The German federal election of 2021-andern, andern uber alles

The German federal election of 2021 resulted in a sea of electoral change following the retirement of long-serving Chancellor Angela Merkel, which will mark a new direction not only for Germany but also in all likelihood much of Europe. 

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) [in tandem with the Christian Social Union, its more conservative sister party which only stands in Bavaria] of which Dr Merkel was leader under her tenure as Chancellor of Germany crashed and burned this election. Not only did they lose nearly half their Wahlkreise (constituency seats) with the added indignity of seeing many incumbents being pushed into third place (often by the Greens in the former West, or the AfD in the former East) in their respective constituency, but they achieved their worst ever result in terms of vote share and their worst seat total since their inaugural run in 1949. In total they won just 196 seats (nearly a quarter of whom were CSU seats) and polled only 24.1%.  By any standards, Angela Merkel was a tough act to follow for the CDU, but their new Chancellor candidate, Armin Laschet, was perceived to be out of touch and lacklustre from start to finish during the campaign. An incident where Herr Laschet was filmed laughing during his visit to Erfstadt during the German floods ultimately sealed his fate from then on, even after he apologised. Furthermore, youthful voters in particular had a strong desire for change after 16 years of Dr Merkel, and this was felt in the metropolises and university towns of Germany in particular, and most of all the capital, Berlin. Surprisingly, the CDU gained 2 Wahlkreise: Berlin Marzahn-Hellersdorf due to Die Linke's collapse and where the CDU candidate was a well-known Berlin councillor, and Markischer-Kreis II where a popular SPD incumbent was standing down. On another interesting note, CDU candidate Lars Rohwer recorded the lowest ever winning vote share in a German Wahlkreis-18.6% in Dresden II-Bautzen II. The CSU were lucky to only lose 6 Wahlkreis, notably including Munich South to the Greens; their other Munich seats were narrow holds (with the Greens missing out on Munich West-Central by just 156 votes).

The Greens proved to be the star of the show in many ways, although they still only finished third when polling last year had usually anticipated them gaining the federal runner-up spot at least. They gained 51 seats, putting them up to 118 which has already made them the next Bundestag kingmakers; this and their vote share of 14.8% is their best ever, although they still struggled in the former East. For the first time ever, they won constituencies outside their bohemian stronghold of Berlin Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer Berg Ost including not only long-awaited gains of Freiburg and Stuttgart I but also distant prospects from fourth place in 2017 such as Bonn, capital of the former West Germany from 1949 to 1990, and Flensburg, helped by their co-leader Robert Halbeck standing there (their other co-leader and Chancellor candidate, Annalena Baerbock, was unsuccessful in her bid to gain Potsdam-Potsdam Mittelmark-Teltow-Flaming II, although she was elected on the list vote). All in all the Greens won 16 seats at constituency level, all but two of which are in the former West Germany. The climate emergency, highlighted by the severe floods in Germany that caused many deaths in July, has brought green issues further to the forefront, and younger voters' strong desire for a green-minded economy and for Germany to make more progress along that path have boosted the Greens substantially. If there is one downside to the Greens' campaign, it is that they will not win any list seats in Saarland after their list nominations were rejected in that Land, meaning they only had candidates at Wahlkreis level there.

The SPD (Social Democratic Party) topped the poll but only with 25.7% of the vote and 206 seats, which is also ironically their 4th worst result in their history. Many young voters distrust the SPD for their pushing through of Hartz IV welfare reforms under the tenure of Gerhard Schroder, not to mention their participation in the Iraq War; they also present an out of touch middle-class public sector image that does not endear themselves well to Millennials and Generation Z who have struggled in Germany as elsewhere in the western hemisphere, even if not to the extent of their counterparts in the UK and USA. Furthermore, three of the previous four elections in Germany resulted in a grand coalition with the SPD being junior partners to the CDU, although this last minus point did not harm them as much. In terms of Wahlkreise they were the main beneficiary of the CDU's losses although they lost some seats to the Greens, notably including Hamburg-Altona and Hamburg-Elmsbuttel; the Hanseatic City of Hamburg has long been an SPD stronghold in Germany. 

