BUNDLED up in woolly jumpers and scarves, the mostly grey-haired crowd filed into the civic centre in Schauenburg, a small central German town, toasted the new year with foaming glasses of beer and exchanged genial gossip. It was hard to believe that they might hold the fate of the world’s most powerful woman in their hands. But they might indeed. Like their comrades across the federal republic, these ordinary members of the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) have the final say on whether to give Angela Merkel a new majority to govern. And they were sceptical.

Timon Gremmels, the party’s local MP, took to the stage to try to sell the deal. “Clearly, mistakes were made during the campaign,” he conceded; a nod to the party’s record-low 20.5% score at the election in September. He also regretted the meagre substance of a preliminary coalition blueprint agreed on January 12th between SPD leaders, Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Christian Social Union (CSU) partners: “There are things missing from the discussion paper that I regret.” Heads began to shake, eyes to roll. Grimacing, Mr Gremmels ploughed on as disgruntled murmurs took hold, spread across the room and then drowned him out. A solitary listener clapped.

It was an illustration of what some in the CDU/CSU have dubbed the “dwarfs’ rebellion”. As SPD leaders and MPs have fanned out around the country to make the case for a repeat of the grand coalition (Grosse Koalition, or “GroKo”) that governed Germany from 2013 until the election, they have met resistance from members fed up with compromises and defeats. Three state branches, including that in Berlin, formally oppose the idea. So do the Young Socialists, the party’s youth wing, whose leader, Kevin Kühnert, has undertaken a rival tour of local groups, complete with “No GroKo” placards. On January 21st delegates gather in Bonn to decide whether to endorse formal talks with the CDU/CSU. If they opt not to, it could spell a new election—and even prompt Mrs Merkel to throw in the towel.

The SPD has never been enthusiastic about another spin with the chancellor. Its leaders ruled it out within minutes of polls closing on September 24th, but were enticed back to the table in November when coalition talks between the CDU/CSU, the pro-business Free Democrats and the Greens collapsed. The outline of a new GroKo deal was relatively unambitious. The CDU/CSU gets new limits on immigration. The SPD gets somewhat expanded child-care and, in a concession to its Europhilia, commitments to euro-zone integration richer in rhetoric than in substance.

Nonetheless, the paper opens the door, albeit in vague terms, to a euro-zone budget and to a “European Monetary Fund” rooted in European law. That “signals a readiness to talk”, adds Lucas Guttenberg of the Delors Institute, a think-tank, providing a basis for an agreement with Emmanuel Macron (particularly if the SPD takes the finance ministry). On January 17th a group of 14 French and German economists published proposals for such a deal, including common deposit insurance and reformed fiscal rules. “We should not just wait until the next crisis,” said Marcel Fratzscher, one of the authors, cautiously deeming the preliminary coalition paper “encouraging”.

The SPD has no good options. Another coalition with Mrs Merkel could see the party lose yet more support. A minority CDU/CSU government would, in effect, give the SPD the responsibility of not bringing down the government but little influence over it. And at the current rate—the SPD fell to a record low of 18.5% in a poll published on January 15th—a new election might cost it seats without changing the basic coalition arithmetic.

Even if formal talks are approved, a further barrier remains: any final agreement must be approved in a full ballot of members. SPD leaders are raising expectations that the deal would improve on the preliminary paper. But that looks doubtful. The dwarfs may have their way yet.