Germany’s Shrinking Political Center
Angela Merkel’s troubles bode ill for her country — and for Europe.
Things fall apart.
Photographer: Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
After 13 years in power, German Chancellor Angela Merkel remains Europe’s indispensable leader. Increasingly, however, German voters feel she is no longer required. Domestic support for Merkel’s brand of centrism is collapsing. This puts the stability of Europe as a whole at risk.
On Sunday, voters in Germany’s largest state, Bavaria, delivered a rebuke to Merkel’s coalition partners, the conservative Christian Social Union — the Bavarian sister party to her Christian Democratic Union — and the center-left Social Democratic Party. Support for the CSU fell below 40 percent for the first time since the 1950s, and the SPD was crushed, winning less than 10 percent of the vote. The main beneficiaries were the far-right Alternative for Germany and the liberal Greens, now the second-biggest party in Bavaria’s parliament.