The FDP (Free Democratic Party), like the Greens, benefitted from the desire for change from younger voters, although their time in coalition with the CDU (from 2009 to 2013) has not been forgotten by more radical and less wealthy 20 and 30-somethings (the FDP has traditionally polled best amongst the self-employed and upper middle class voter sectors of Germany) and their record on environmental issues is pretty poor as well. Nevertheless the FDP increased their seat total by 12 to 92, although they did finish fourth once again.

The problems with Brexit in the United Kingdom have tarnished the Alternative for Germany (AfD) as they have with so many other Eurosceptic parties, and the "cordon sanitaire" other political parties in Germany apply to them prevents them from getting far. Interestingly, due to the CDU collapsing worse in the former East than the former West, the AfD gained 13 Wahlkreise across Saxony and Thuringia, including Zwickau where they did not even field a candidate in 2017. However, the balancing mechanism of Germany's Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) system meant the votes they lost meant that a heavy loss of list seats was in order when their vote share dropped to 10.3%, particularly in the former West. 

Die Linke (The Left) endured a near-disaster this election, primarily due to losing younger voters to the Greens and the SPD (to a lesser extent) which also harks to their long-term decline both East and West of Berlin with the proportion of voters with any significant memories of the former East Germany decline each election; similar parties in Europe are generally faring worse. They dropped to 4.9%, just below the 5% threshold, but Soren Pellmann's narrow surprise hold of Leipzig II (to compensate for losing two of their four seats in Berlin) gave them the third Wahlkreis they needed to claim list seats; nevertheless they won just 36 list seats meaning almost half their 2017 seats were lost, and they are now not in a significant bargaining position when it comes to coalition formation for the 2021 Bundestag. 

Two other noticeable surprises of this election were the South Schleswig (North Schleswig is in Denmark; South Schleswig is in Germany) Voter Federation winning a seat at federal level for the first time, even though outside of Flensburg and the surrounding area they have limited support; note that being a regional voter association the SSW is exempt from the 5% threshold at both Landtag and Bundestag level. The other surprise was that the Free Voters (FW) failed to gain any seats at all despite having considerable support in Bavaria in particular where they were expected to benefit from any CSU downturn (the CSU proportionally lost fewer votes than any CDU list in fact, and still polled more than double the SPD vote in Bavaria). Their stumbling block was having too limited support outside of Bavaria and the AfD still being the main "alternative hardline conservative" party in the former East. The FW polled 2.4%, not even half the 5% threshold required. 

Of the other parties standing three achieved more than 1%, the Tierschutzpartei (Animal Welfare Party), the grassroots dieBasis party (more famous for opposing lockdown restrictions and other COVID-19 measures), and the satirical die PARTEI, achieving 1.5%, 1.4% and 1% respectively. Marco Bulow became the first MP for die PARTEI during the 2017-2021 Bundestag when he defected from the SPD, but his attempt to defend Dortmund I failed badly; he finished fourth with 8.6% of the vote and the SPD easily regained the seat. dieBasis unsurprisingly polled best in Bavaria, where in some cases they polled better than Die Linke although Bavaria is also Die Linke's worst Land by a considerable margin. Notable failures amongst the other parties include Euro-federalists Volt Europe and the Eurosceptic conservative Liberal Conservative Reform (LKR) party which attracted the defection of 2 AfD MdBs (Members of the Bundestag, the German equivalent to MP); the latter did not even register 0.1% of the vote at either level. The wooden spoon of this Bundestag election in terms of list votes went to the Civil Rights Movement Solidarity party, which is in fact the German branch of the LaRouche movement and is led by Lyndon LaRouche's widow Helga, although other parties who only fielded one or two Wahlkreis candidates polled fewer votes nationally, as did many independents.

Turnout did not actually improve all that significantly from 2017 despite the strong desire for change-it increased only 0.4%, to 76.6%, although arguably a lot of CDU/CSU voters may have simply abstained, countering any turnout increase on the progressive side. The most likely coalition to emerge is a "traffic light" coalition consisting of the SPD, Greens, and FDP. A "Jamaica coalition" (CDU, Greens and FDP) is also theoretically possible but understandably the Greens and FDP will be less than willing to have Armin Laschet as the next German Chancellor, even if Olaf Scholz is not particularly inspiring either. A grand coalition is mathematically possible yet again, but the least likely outcome again due to dissatisfaction with Herr Laschet, inter alia.