Germany Votes: Democracy 1:0 Pundits

A number of elections took place over the weekend - in Afghanistan, New Zealand, and Germany - but it's the German one which stands to produce the most lasting effect (and entertainment, if the first days after the election are any guide). German voters have delivered a result which has puzzled many and has been described by some as unworkable - even though upon closer inspection it has opened up rather than closed down political options for those who are willing and able to realise them.

To begin with, however, the result (which has the conservative CDU/CSU and the progressive Social Democrats neck and neck at around 35%, and the three minor parties Free Democrats, Greens, and Left/PDS at 8-9%) is a clear demonstration of how significantly more representative and democratic the German electoral system is, especially when compared with British, Australian, or U.S. models. A look at the map of directly elected German representatives shows that a Westminster-style election would likely have produced a highly polarised parliament dominated by the major parties, however much their share of the votes has been slashed in the election - potentially with a small number of independents and minor-party candidates holding a tenuous balance of power. Instead, however, the German system adds list candidates to these directly elected representatives until the balance of parties in parliament represents the distribution of votes - and so the 35/34/9/8/8 split in percentages is reflected very accurately in the 225/222/61/54/51 distribution of seats.

The near-parity between CDU/CSU and SPD is perhaps the major surprise of the election, and (despite the loss of a majority for the incumbent red/green coalition) a significant victory for the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder. His SPD party has clawed its way back from polls rating it as low as 25% of the popular vote, while simultaneously conservative challenger Angela Merkel's party waned rapidly from the lofty heights of a forecast 45% share. Clearly, voters realised in the weeks before the election that the would-be queen had no clothes, and that her proposed black/yellow coalition with the Free Democrats had few new answers to offer. Schröder, if anything, will wish that he'd had a couple more weeks for the campaign - the CDU/CSU might have dropped even further.

What is perplexing about the election aftermath are the many commentaries coming from professional pundits. Already duped by voters, they appear as sore losers, decrying the election result as unworkable and foreshadowing new elections soon. Such suggestions show that while the democratic process itself is healthy in Germany (also given the good participation rate of 77% in these elections, which are not compulsory), punditry is not. It seems as if it can no longer deal with anything but a polarised political scene, where the two camps (red/green and black/yellow) continue to battle for supremacy. Instead, voters have clearly challenged this model - not only by throwing another minor party, the Left/PDS, into the mix, but also by distributing their votes more evenly across the major and minor parties than they have in a very long time.

So what are the options now? Schröder, still swaggering with success after his unlikely resurgence (and despite the failure of red/green to win a majority in its own right), has already claimed the right to remain Chancellor (for Schröder at his most boisterous, German speakers should watch the video from the "Berliner Runde" talk show with the parties' leaders, just hours after the election) - and he has a point: the poor showing of yellow/black is as much a vote against Merkel as candidate for Chancellor as it is against the policies espoused by a conservative/neoliberal coalition. Merkel has few supporters in her claim to the top job, and despite the rallying of party colleagues around her at present is likely to be swept aside at the next opportune moment. It remains to be seen whether the CDU/CSU would swallow the idea of a 'grand coalition' between it and the Social Democrats with Schröder at the helm, however - and it appears even more unlikely that the SPD would accept one without him.

This leaves a couple of smaller options (which are also healthier as they wouldn't have an unassailable two-thirds majority in parliament): with the Left/PDS already declaring its intention to remain in opposition, either of the large parties could attempt to form government in partnership with Free Democrats and Greens. These options are already being discussed under the colourful metaphors of 'traffic light coalition' (red/yellow/green) and 'black traffic light' or 'Jamaican coalition' (black/yellow/green are Jamaica's national colours, get it?).

Already the Greens have declared their openness to talks, with a clear preference for the traffic light option. The major parties are also keen to explore - and so only the Free Democrats remain an obstacle to political progress. For now, FDP leader Guido Westerwelle, whose personality oscillates at best somewhere between that of a retired 80s boy-band singer and a real estate salesman, has added 'spoilt child' to his repertoire since Sunday night - bruised perhaps once too often by Greens and SPD attacks on his hyperactive and over-ambitious policy posturing, his initial reaction to the election results was to state a preference for opposition rather than any other than the yellow/black coalition model. Since then, he has slowly back-pedalled, entertaining at least the idea of a Jamaica option 'if the Greens reinvent themselves sufficiently'.

Apart from the fact that this model remains the less likely of the two 'smaller' coalition options, such refusal to consider the traffic light idea is also a refusal to accept the voters' expressed wishes, however - and Westerwelle's poor understanding of democratic processes, fuelled perhaps by the commentators and other pundits which have talked up the potential of the black/yellow option. Let's revisit:

• voters didn't want Angela Merkel as Chancellor - but she would lead a Jamaica-style government
• voters didn't want yellow/black - instead they did vote predominantly for centre and left-of-centre parties
• voters did boost the percentage share of the FDP, clearly wanting it to take on some responsibility in government (but not in a purely black/yellow coalition)

All of this seems to point quite clearly to a voter preference of continuing in the overall direction pursued by red/green, but with the Free Democrats' more liberal economic policies added as a further corrective.

If the FDP refuses to accept this mandate and challenge from the voters, then the blame for any continuing political and economic struggle must be placed firmly at its feet. In the process, it would also demonstrate that it has now completely transmogrified itself into an external addendum to the conservative CDU/CSU, rather than a truly free operative that is able to pick its coalition partners depending on the best chance of success at participating in an effective government. It will be responsible for artifically continuing the polarisation of German politics even against the will of the voters, who have delivered a remarkably nuanced and even-handed election result. If politicians in the FDP and elsewhere are so far gone to be unable to understand these nuances, it would be a sad time for Germany.