It was a long weekend for the possible Social Democratic (SPD) minister-president of Hesse, Andrea Ypsilanti. At the end of last week, she said that she would go back on the SPD’s pledge not to work with the Left party, the latest incarnation of Germany’s post-communists. She would form a minority government with the Greens, brought to power on the sufferance of the Left. That would be a one-vote majority to bring in the government. Except it didn’t happen.
(The other potential coalitions are foundering on the person of the insufferable Roland Koch. He’s in the way of a grand coalition, as is, in fairness, Ypsilanti. And Tarek Al-Wazir, the top candidate of the Greens, is the son of a Yemeni diplomat; he has even less use for Koch’s anti-foreigner positions than I do, which rules out the CDU-FDP-Green possibility. And at any rate, some Green leaders recently said their party has more in common with the Left than with the FDP.)
What Ypslianti had not reckoned with was dissent within SPD ranks. That came from Dagmar Metzger, a newly elected and heretofore little-known SPD member of the state legislature. Who comes from a long-time SPD family. That originally came from eastern Germany. Where her family had felt the special attention the communists gave to Social Democrats. And now she saw no reason to go back on a commitment to help the political heirs of said communists. Funny that. Whereupon Ypsilanti said she would not be a candidate for minister-president after all.
So it’s onward to plan B, as in Belgium. Koch, insufferability and all, is empowered by the state constitution to lead a caretaker government. He can carry on official business as before, and the statute does not set any limit on how long a caretaker cabinet can stay in office; theoretically, it could go the whole term. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that any proposals made by the government would become law. Indeed, the “opposition” might well muster a working majority and pass legislation over the objection of the sitting cabinet. And no new ministers can be appointed once the caretaker cabinet is set. That’s no way to run a railroad, much less the home of Germany’s main financial markets and its largest airport.
Stay tuned.
Indeed, and it is likely to end in new elections as soon as the new budget or something serious happens.
But the whole affair makes me wonder why she didn’t check first. This is a controversial thing and dissent could be expected. Keeping in mind that the MP in question should have simply kept silent and voted against her, in effect finishing her career, I am troubled to assume simple stupidity. What happened?
Well, a lot of times if there’s one MP willing to go public on something like this, there’s a good bit of silent opposition. (The Simonis debacle in Schleswig-Holstein is more the exception than the rule.) So if Metzger weren’t taking the heat, someone else would be, and red-red-green would still be a vote short.
As for why not wider consultation, it looks like a mistake. Though a slightly understandable one in the heat of the moment, after coming so close to unseating the insufferable Roland Koch.
It was weeks after the election and was cleared by the federal party and nobody asked whether she has the votes? Shere stupidity explains a lot, but this?
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