What is the direst possibility to have emerged in Germany's ‘crisis,’ the option from which even Merkel shrinks? That she might have to govern with — gasp! — a minority

Germany in crisis, blared the headlines: its politics in turmoil, its chancellor, Angela Merkel, fighting for survival.

The cause of all this garment-rending? The collapse of talks on forming a new government, after September’s election reduced the chancellor’s Christian Democratic Union, after 12 years in power, to its worst showing since 1949: still the largest party by a considerable margin, but with just 33 per cent of the vote (as always, these figures include votes for the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union).

Distroscale

Since the election Merkel had been negotiating a power-sharing arrangement with such seemingly unlikely bedfellows as the free-market Free Democratic Party and the Greens — until last Sunday, when the FDP leader, Christian Lindner, abruptly broke off talks . In the uncertain aftermath, all sorts of options have been canvassed, from fresh elections to a resumption of the pre-election Grand Coalition of the centre-right CDU and the centre-left Social Democratic Union, with no clear resolution yet in sight.

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If Germans were in a state of shock and confusion, however, the same could not be said for certain observers on this side of the ocean, who greeted the news with a weary, told-you-so satisfaction. You see? they sighed. This is what happens under proportional representation. It’s nothing but chaos, paralysis, revolving-door governments. Say what you will about our first past the post system, but at least it delivers strong, stable majority governments. Thank goodness we were spared that sort of uncertainty.

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And if that is what you already believed, that is what you will believe. If, on the other hand, you are halfway interested in the facts, you may be less easily persuaded. There is first the small matter that this is not remotely typical of proportional representation systems, least of all Germany’s: it was in fact the first time negotiations had failed to produce a coalition — though they still might — in the history of the Federal Republic. That’s why it came as such a shock. In every one of the previous 18 elections (that’s four fewer, by the way, than Canada has held in the same period) any negotiations had been concluded successfully.

It’s true that coalition negotiations in other PR countries have occasionally stalled for a period. It’s rare in any individual country, but since there are so many countries that use some form of PR and therefore so many elections and subsequent negotiations to conclude, it might be easy to form the impression that this was more prevalent than it was — especially since PR opponents seize on each one as proof of a general tendency.

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But if you’ve noticed, the same occasionally happens under our system. Just months ago, British Columbia politics was “paralyzed” for weeks after the last provincial election while the Liberals, the NDP and the Greens dickered over not just the shape of the government, but who would form it.

The last federal election, a closely fought three-way affair, was widely expected to produce a highly uncertain result. There was much speculation over whether Stephen Harper would attempt to hang on to power, not only if he did not win a majority, but even if he did not win a plurality. Perhaps, rather than yield power to a coalition of the Liberals and NDP, he would demand fresh elections, provoking a constitutional crisis. Who knew?

How quickly we forget. Or rather, how rapidly we adjust, accepting as normal in our own experience what we would regard as aberrant anywhere else. What, after all, is the direst possibility to have emerged in the German “crisis,” the option from which even the redoubtable Merkel shrinks ? That instead of governing with the assured support of a majority of the Bundestag in coalition with one or more of the other parties, as nearly every postwar German government has, she might have to govern with — gasp! — a minority, gathering support for each piece of legislation where she may and daring the other parties to defeat her. Gosh. You mean like nine of the last 20 Canadian governments?

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You want instability? For seven long years, from 2004 to 2011, nobody in Ottawa could take a vacation for fear that the government might fall in the interim. Is that just “what happens” under first past the post? Or is it a particular result of a particular set of circumstances — much like the current situation in Germany?

Or if impasse, temporary as it may be, is indeed typical, it rather gives the lie to another common claim about PR: that it hands power to small or even “extreme” parties, who can hold the major parties to ransom. Among the several implausible assumptions this requires us to believe is not only that the larger parties are so desperate for power that they will concede to any demand by the smaller, no matter how extreme, but that neither the larger nor the smaller parties will pay any price for their behaviour.

But in fact Lindner and the FDP are already being excoriated in the German press as spoilers, vandals and worse: either it was never interested in an agreement, it is said, or it overplayed its hand. The ever-patient Merkel, on the other hand, may yet live to govern again, perhaps in a new Grand Coalition, perhaps yet in a minority, her reputation enhanced for not having been too quick to cut a deal. Under any system, it turns out, shrewdness, fortitude and judgment are at a premium. Imagine that.