The Next German National Election?

Focus (the news magazine) had a minor political piece today with serious implications.

The suggestion brought up by the Bremen Minister President....Carsten Sieling....to BILD....was that some SPD political folks are already talking about an exit to this Merkel coalition deal.....in two years, and force another election.

The odds of this happening?  There's a fair amount of negativity existing within the SPD with the party leadership.  I would give this a better than 50-percent chance of occurring.

The chief problem?  Well....the SPD Party is sitting at 16-percent in terms of public popularity, and there is a fractured group of individuals.  The youth element of the party, those under 25-years old....want a more aggressive and dominating party attitude (anti-Merkel).  Then you have the pro-asylum and tax-distribution group.  And then you have middle-class-working-class who feel left behind. 

The timing in 2020?  Bremen has a state election in May of 2020, which would normally be a positive election for the SPD.  Hamburg has a state election in February of 2020, which would also be very positive normally for the SPD.  And that's it for normal state elections for 2020. 

My guess (if this was the strategy)....a coalition failure would really start to occur by mid-summer of 2019 (around the EU election in June of 2019).  By August/September....it would be obvious.  An announcement for the next election would then occur by January 2020....with the election likely in the month after the Bremen election.  The SPD would rely upon really positive news out of the Bremen and Hamburg elections. 

The colossal gamble?  Well.....Sahra Wagenknecht of the Linke Paraty (the 'front' person of the party) is rumored to be thinking of creating her own political party out of thin air.  Yeah, it does sound crazy.

To lay out the Wagenknecht issue....first....she's tried to hype the party VIP membership to have a more controlled approach to immigrants and migrants, and that has failed.  Several of the top folks in the party are anti-Wagenknecht now. 

Then you have Macron success where he built a party of disgruntled folks from various parties, and forged a whole new element....taking out the center-left and center-right strategies.  Wagenknecht appears to want that type of situation.

The frustration element within the youth of the SPD?  I don't think it would take much to convince them to sit down and pause over Wagenknecht's strategy and 'promises'. 

Wagenknecht could walk out with half of the Linke Party voters, and take some different groups from the Greens and SPD.  As silly as it might sound....I think she could get near nine-percent of the polling, and dragging the SPD down to around twelve-percent for national polling. 

The CDU could absolutely win in such an election, but then you start to ask how you'd build a coalition with five minor parties, and any partnership would mandate a group of three (the CDU, with 'A' and 'B').  The miserability index for the person who follows Merkel for the leadership?  The unhappy CDU voters who have to accept this watered-down government, in order to have a marginalized government? 

So, settle back and enjoy the 'bumpy' ride to reach spring of 2020.