Agenda 2010, Müntefering wanted to focus on issues such as minimum wage and putting pressure on Merkel to agree on a Euro 7.50 level of minimum wage, thus helping the low income workers instead of investing in unemployment. He lost the argument against Kurt Beck, the party leader who ended up a stronger leader after the Party Congress. Beck was reelected with over 95 percent of the party delegates' votes. 483 of the 506 delegates voted for him, seventeen against and six abstained. He is now in firm control of the party, respected but not adored as other leaders of the SPD before him, Willy Brandt for example and also Gerhard Schröder or Oskar Lafontaine before his abrupt break with Schröder and the SPD. Franz Müntefering, the guardian of the Agenda 2010 reforms after Schröder left the Chancellor's office, succeeded in winning the hearts and minds of the delegates in Hamburg in spite of his resistance to changes in the Schröder program.

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Dr. Dieter Dettke is currently a Visiting Fellow at AICGS and Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University's Security Studies Program.

This essay appeared in the November 2, 2007, AICGS Advisor.