Angela Merkel has apparently paid a heavy price to her political adversaries both within and without the Christian Union (CDU) in order to secure the chancellery. Deutsche Welle introduces the six new conservative cabinet members. And today’s FT remarks on the team make-up, which is pretty much aligned against Merkel:
With only four more parliamentary seats than Gerhard Schröder’s SPD, Ms Merkel was forced to offer it eight ministerial portfolios, against six CDU/CSU ministries, the chancellor herself and her chief of staff.Only two of the CDU/CSU ministers are close allies of Ms Merkel: Annette Schavan and Ursula von der Leyen, both in junior positions as education and family ministers respectively.Her rivals, by contrast, featured prominently, led by Edmund Stoiber, chairman of the Christian Social Union, the CDU’s sister party in Bavaria, who had already said last week he would take the powerful economics and innovation portfolio.
The most interesting appointment was Stoiber’s protege Horst Seehofer, who had locked horns earlier with Merkl over heathcare policy and was sent by her into the wilderness. He now returns as Agricultural and Consumer Affairs minister. Guido Westerwelle, leader of the opposition Free Democrats, remarked: "With Horst Seehofer, the SPD no longer has eight, but nine ministers." And in fact Seehofer is one of those politicians who seems to take the "C" in his party’s name seriously: he definitely is opposed to the neo-liberal reform course of Merkel. In an interesting profile published in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Seehofer talks about how his faith informs his politics: "„Ein Christ kann sich nicht mit der Rückführung des Sozialstaats auf das Existenzminimum abfinden.“ (a Christian cannot allow a roll-back of the social state to just a bare subsistence level). He has made it clear that even though his mandate is agriculture, he will continue to speak out about healthcare issues.
So Merkel faces hostility within her own cabinet. Is she doomed to failure at the outstart of the new government? She can only succeed, says Lukas Wallraff in today’s taz, if she can reinvent herself – something she is certainly capable of doing:
Programmatisch muss Merkel bei null anfangen. Alles, was sie sich in den letzten Jahren, seit dem Leipziger CDU-Parteitag, aufgebaut hat, nützt ihr nichts mehr. Als radikale Reformerin ist sie gescheitert. Sie muss langsamer, vorsichtiger, aber zielstrebig vorgehen. Um lange im Kanzleramt bleiben zu können, muss sich Merkel neu erfinden. Sie muss zur Moderatorin werden – bei der Föderalismusreform und beim Sparen durch Subventionsabbau bieten sich erste Chancen. Der nötige Imagewechsel wird schwierig, keine Frage. Aber: "Wer Merkel unterschätzt, hat schon verloren." Der Satz stammt – von Horst Seehofer.
For those of us who are frustrated with slow and agonizing democratic process in Germany (and everywhere else, for that matter), Der Denkpass has some interesting proposals.
