The Christian Democratic Party the leading party in the German coalition government, and from our perspective a central actor in the European Union and therefore in wider Europe, has now suffered a third election defeat in regional elections, this time in the capital city Berlin where a right-wing minority party, Alternative for Germany, has made a substantial showing at the polls (14.1% of the votes) on an anti-immigration platform.
Indeed, the Christian Democrats with 17.5% of the vote, have fallen behind the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the traditional major alternative party in the country, which took first place, with 21.6%. And this, to the Christian Democrats, would appear to be an undoubtedly bad omen, given that national elections are due next year.
The significance of the defeat is that the Christian Democrats have continued to feel the effects, within local German sentiment, of substantial migration from the Middle East and Turkey, a consequence of the widespread flight of persons from civil confusion and warfare in Syria in particular. The German response has been permitted by Chancellor Merkel on the grounds that a humanitarian response is needed to prevent even worsening circumstances in the environments of the neighbours of the Middle Eastern states in turmoil. But as a result the migrant population, swollen by over a million persons, has become a source of social discomfort to many Germans, a situation blamed on what is described as Mrs Merkel’s generosity.
Mrs Merkel’s right wing opponents campaigned on the grounds that she was being over generous in respect of her policy of relatively free immigration, the implication being that the German people’s welfare is likely to be affected. This is now considered an issue of political, and therefore electoral, significance in wider Europe; and it indeed it can well be recalled that then Prime Minister of Britain, David Cameron, felt it necessary to include the issue of limiting immigration in his party’s manifesto prepared for the referendum earlier this year on remaining in the European Union, in response to pressure from members of his own party.
Mrs Merkel, leading a Germany with its own substantial influence in the EU, will undoubtedly be perceived as facing a difficult re-election next year. The present result will certainly not be good news. But from a perspective of that coming election, the view of developing countries can perhaps be that what can most profitably be achieved will be a continuation of the coalition between her party and the Social Democratic Party. But that would depend on whether the Social Democrats feel that their results in Berlin – the Alternative for Germany gains notwithstanding – can be replicated at the federal level, and it would be more profitable for them to go it alone.
The issue for Caricom countries is that Germany under Mrs Merkel has been a reasonably strong supporter of the arrangements made by the EU for the ACP countries in general, and both her party and the Social Democratic Party, when acting relatively independently, have been reasonably sympathetic to the arrangements made since the Lome Agreement. Now, however, both parties are having to look over their shoulders, because the Alternative for Germany now has a substantial following in what is the capital of Germany. And the expectation is that in national elections it is likely to be shown as also having a substantial presence at the national level.
The German electorate may well have been feeling recently that Mrs Merkel, once a resident of East Berlin during the era of a communist presence in one part of Germany, still retains a certain nostalgia for populations under both personal and economic pressure. In that context, she appears to have come to the conclusion that refugees from Syria, Iran and other Muslim countries could be accommodated by a fairly prosperous Germany, especially as the part of the country in which she grew up and lived until the collapse of the Soviet Union and its allied states, is now within the capital of the country.
The voting statistics show, or course, that although the right-wing has shown a certain presence, the overall vote reflects some degree of traditional balance in the elections in Berlin. But no doubt, both parties are disturbed that the apparently surprising presence of the third party is now reflected in the capital of the country. And in that context, the Mayor of the city has sought to stress that, in his words, “Berlin is the city that transformed itself from the capital of Hitler’s Nazi Germany into a beacon of freedom, tolerance, diversity and social cohesion”.
From the perspective of developing countries like ours, the vote in Germany’s capital, though seemingly distant and almost irrelevant, appears to give the country an image of a substantial anti-foreign sentiment. But almost simultaneously, the actions of the German government whether in agreeing to accept substantial numbers of refugees under severe pressure, or assuming a substantial and sympathetic diplomatic stance vis-à-vis the situation in the Arab states, suggest a stance of empathy towards victimization in foreign countries.
