The Odds of an 'Early' German National Election

The German system has this inherent weakness....if a coalition starts to fall apart, unless you can rebuild it with another party (or two)....then you have only two avenues left.  The first is a minority government (never has been done ever in Germany).  The second is a national election is called for (usually within 90 days).

So over the past 24 hours, this has come up because the new SPD Party leadership (the partner to Merkel's government) says it might exit.

The odds of this?  Lets reflect on four serious issues:

1.  The question of Merkel running again as Chancellor?  Zero.  She's said that in the past.  Her health isn't five-star, and frankly.....more than two-thirds of German society would just like a fresh, new and different Chancellor.

2.  The SPD Party is stuck at around 16 to 20 percent in national polling.  That's not a great point to start from.

3.  The Green Party and their Robert Habeck....is whipping up on the SPD numbers.

4.  AKK is the chosen Chancellor candidate for the CDU presently....as Merkel slips out the backdoor.  AKK isn't that highly favored, and you can't say for sure that she will be the chosen candidate in a real situation.

But we have this unique feature of 2020.....there's only one single state election (early on, in Hamburg), and the SPD and Greens are slated to take near 50 to 60 percent of the Hamburg numbers.

Why carry on a early-election chat?  I think that the strategists continue to think that it's finally time that the Greens won an election (maybe with 30-percent of more), and that they can go and convince the SPD folks to go and do something stupid.....to bring the Greens to a leadership role.

How rare are early elections in Germany?  Extremely rare.  But in this case, it's a rather odd landscape, where a majority would like a fresh new Chancellor.

I might point out one curious event going on in Europe.....Spain is unable to bring people to the table and form a coalition government, which is triggering election crisis periods.  It would be very easy to see Germany walking into the same problem over the next five years.