Last Monday’s international news were dominated by the German election results. Angela Merkel obtained a relative majority and this means that she becomes Chancellor of Germany for the fourth consecutive time. Wednesday’s Malta Independent’s editorial described Merkel’s victory as a pyrrhic victory, even if, in my opinion, this result was not as bad as carried in the international media. It was described by some of the foreign news agencies as shallow or far from resounding.
The reasons for this result are varied. Mainly, Merkel fell short of gaining the level of support predicted in the polls for the CDU. Secondly, this has been a bad result for her party since it obtained the lowest number of votes in the last forty years. The CDU lost around one million votes. Yet, the other significant German party, the SPD also fared badly. The Socialists were Merkel’s partners in a “grand coalition”.
The real winners appear to be the right-wing populist, Alternative for Germany (AfD). By Maltese standards, the German Far Right Party was not victorious; obtaining only 13% of the votes. Yet, on the German political scene, they obtained a large share of the electoral votes. They are the third biggest party in Germany. This means that after 75 years, an extreme right party has made it again to the German parliament.
In the past, German policy was to keep the extreme right out of parliament. German democracy sought to deny far right activists the benefits linked to being present in the German Parliament. For the first time, this policy has failed. Even if it has a very small share of the national vote, such a prospective brings fear and political anxiety in Germany due to its recent history.
The Socialists, led by Martin Shultz, have already pronounced themselves. They will not form part of another grand coalition with the Christian Democrats. Merkel will have to seek new alliances. She certainly will not ask the extreme right party to be part of her coalition. Shultz’s decision not to join the grand coalition seems to be dictated by a political expediency to keep the extreme right in check rather than for other political motives. If the Socialists join Merkel in the formation of a new government, this would mean that the Opposition will be led by the Extreme Right Party. In Germany, the leading opposition party, in particular, the leader, carries a strong institutional position, which carries with it political privileges. The German Socialists do not want these privileges to be enjoyed by the German Far Right.
Yet, this German election could be a lesson for our Nationalist Party. One needs to remember that on the eve of going to vote, the German parliament approved the law on same sex marriages. The Christian Democrats accepted to present this bill in Parliament as part of the general agreement reached in this grand coalition. But the result shows that passing this law had no impact on the German election. It does not seem to have earned more votes for the Socialists. Nor did the CDU appear to have lost votes as a result of passing this law.
In 2013 a number of PN exponents claimed that the defeat had to be attributed to the party’s stand in the Divorce Referendum dismissing the analytical report submitted by the officially appointed commission. Be that as it may, what these elections in Germany are confirming is that the PN’s stand against divorce had very little effect on the result of our 2013 election.
One must not forget that in the European elections held in 2009, - therefore before the Divorce Referendum - the PN obtained the same results as in 2013. However, statistics seem to indicate that by taking a very conservative stand in the Divorce Referendum, the PN increased its share of votes achieving 47%. I am sure that had the party been united on this issue, it would have obtained a bigger share of the electoral votes.
Unfortunately, instead of consolidating this share, the party went on a spree to undermine its conservative principles in the hope of increasing its share-vote through the support of the liberal voters. The line of thought of the PN’s troika after 2013 was that the more liberal and Marxist the party became, - particularly where sexual mores are concerned - the higher would be the party’s chances of winning. Conservatives and Catholics were made to feel unwanted.
Strangely enough the PN did not obtain the result it hoped for. Despite its openness to new modes of sexuality, not only did it fail to win, but obtained even lesser votes than in 2013.
And here is where the German experience comes in useful. In same sex marriage, the German Chancellor gave a free vote. She voted against. It does not seem that any one is attributing the decrease in votes for Merkel’s party to her stand in voting against same sex marriages. Probably it saved Merkel from losing more votes. The reason is very simple. The Socialists were all in favour of same sex marriage and they still suffered a decrease in votes.
The real cause for such a decrease of support for the main party is being attributed to the stand on migration. I am sure that this will be having its effect on Malta in the future. Immigration is destined to become a hot political topic during our next general election. This was a topic that conveniently both big parties sought to avoid in the last election, as they knew that they risked losing votes.
Germany has been receiving immigrants for decades and decades. Migration then was never an issue. One needs to remember that after the WW2, Germany received its first migrants from Spain and Italy. Later, Turks and Kurds started coming in. Migrants were part of Germany’s economic success.
But as industrialization destroyed the previous pre-existing economic order, post-industrialization in Europe is emitting tremors of political uncertainties. The last straw for Germany was the arrival of Syrian migrants, many of whom were fleeing war. Despite the fact that these Syrian migrants were not all Muslims, still they have been branded Muslim and therefore represented a cultural threat. Though many of these migrants were either professionals and skilled individuals, they were branded an economic liability. Moreover, while a significant number are Christian, debate in Germany has been not only about ethnicity or identity but also about numbers. And numbers are the most feared aspect in contemporary migration. The sudden arrival of over a million migrants sent shock-waves among the German people, resulting in the big parties losing votes.
Perhaps, the truth is that Europe is now starting to feel the effects of past misguided demographic policies. These policies have been influenced by Leftist and pseudo-Liberal ideas where sexual norms were wrongly linked to human and individual procreation rights and are beginning to give rise to concern. Even if current immigration in Europe brings some benefits to the continent, Europeans are realizing that their procreative levels cannot compete with those of mass migration. In fact migrants are being perceived as a threat to the survival of the ‘Caucasian race’ – here used in the US societal context.
When principles in politics are no longer important, and progress loses its element of compassion, concepts of race are destined to start taking central stage. This is happening because politicians are not able to reconcile their diverging interests. The bottom line is that migration stopped being seen positively both by the receiving countries and by those of departure.
As in Europe, we too have too many competing as well as conflicting interests that are becoming very difficult for us to reconcile with what Archbishop Charles Scicluna has rightly defined, during his homily on Independence Day, as the common good.