Many Germans voted, though few expected change

Returned to office, Merkel looks toward a partnership with the free market Free Democratic Party.

Cameron AbadiSeptember 27, 2009 11:03Updated May 30, 2010 12:09

A combination of pictures shows the signs leading to polling stations during the German general election (Bundestagswahl) in Berlin, Sept. 27, 2009. Germans voted on Sunday in a federal election that looks likely to return Chancellor Angela Merkel to power but may deny her the center-right government she says is needed to revive Europe's largest economy. (Johannes Eisele/Reuters)

Update: The voters have decided that Angela Merkel will remain chancellor of Germany. Of course, that much was certain going into election day. But, the election did determine that Germans will, in fact, see a change in their national government. While the final tallies of the vote have yet to be made, it seems all but certain that Merkel's CDU and the free market Free Democratic party together will receive just enough seats in parliament to form a governing coalition that promised to revive the slumping national economy with tax cuts. The Social Democrats will join the Left Party and the Greens in the opposition.

It counts as a hard-fought victory for Merkel, one achieved in surprising fashion. Merkel's Christian Democrats lost votes compared to the election four years ago, garnering only 33 percent of the vote. The victory of her preferred "black-yellow" coalition can be attributed nearly entirely to the pro-business FDP's gaining 15 percent of the vote, the best result in the party's history. Merkel had promised to temper the FDP's more radical plans to restructure the German economy, but given her party's relatively weak election results, the coalition may prove more of a nuisance than she had hoped. In her post-election speech to supporters at the CDU party headquarters, Merkel claimed that she would serve as "the chancellor of all Germans," but a partnership with the FDP likely won't long allow her to maintain the above-the-fray image she's cultivated.

The results of the country's other major party can genuinely be considered a surprise. After 11 consecutive years of serving in the federal government, the SPD was handed a catastrophic defeat. It earned only 23 percent of the vote, by far the lowest tally in postwar German history, failing to meet even the party's most conservative expectations. Frank-Walter Steinmeier admitted that the Social Democrats had experienced a "bitter defeat," but promised to lead the party's parliamentary group in the opposition. Given the disastrous election results, the SPD's more liberal wing is likely to clamor for a change in leadership, in hopes of sooner building a bridge to the Left Party, which is currently a pariah on the federal level, but which nonetheless earned over 12 percent in the election.

BERLIN, Germany — The church bells rang out over Berlin as usual this Sunday morning. But rather than heading to church, streams of locals of varying age and social class, most in finely pressed clothes, were headed toward local schools to cast their votes in the country’s federal election.

In a country that is ever more estranged from its religious heritage and increasingly cynical about the competence of its major political parties, the act of voting still enjoys an aura of earnestness. Despite an election campaign that attracted little fervor among Germans and was criticized for the lack of clear alternatives it put on offer, participation in today’s voting is expected to almost equal the 77 percent turnout in 2005. And there isn't even much suspense: Angela Merkel will almost certainly remain as chancellor, with only the coalition behind her in question.

By comparison, about 131 million Americans voted in the pivotal 2008 presidential election, 5 million more than in 2004, or a turnout of 56.8 percent.

To the extent that the act of voting enjoys a patina of idealism in Germany, it’s because of the country’s recent and not-so-recent history. At an elementary school in the central Berlin district of Mitte, most of the voters were clearly among those from the creative and political classes that moved to Berlin after the fall of the Wall in 1989. But, some of those making their way to the polls still had clear memories of life under the authoritarian Communist Party in East Germany. “We sometimes had elections, but if you didn’t vote you got in trouble,” said Timm Drieschner. “Things haven’t really gotten better in our lives since the wall came down, but at least the elections are real.”

Other voters point to lessons ingrained in the culture after the horrors of Hitler's dictatorship. “We learn from a young age that political life can go very, very wrong and that the country can suffer because of it,” said one voter who declined to be named. “So Germans take it as a responsibility to try to keep their public life on track.”

But, other voters suggested that the high election participation is still reflective of authoritarian impulses in the culture at large. “People in Germany don’t have a personal commitment to the politics they go vote for,” said Britta Schumacher, a doctoral student of sociology at the Free University in Berlin. “They receive their ballot in the mail, and they participate in the election simply because that’s what’s expected of them by their government and their culture.”