I sat last night and watched the German 8PM and 9:45PM news.....fair amount of coverage over the SPD Party mess and Schulz declining the Foreign Minister position.
First, it was obvious that the news folks could not find that many political folks to comment over this. No one can explain how this all came to be such a mess.
Second, for anyone looking at the future of this coalition....it looks even more dismal than it did before.
As for affecting state elections in Hessen and Bavaria this summer? I think the Linke Party, the Greens, the AfD, and the FDP....will all hype the mess, and probably cut 10-percent of the normal expected vote count for the SPD.
Affecting the political barometer poll count in the next two weeks? I would expect the SPD to drop one to two points, and it'll put them near 16-percent in public opinion.
As for Schulz? I think he will quietly admit that he's finished in Germany. As for what really went wrong here in the Schulz camp? They had to dislodge Gabriel as the leader of the party, in a respectful fashion. Then they had to lead onto a great campaign with good numbers, and totally failed at that. Then they locked onto the idea of outright refusing to be a coalition partner. Then when the Merkel-Green-FDP coalition deal fell through, they didn't stick with the refusal idea. Then as the coalition deal was finally worked out....with six cabinet posts and twenty-odd party posts....they just couldn't bring themselves to respectfully handle Gabriel any longer. Then they woke up in the midst of a massive email attack where pro-Gabriel enthusiasts asked.....'what the hell is going on here'? The leadership skills by Schulz? He makes good speeches but one might suggest that he's just not that great of a leader.
The names mentioned to step in next as Foreign Minister? Niels Annen is mentioned a fair bit....a younger guy (44 years old), and has a background in foreign affairs. Katarina Barley is often mentioned, but she has no background in foreign affairs...well liked though and is around 49 years old. Finally, there's Thomas Oppermann, approaching 63 years old and one of the more popular SPD members but not really known for diplomacy events or foreign affairs. Niels Annen would be a big positive for younger SPD members and has the background for the job....so you'd think that they'd go with him.
The group in this committee that made the decision to dump Gabriel? They've got a public mess to clean up and it might take two years to make the public forget about this episode.
Finally, to the topic of the SPD Party-wide vote. Before this mess occurred, I figured that the coalition vote within the SPD Party (figure 460,000 potential voters) would pass with just barely 55-percent of the vote. The youth element of the party is heavy against this coalition. After this event of the past twenty-four hours? I would guess and say it'll be a marginal win (maybe 51-percent). It's very possible that it won't pass....then we go onto a Merkel-mess (a minority government or another election).
If you walked into a pub with a hundred working-class Germans...the bulk of them, maybe 80-percent....would say another election would be fine with them right now. I would fear that weaker numbers would occur for the CDU and the SPD....inviting a chaotic and unpredictable coalition government.
One has to shake their head....this is a fairly big mess.
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