The 2018 German election was held on the 10th June 2018 to elect the 19th Bundestag. Incumbent Chancellor Klaus Wowereit of the SPD was running for re-election to a second term.
During his first term, Wowereit had pursued a largely left-leaning policy agenda focused on improving the cost of living and housing, and appointed quite a diverse cabinet including his protégé Dilek Kolat, the Greens’ Cem Özdemir and, late in the government’s life, the KPD’s Amira Mohamed Ali. Their involvement with the government in high positions was part of an effort on Wowereit’s part to help destigmatise immigration, making a point in a speech defending his pro-refugee stance that ‘they are fewer, and kinder, than you realise’ and citing distortions in perceived immigrant numbers and crime rates compared to reality.
This stance incurred criticism within the government, particularly by the SPD’s Hannelore Kraft and the KPD’s Sahra Wagenknecht, and outside of it, particularly by the Republicans’ new leader Alice Weidel, who also attacked the intersectional pro-LGBTQ policies of the government and defended this by citing her own lesbianism (she even called herself ‘the sane face of gayness’ in contrast to Wowereit, a comment that was heavily mocked by the LGBTQ community).
The CDU/CSU’s criticism of it was somewhat more muted, with its new leader Ursula von der Leyen focusing more on economic reforms as distinguishing her party from the SPD. Her time as Minister of Defence under de Maizière, one of the few bright spots of the previous government in the eyes of the public, also made her a well-respected figure, and by largely staying out of the fray von der Leyen was able to appeal to mainstream conservative voters and centrists alike. Von der Leyen also advocated expansion of the Bundeswehr and closer cooperation with NATO, strengthening her position with the right.
While Wowereit retained significant popularity, at least on the left, the SPD’s allies were faltering, with the controversial rhetoric of Wagenknecht damaging the KPD’s support, Green leader and Vice Chancellor Renate Künast having to resign in 2016 after several controversial statements criticising the police, and the PPD badly collapsing after several poor state election results and the murder-suicide of a Berlin assembly member, Gerwald Claus-Brunner, after which Wowereit expelled them from the coalition. They would lose all their seats at the election.
The government remained in officeuntil the 7th May 2018, when the Bundestag was dissolved in preparation for an election. The polls pointed to consistent leads for the CDU/CSU over the SPD, but suggested neither it and the FDP nor the SPD, KPD and Greens could win a majority. This possibility was heavily played up by the Republicans, with Weidel saying that ‘if we can hang the Bundestag vote, it means there is no mandate for unrestricted immigration!’ The phrase ‘unrestricted immigration’ became a major talking point of the Republican campaign, despite Wowereit frequently denouncing it by citing the importance of immigration and cultural diversity.
Early in the campaign, speculation rose about a ‘Bahamas coalition’ of the CDU/CSU, FDP and Republicans, a term inspired by the concept of the Jamaica coalition (CDU/CSU, FDP and Green). Voter support for this was low in all parties, however, and while the government parties tried to push this, von der Leyen actively denounced it in mid-May.
The speech in which von der Leyen rejected the prospect of a ‘Bahamas coalition’ would prove to be a major talking point of the campaign, as the CDU/CSU’s Chancellor candidate declared supporting the Republicans to be ‘throwing your vote away on a group of timewasters with no interest in running the country’. Weidel in turn accused the CDU/CSU of turning its back on right-wing values and appealed to that party’s base; an incident where she was pied while campaigning in Hamburg also allowed her to gain sympathy from some quarters.
As the campaign progressed, the Republicans’ strength ate into the CDU/CSU’s lead, with the SPD also clawing back a significant amount of support thanks to Wowereit’s personal popularity. The results ultimately proved surprisingly close between the two biggest parties, with only 7 seats and 0.9% of the vote separating them, almost as small a gap between the two largest parties as in the knife-edge 2006 election. Crucially, however, the Republicans won 75 seats, going from the smallest party to the third-largest, and succeeded in creating a hung Bundestag; 348 seats out of 697 were needed for a majority, and the CDU/CSU-FDP bloc held 305 while the SPD, KPD and Greens had 317.
Negotiations over the formation of a new government proved more protracted than usual, with Wowereit continuing as Chancellor in the interim. A Jamaica coalition and a traffic light coalition (SPD-FDP-Green) were both discussed, but talks broke down before an agreement could be reached. Eventually, Wowereit and von der Leyen opened communications between the two largest parties. They proved much more in keeping with each other in terms of policies than expected, and on that basis began negotiating a grand coalition.
On the 23rd July 2018, 461 out of 697 votes were cast by the major parties in favour of forming the grand coalition in the new Bundestag. This was the first federal cooperation between Germany’s two biggest parties in its modern history, and it was announced that a ‘revolving Chancellor’ arrangement a little similar to the rotating Swiss presidency would be implemented, with Wowereit and von der Leyen set to interchange between serving as Chancellor and Vice Chancellor at the start of each year. Wowereit served out the rest of the year, and on the 1st January 2019, von der Leyen became the first woman to serve as Chancellor who was not from the SPD, as well as the country’s third overall.
On the opposition benches, Weidel became Leader of the Opposition, a controversial move that was seen by many as emboldening the far right. As a result, a bill was passed introducing a measure to ‘proportionalise’ the Opposition, affording extra time for debate to the other parties outside of the government and ensuring the small Republican group did not dominate proceedings. A threshold on this system for the percentage gap between the opposition and government was also implemented to impede this system from being likely to hurt a future CDU/CSU or SPD opposition. Unsurprisingly, it was voted for almost unanimously by all parties except the Republicans.