Germany’s liberal comeback: a safe protest vote

BERLIN — Christian Lindner is, on the face of it, the closest thing Germany has to French President and political golden boy Emmanuel Macron. He’s more charismatic than conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel and more handsome than her Social Democratic challenger Martin Schulz. And though Lindner has spent two decades in German politics, he’s still comparatively young. That’s why, when Lindner — who is 38 — recently mentioned “an eloquent, reform-happy, good-looking 39-year-old giving hope,” many people thought he was talking about himself.

Unlike Macron, Lindner will probably never run a country. But as the leader of Germany’s Free Democrats, or FDP, he still has plenty to brag about.

Only four years ago, the FDP suffered a near-death experience. The liberals failed to clear the 5-percent hurdle in the federal election and crashed out of the German parliament. Party chief Philipp Rösler resigned. Seasoned FDP politicians were close to tears. After 64 years of representation in the Bundestag, it felt like the end of an era. Some people thought the liberals would never return.

But, with a federal election coming up again, the FDP is back. Contrary to expectations, the stint on the sidelines has done the party a lot of good. They came in at 11.5 percent and 12.6 percent in regional elections in Schleswig-Holstein and North Rhine-Westphalia respectively. The second was their best result ever in Germany’s most populous state. On the federal level, polls put the FDP at 8 percent.

So what happened? Some commentators have attributed the party’s success solely to Lindner. Others have argued that the Germans are suddenly warming to the FDP’s message of economic liberalism. Both are overstatements. Like Macron’s En Marche movement France, the FDP has benefited at least as much from the failings of other parties as from its leader’s charisma or any supposed surge of liberalism.

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Preaching the gospel of free people and free markets isn’t the most gratifying task in German politics. Most citizens have been wary of unfettered capitalism ever since the stock market crashed in the newly unified nation in 1873. Given the choice, Germans prefer social stability, harmonious labor relations and the lulling presence of big government to the ups and downs of a super dynamic economy.

The spirit of Rhine capitalism is still alive here (although globalization has done away with some of its rigidities). Not even CEOs of DAX (blue-chip) companies, startup entrepreneurs or family-business owners can be counted on to favor major tax cuts or large-scale privatization schemes. Political scientists estimate the FDP’s core electorate amounts to no more than 3 percent of the population.

Rethinking also meant rebranding, and Lindner has proved adept at employing social media to hammer home the idea that the new FDP is a party of principles.

To reach voters beyond their base, the FDP has habitually struck alliances with either of the two major parties, the social democratic SPD or the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). Sometimes the party’s socially liberal wing prevails and it turns to the SPD. At other times, the free-marketeers win out, and it sides with the CDU. That’s made the liberals the so-called Mehrheitsbeschaffer, or kingmakers, of post-war German politics.

This worked out well for the party until 1982 when the FDP, the junior partner in Helmut Schmidt’s Social Democratic government, took a sharp turn and abetted conservative Helmut Kohl’s rise to power. The timing appeared fortuitous. Neoliberal revolutions were underway elsewhere, and the German economy was stagnating, with public debt and unemployment at unprecedented heights.

Christian Lindner, before casting his vote for the head of the party | Steffi Loos/Getty Images

But Kohl was no Thatcherite. His attempts at economic reform turned out to be unenthusiastic at best. Instead of spearheading a cultural shift, the FDP got a reputation for cold-hearted opportunism — and the label stuck.

As a result, voting for the FDP came to be considered an absolute no-go among Germany’s intellectual elites. When Lindner took the helm in 2013, the party seemed truly down and out. And that’s when he vowed to “rethink” the FDP.

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For the past four years, Lindner has worked hard to give the party a complete makeover. Rethinking also meant rebranding, and Lindner has proved adept at employing social media to hammer home the idea that the new FDP is a party of principles.

Several videos of his have gone viral. In one, dramatically shot in black and white, he poses in a tight white T-shirt, looking exhausted but insisting that the struggle has been worth it. “You knew all that before and you did it anyway,” he says in a voiceover as if talking to himself. “Because something is at stake, it’s about our country.”

Another shows him lashing out at bureaucrats in German parliaments and bemoaning the lack of an entrepreneurial trial-and-error-culture in politics. (In 2001, Linder proudly failed as the co-founder of a firm that sold online avatars.)

To unite the party behind him, Lindner has stuck to some of the old FDP classics. He likes to attack big-government and hawk tax reductions. Digitalization is another pet topic. But he has also sharpened the party’s message on issues that aren’t strictly economic, such as education and migration.

The FDP’s triumph in North Rhine-Westphalia comes as a special boon. Lindner is a local boy, born and raised in Wuppertal, and he took a gamble when he announced his candidacy in both North Rhine-Westphalian and federal elections. So far, it seems to be paying off. German media have promptly dubbed the FDP a “one-man party,” insinuating that the liberals would falter without him.

That may well be true. But Lindner has also had plenty of help from forces beyond his control.

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The German economy may still be prospering, but trust in parliamentary democracy has eroded in recent years. Many Germans — like voters in other Western nations — feel politically unsettled and estranged from the major parties. Old allegiances have turned sour, and plenty of voters are just plain confused.

Chancellor Merkel is partly to blame for this, having moved the conservative CDU to the center. Her refugee policy, in particular, won her plaudits from the left but alienated large swathes of voters on the right. The left-leaning Social Democrats, in turn, feel betrayed ever since Chancellor Gerhard Schröder pushed through radical labor-market reforms in the early aughts. And the Greens, plagued by internal strife, are struggling to agree on key issues such as asylum laws and social equality.

Christian Lindner, during a press conference in Berlin | Bernd von Jutrczenka/AFP via Getty Images

Perhaps that’s why a four-year stint outside the parliamentary system — a sabbatical of sorts — seems to have re-energized the FDP rather than destroyed it. After all, it wasn’t the FDP’s message on free-market economics that resonated most with frustrated voters. In late 2015, Lindner challenged Merkel on her refugee policy, arguing it was irresponsible to take in such large numbers of asylum seekers without a plan.

Lindner also raised the FDP’s profile as a law-and-order party, calling for more police on the streets. At the same time, he attacked the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) and cleverly established the FDP as an alternative option for Merkel-haters and other disgruntled citizens who wouldn’t dare to vote for the far-right. The liberals have become the safe choice for protest voters.

Another junior-partner role in government could jeopardize the party’s miraculous comeback — and destroy what Lindner has built over the past few years.

Polling research shows that the liberals poached votes not only from traditional conservatives but also from the Social Democrats and the Greens. It’s highly improbable that the angst-ridden Germans, of all people, are suddenly turning into enthusiastic free-marketeers. More likely, they appreciate the FDP’s self-styled political outsider status.

But how sustainable is it? Electoral success comes with a major downside — responsibility. In North Rhine-Westphalia, the FDP is now in coalition talks with Merkel’s CDU. Lindner announced that he’d let FDP members vote on a possible coalition treaty, arguing that the party’s identity needs to be preserved at all costs. He’s also signaled that he’s not hellbent on teaming up with the conservatives. Which makes a lot of sense. Another junior-partner role in government could jeopardize the party’s miraculous comeback — and destroy what Lindner has built over the past few years. Protest voters usually prefer parties that aren’t in power.

Konstantin Richter is a contributing writer at POLITICO. He is the author of the German-language novel, “The Chancellor: A Fiction,” about Merkel and the refugee crisis.