The demise of the centre-left SPD in Bremen could herald bigger changes nationwide

A bronze statue outside Bremen town hall reminds visitors this northern German port city inspired one of the world’s most enduring fairytales. The Grimm Brothers’ Town Musicians of Bremen tells the story of a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster who escape their masters and join forces to seek their fortunes in the city.

When Bremen, the smallest of Germany’s 16 federal states, votes in regional elections on Sunday, held at the same time as the European parliamentary election, the result is likely to demonstrate a trend across the rest of the country. For German politics, the future could lie in once unimaginable collaborations as traditional parties fade.

Ruled for 74 years by the Social Democratic party (SPD), polls for the city’s elections are predicting devastating losses that could force the struggling centre-left party to team up with the Greens and the leftwing Die Linke, a group that grew out of the ruling party of socialist East Germany. Such a move would be a first for a state in Germany’s old west, 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Relishing its status as kingmaker, the buoyant Green party could opt instead to enter a power-sharing deal with the Bremen branch of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), once led by Angela Merkel, a move which some speculate could prove such a shock to the SPD that it will walk out of government in Berlin, where it is a junior partner.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest An SPD poster for the regional elections in Bremen, where support for the party has dropped in recent years. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

If that led to snap elections, with the CDU campaigning under Merkel’s successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, a “black-green” coalition could also happen at a national level. One poll earlier this month put the CDU at 30% and the Green party at 20% of the vote.

Bremen, with a population of 550,000, is not one of Germany’s 10 largest cities, yet over the decades it has regularly proven to be a reliable testing ground for political experiments.

In 1991 Bremen was the setting for the first power-sharing arrangement between the Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats. In 2007 it was the first stateto seat Die Linke members in its parliament.

“Bremen is a special kind of state,” said Kristina Vogt, who is leading Die Linke into her third election. More so than the two other city-states, Berlin and Hamburg, it is “a city of short distances”, she said, “both in terms of transport and in a political sense”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Election posters for Kristina Vogt and the CDU in Bremen. Photograph: Fabian Bimmer/Reuters

“My feeling is that the traditional party system as we know it is in the process of being dissolved. The big centrist parties are shrinking, and I don’t think they will return to their old strength. Small parties are growing, and in the end you will have all sorts of coalitions between parties that can find pragmatic solutions together.”

An “R2G” (two red, one green) coalition between the centre-left SPD, Die Linke and the Greens would currently struggle to form a governing majority. The split on the German left goes back to the days of Rosa Luxemborg and remains deep, especially on foreign policy.

Yet many figures in all three parties believe an R2G coalition to be Germany’s only realistic hope of a left-leaning, progressive government, and think such an alliance should be a strategic goal for the next elections.

Bremen’s SPD mayor, Carsten Sieling, has stated his preference for R2G in the city, and railed against “that terrible grand coalition” with Merkel’s CDU in Berlin.

A more significant reason why Sieling’s party is set for its worst result since the end of the second world war is not the government in Berlin, but the fact that during more than 70 years of SPD rule Bremen has plummeted from being one of Germany’s richest states to its poorest, with the country’s highest unemployment rate, at 9.7%.

Home to lush green areas and architectural marvels, Bremen is also a city of struggling schools and crumbling buildings. On Stephani Bridge, in the city centre, lorries must drive at 50 metre intervals and half the cycle path is closed for fear of overloading the ageing structure.

The CDU challenger, Carsten Meyer-Heder, who is leading in the polls, says he wants to dismantle the mentality that has allowed the city’s heritage to wither. The party’s poster campaign features the 58-year-old’s bald head poking into the frame under the caption “Wrecking ball”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Carsten Meyer-Heder, the CDU’s candidate in Bremen. Photograph: Fabian Bimmer/Reuters

A former IT entrepreneur who has been a member of Merkel’s party for only a year, Meyer-Heder’s central pitch is that Bremen can only regain its former glory by concentrating its resources on a small number of innovative projects, such as model schools specialising in digital learning.

However, a closer look at his manifesto reveals unexpectedly statist solutions: like Die Linke, Bremen’s CDU wants the city to keep a majority in the housing cooperative Gewoba.

“We need it to build social housing,” said Meyer-Heder. “We can’t leave that to the free market, it won’t work.”

For now, the CDU has ruled out a coalition with Die Linke, but its lead candidate admits: “I sometimes find myself sharing a podium with her [Vogt] and she comes out with the same lines I was going to say.”

While Vogt says: “I could imagine that within 10 years we could have really strange, de-ideologised coalitions.”

Will Germany’s first conservative-socialist one day pass the donkey, dog, cat and duck as it enters the town hall? “I think it won’t be unthinkable in eight years,” she replies.