SPD members approve “grand coalition.” But substantial discontent remains

While Europe contemplated the stunning and troubling results in Sunday’s election in Italy, it could take some comfort in knowing there will soon be, more than four months after the September election, a new “grand coalition” government in Germany. As the xenophobic and euroskeptic Lega and the anti-establishment Five Star Movement registered dramatic gains in Italy, in Berlin Social Democratic Party officials announced that 66 percent of those who participated in a postal vote of party members had approved its coalition agreement with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU). While the Italian election produced no majority for any party or any likely majority coalition, there will at least be a government in Germany as of March 14.

In addition to agreeing on the policies the new government will pursue, described in detail in the 177-page coalition agreement, the CDU-CSU and SPD agreed on the allocation of positions in the new government that favored the SPD. It will retain the foreign ministry as well as those responsible for justice, labor and social affairs, environment, and family affairs, seniors, women and youth, and Olaf Scholz, the SPD mayor of Hamburg and acting leader of the party after the resignation of Martin Schulz, will replace Wolfgang Schäuble of the CDU as finance minister.

While the allocation of positions in the new government clearly favors the SPD, it was by no means certain the party’s 463,000 members would approve the agreement in the postal vote conducted from Feb. 20 through last Friday. Many, especially those on the left of the party, blamed its abysmal performance in the September election, when its vote dropped from 26 percent in 2013 to 20.5 percent  – its lowest in the post-World War II era – on its participation in the “grand coalition” formed after the 2013 election. From their perspective, a “cure of opposition” would enable it to oppose, rather than acquiesce in, the policies pursued by the CDU and CSU, redefine itself as a center-left party, avoid the further electoral losses that would undoubtedly occur after another four years in a “grand coalition” and, in addition, prevent the far-right, xenophobic Alternative for Germany (AfD) from becoming the official opposition in the Bundestag. It was no wonder, then, that only 56 percent of the delegates at the SPD’s party conference in late January approved the preliminary coalition agreement with the CDU and CSU.

Nevertheless, despite the considerable opposition within the party, a substantial majority – 66 percent of the SPD party members who voted – approved the coalition agreement. On the other hand, only 78 percent of the members participated, meaning the agreement was actually approved by only a bare majority – 51 percent – of all SPD members. We may never know why more than a fifth of the party membership abstained on such an important vote. But it’s likely that many – indeed, probably most – of those who abstained were opposed to the decision to renew the “grand coalition.”

The new “grand coalition” will take office on March 14. But clearly, Andrea Nahles, the former leader of the Young Socialists, former minister of labor and social affairs, current leader of the SPD in the Bundestag, and soon-to-be leader of the SPD replacing Schulz, will clearly have her work cut out for her in dealing with the substantial discontent that remains within the party.

Written by David R. Cameron, a professor of political science and the director of the MacMillan Center’s Program in European Union Studies.