Understanding the Coalition 'Game'

The way that elections work in Germany....the winner of the election must form a coalition or run a minority government (meaning they lack votes when proposals are brought up in the Bundestag). 

As the winner party, you go to the five other Bundestag parties and try to find the combination to get 50-percent-plus on votes. 

You sit down....discuss the priorities of your party, and theirs.....then you talk over offering them seats in the cabinet....then get to a working strategy if things come up for a vote.  Some combination of parties can work together....some can't (like the FDP and Green Party combo, or the CDU and AfD combo). 

Out of the 2017 national election, the attempt to form a CDU coalition with the Greens and FDP failed after two months of effort.  The original idea of a CDU and SPD coalition?  That was thrown out in the first forty-eight hours after the fall election....the SPD said a flat 'NO' to the idea.  But after the Green/FDP coalition idea failed.....this SPD and CDU coalition idea got brought up and forced into existence.  If you go to most SPD voters....a third of them will say it's a bad coalition and only doomed to fail.

So if this coalition were to fail now (one year after the election)?

This goes to three scenarios.  First, you could go back to the Green-FDP situation, but I doubt that this would work the second time around.  Second, you run a minority government.....which just about everyone admits is doomed to fail.  Third, you hold another election.

So what happens in an election....say in the spring of 2019?  Right now, the SPD is barely able to manage 16-to-17 percent of the national polling situation.  The Greens are ranked second right now today.  The AfD nationally?  They might pull 15 to 17 percent of the vote.  Merkel won't run in such an election and no one can say if that helps or hurts the CDU. 

Basically, dooming the coalition thing and having an election.....just makes the leadership game more difficult to figure out and a weaker government likely coming out of the whole mess.  Things were predictable for the past sixty years when the CDU and SPD combined....could achieve 50-plus percent of the national vote.  Once the two big parties go below 50-plus percent....it's a difficult 'fog' to see through. 

My humble guess is that everyone will work to make this coalition work for the next two years and hope some recovery occurs within both the CDU and SPD parties.