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ONE WEEK spdcdueuspdcdufdpspdeuadcducsuspdcdufdpcducsu adcdu mslcducsuspdcducsu cdumpYour browser does not support the element.ago the leaders of Germany’s mainstream parties solemnly pledged to wage a fair-minded campaign in the run-up to the election due on February 23rd, triggered by last month’s premature collapse of the three-party coalition. Days later, they were tearing each other to shreds. Olaf Scholz, the chancellor and candidate for the Social Democrats (), said his opponents lacked “moral maturity”. Deploying the demotic of his home town of Hamburg, he dismissed Friedrich Merz, his rival from the conservative Christian Democrats (), as “, who likes to talk [nonsense]”.Fritze gave as good as he got. The chancellor was displaying “sheer impertinence” and “living on another planet”, said Mr Merz. Worse, Mr Scholz was an “embarrassment” among his counterparts, unequal to the stature of his office. Accusations of dishonesty and duplicity flew back and forth like tennis balls. Germany’s election, only the fourth early vote in the post-war republic’s history, thus promises to be a rather livelier affair than usual.The flurry of insults gave some high-minded German commentators a case of the vapours. Their nerves might be settled by a glance at the leading parties’ humdrum manifestos. Most were published on December 17th, the day after the Bundestag launched the mudslinging season by officially declaring that it had no confidence in Mr Scholz’s chancellorship. The programmes do offer competing visions for Germany’s future. But largely absent is any serious thinking about the country’s untold challenges: its flailing industrial model, its relations with China or its creaking pension system, which already gobbles up a quarter of federal spending in a rapidly ageing country.Instead the scene is set for what, so far, looks like a traditional campaign focused on bread-and-butter concerns: jobs, taxes, prices and welfare. Precisely, in fact, the issues that German voters tell pollsters they care about. On the left sit the and the Greens, both of them promising an investment bonanza and tax increases on the wealthy. (The Green manifesto has more to say about the cost of living than about climate change, in sharp contrast to the previous election, in 2021.) On the right, the (along with its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union) and the pro-business Free Democrats () urge cuts to taxes and spending, and welfare reform. All parties call for slashing red tape, as they always do. None has funded its pledges properly, but the and Greens have more wiggle room because they pledge to loosen the constraints of Germany’s constitutional debt brake, which restricts government borrowing. “My hope is that the campaign will focus on the big questions we are facing,” says Ricarda Lang, who until recently co-led the Greens. “So far, it’s not what I see.” That could change when things kick off in earnest after the new year, especially once Donald Trump takes office on January 20th. Should he slap tariffs on exports, or demand European troops police a settlement in Ukraine, German politicians will have to respond. The top two candidates both think they are better placed to weather such a February surprise. Mr Scholz believes German voters will value his equanimity under pressure; Mr Merz, a more assertive figure, reckons they will regard him as a better match for Mr Trump.Yet another danger arises. In Germany, party manifestos are less programmes for government than opening gambits for post-election coalition negotiations. In politically simpler times, Germany’s left- and right-wing camps might hope to get majorities that made ideologically coherent coalitions possible. Today, politics is so fragmented that seven parties hope to enter the Bundestag, making that job harder.The hard-right Alternative for Germany (f), also campaigning on a message of economic recovery, is polling in second slot and hoping for its best-ever result. No other party will work with it. And even if the three parties hovering close to the 5% threshold (see chart 1) fail to qualify, the only possible two-party coalitions are likely to include Mr Merz’s / and either the or the Greens. The risk is of a split-the-difference coalition agreement that is inadequate to meet Germany’s challenges. Populists will then position themselves as honest tellers of hard truths ignored by the mainstream. insiders insist that cautious messaging should not be mistaken for a failure of ambition. Talk too tough on Ukraine, and they drive risk-averse German voters into Mr Scholz’s arms. At times the conservatives have hinted at a willingness to modify the debt brake, and most observers expect them to make an offer in coalition talks, albeit at a price; but spell it out, and they lose votes to the fiscal dogmatists of the . Immigration, on which the /proposals are especially tough, is a favoured f talking point. “Merz can’t win on Ukraine, and he can’t win on migration, so he has to focus on the economy,” says Wigan Salazar, a member and head of , a political consultancy.The recent tumult is not shifting the opinion polls much; the / retains the big lead it has long held. The usually improves its standing during election campaigns. Yet number-crunching by shows that, ten weeks before the vote, the party faces a polling deficit relative to the /larger than any it has ever overcome since reunification, including in Mr Scholz’s naysayer-defying win in 2021 (see chart 2). The chancellor’s aides continue to insist victory is possible, especially if they can goad the irascible Mr Merz into losing his cool. “It’s certainly going to be a rough, tough campaign,” says Tilman Kuban, a . Expect more fruity language as Germany’s election kicks into gear.
