In my column in this week’s New Statesman, I wrote of the modest but underestimated chance of a left-leaning “traffic light” government emerging from the upcoming German federal election on 26 September. The term refers to a coalition containing the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD), the centre-left Greens and the right-liberal Free Democrats (FDP), so-called because their colours are red, green and yellow. To be sure, it remains most likely that Angela Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) will continue to lead Europe’s largest economy, probably in coalition with the Greens. But two important state elections in Germany’s south-west today reinforced the outside chance of the traffic-light option.
At the time of writing, the existing traffic-light (“Ampel” in German) coalition in the state of Rheinland-Pfalz led by the SPD’s Malu Dreyer looks certain to continue governing; the three parties are on track to win 55 of the 101 seats in the state’s parliament, up from 51 seats. Also at the time of writing, the Green minister-president of the state of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, has not just increased his party’s vote-share but also now has a choice between continuing his coalition with the CDU, his junior partner, or switching to an Ampel of his own, with the SPD and FDP as his junior partners.
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