Friedrich Merz has enemies at home. And they can complicate life. The new German chancellor verified this week, when he failed in the first round of the investiture in the Bundestag and did not reach the necessary 316 votes. By surprise, 18 deputies of their own majority voted against or abstained and endangered their aspirations. It had never happened.
Six hours of nerves and uncertainty passed, to the second vote, when the democratian Merz reached the majority. Finally, Chancellor. But he did not dissipate an evidence: in the block he leads ―The Democristian Union / Social Cristiana Bávara (CDU / CSU) -, in his coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SPD), or in both, someone wants.
The identity of the rebels is an unknown: the vote was secret. But there is another evidence: Merz has been in politics for four decades, and has accumulated enemies. His unpredictable, lonely style, little given to consensus for the usual in Germany, has not helped him either.
Today he pays it, and this fragility can mark his mandate.
1. The ‘Merkelians’
Angela Merkel left the Foreign Ministry in 2021 after 16 years in power and since then resigned from political life, but what she represents is in the antipodes of Merz. The rivalry between the two dates from a quarter of a century ago, when the historic Helmut Kohl falls. “From the beginning we ran into a problem: we both wanted to assume leadership,” says Merkel in his memoirs. Merkel and Merz won the policy for a decade to earn money in the private sector. She returned when she left and took the game as a conservative and a pure liberal who had to correct the alleged centrist drift from her predecessor in policies such as the opening of borders to refugees. The former chancellor broke the silence last January, when Merz promoted restrictive measures of the right to asylum in the Bundestag thanks to the support of the alternative extreme right -wing party for Germany (AFD). “An error,” he said. Merkel was last Tuesday at the guest tribune during the first failed investiture of Merz; In the second, he was absent.
2. The Social Democrats
For many, in the SPD, Merz embodied the worst face of Christian democracy: the most conservative, the most liberal, the most polarizer, the most Carcahe little Trump German. The image has some cartoon. But in the election campaign for last February, many were confirmed by prejudices when the democratian leader promoted his immigration reform with AFD’s votes. At that time, there is already a few weeks left for the elections, there were already social democrats who, in view of the possible future negotiation of a coalition and investiture of Merz with votes of the SPD, warned: “We complicate things.” On Monday, hours before the failed investiture, Merz met with the SPD parliamentary group, and had to realize that, despite the fact that rival parties in campaign are now partners, the wounds are still alive. Two deputies reproached him, and not with kindness, a vote next to the extreme right or his rhetoric against immigration. Seen like that, perhaps the reverse to the chancellor was not so surprising.
3. The ‘No charge’
Every ruler, when he announces his cabinet of ministers, hunches and destroys ambitions. The list of aggrieved by the appointments of the coalition between the CDU/CSU and the SPD is long. On Tuesday, by jumping the surprise that Merz would not be invested in the first vote, the search for the culprits began, and the looks went to those who had run out and had personal reasons to make him pay Merz and his vicencellor, the social democrat Lars Klingbeil. “Merz has not avoided surprises when forming the government and there are those who may have felt excluded,” summarizes the political scientist Uwe Jun, from the University of Tréveris. Merz, however, had appointed the CDU ministers the previous week, which gave the aggrieved without charge a week to digest the frustration, according to a person close to the chancellor who asked for anonymity. Therefore, according to this source, the rebels were not democratic: they had to be social democrats. Always according to this theory, Klingbeil would have made an error by appointing the ministers of his party the day before the investiture, so the social democrats who had run out of ministry had little time to process the anger. An expression was repeated in the corridors of the Bundestag on the day of the investiture: “the blood was hot.”
4. The conservatives
There are accumulated grievances against Merz in the wing Merkeliana of the CDU, the most moderate. But also, and more and more, in the conservative wing. It is considered betrayed by Merz, which for years, and even the campaign, defended for example the zero deficit, and a few days after its electoral victory, agreed with the SPD a mass debt plan to invest in defense, infrastructure and environment. On the contrary of what was promised. They reproach him that, when negotiating the coalition agreement with the social democrats, he has made too many concessions, also in social policy, and has moderated. “The Union (CDU/CSU) was presented to the elections with the promise of a political turn. If you do not meet this promise, it will cause not only a credibility problem for the party, but a crisis of credibility in the institutions, which do not offer solutions. This can lead to a crisis of the system.” Who expressed this criticism, a few weeks ago in the newspaper Die Welthe is the conservative historian Andreas Rödder, for intellectual time of Merz’s head and today disenchanted. Rödder argues that the sanitary cordon that prevents democristians from allying with AFD damages Merz’s party, because it limits their options when looking for allies. “The CDU and the CSU have no other possible partner than the SPD and this gives incredible force to the SPD.” The social democratic deputy Nils Schmid, newly appointed Secretary of State in the Ministry of Defense, believes that what happened this week shows that “on the CDU there are sequelae of the Merkel years.” “The differences have not been resolved,” he adds. In other words: Merz promised his own to break with Merkel, but in coalition with the SPD he has ended Merkelizo.
5. Merz himself
Merz has never been a popular politician, neither in Germany or in his party. Two decades ago he lost his pulse against Merkel and, after his journey through the desert, only at the third attempt he achieved the leadership of the CDU and the candidacy for chancellor. In campaign he squandered a comfortable advantage and ended up below 30%. After several attacks perpetrated by foreigners, he left with a migratory proposal that collected the applause of AFD. “Impulsive”, then described it even in their party. Today he is in his face that, despite his long legislative experience, lacks government experience. The investiture accident, points out Der Spiegel, “reveals that (Merz and Klingbeil) lack the professionalism necessary to govern.” With a brief majority, 12 seats, and so many potential enemies inside, everything can happen again, at any time.
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