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The German Federal Election of 2009: Sprouting Coalitions, Drooping Social Democrats

In order to understand the 2009 German Federal Election, one must first look back. Five years ago, in 2005, election day had ended with a bang: what had seemed certain from the early days of the 2005 campaign onwards, and what had still seemed highly likely in the final days of the campaign, namely that the then government consisting of the social democratic SPD and the Greens would be replaced by a coalition of the Christian democratic CDU/CSU and the liberal FDP, did not materialise. The CDU/CSU – expecting around 40 per cent of the votes given the final poll results – ended up with a meagre 35.2 per cent, and the Social Democrats trailed just marginally behind (34.2 per cent). As he had done in 1998 and 2002, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had again proven his capabilities as a campaigner. Having started far behind, he was able to bring his party back almost level with the Christian Democrats in the course of an intensely run and heated campaign (see Schmitt-Beck and Faas 2006). As a follow-up surprise, none of the established coalition alliances – Social Democrats and Greens on the one hand, Christian Democrats and Liberals on the other – were able to form a majority coalition in Parliament. Germany had voted for ‘deadlock’ (Pulzer 2006) with a malfunctioning centre-left bloc (of Social Democrats, Greens and Leftist Party) able but not willing to form a coalition; a too small centre-right bloc willing but not able to form a coalition, and a German party system not yet ready for other (experimental) sets of three or more parties forming a coalition. A Grand Coalition of Christian and Social Democrats emerged as the only viable alternative in the wake of the 2005 election, and this is indeed what happened when the dust had settled. Chancellor Schröder stepped down,