This is why the debate battle between the Greens and the Left Party in the lead up to the regional elections in Thuringia and Saarland was much more than a tactical electoral skirmish intended to secure a few votes. One only had to hear representatives of both parties laying into each other in background discussions in Berlin in order to understand that there were expectations of something growing together that does not belong together at all.*
On the surface, it would seem that the attempt to form a Red-Red-Green coalition failed in Hesse on account of dissenters within the SPD, and in Thuringia on account of fights between the SPD and the Left Party for top staff positions. But in both cases, the Greens were bent on maintaining sufficient distance so that they could emerge unscathed from a Red-Red debacle. The same applies to the Left Party. The confusing statements in Erfurt about who would become minister president were just as detrimental to the formation of a Red-Red-Green government as Lafontaine’s threats to launch a comeback in Saarland. At the end of the election year, doubts have been raised not only about the camp to which the Greens belong, but also about whether the Left Party is really determined to assume a role in government outside the two-way SPD-led alliances that have proven successful in the East.
Better a Twosome than a Threesome
The SPD was long berated for not formulating a position on the Left Party, but in the end it has become clear that the SPD is only partly to blame. A determined shift in its coalition policy alone will not return it to power. For the time being, only one thing is sure: two-way alliances will be formed wherever they are possible.
One model capable of showing how such alliances can work across traditional political boundaries can be seen in Hamburg. The CDU and the Greens have neatly carved up the most important area of responsibility assigned to the federal states: education policy. The Greens got their way in school policy and left universities to their coalition partners. Because of disputes over the coal-fired power station in Moorburg, the revolution that the Greens have unleashed with their six-year elementary school has gone almost unnoticed beyond Hamburg’s borders. This revolution can only be appreciated if one recalls the resistance to reform in the German education system. Even the Americans couldn’t achieve a comparable feat in the postwar period, despite the authority they had as an occupying power.
One lasting change during the election year has been the end of the CSU’s special role. On the evening that party head Horst Seehofer signed the coalition agreement, he forever relinquished his party’s claim to an absolute majority in Bavaria. His historical achievement was to reconcile the CSU with its future as a regional chapter of the CDU.
* This is a play on a famous line from a speech delivered by Willy Brandt on November 10, 1989, the day after the Berlin Wall was opened. Referring to German unification, Brandt said, “Jetzt wächst zusammen was zusammen gehört” (“Now what belongs together grows together.“) – trans.
Source: Ralph Bollmann, “Grüne und Linkspartei fremdeln: Die Mär vom linken Lager,” [“Mutual Distrust between the Greens and the Left Party: The Myth of a United Left”], taz, October 29, 2009, p. 12.
Translation: Adam Blauhut
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