Olaf Scholz has to threaten a grand coalition

Olaf Scholz

Without the threat of a grand coalition, the SPD candidate for chancellor maneuvered himself into a worse position vis-à-vis the Union.

(Photo: Reuters)

Annalena Baerbock, Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner are clever tacticians. The latter declared on the evening of the election that the Greens and the FDP want to talk to each other first before they go into exploratory talks with the SPD or the Union. So they start now on Wednesday.

The official reason: You do not want to commit the same mistakes as four years ago when the FDP left the negotiating table during the Jamaica talks. Clear lines would first have to be drawn up between the ideologically more divergent participants – the liberals and the eco-party.

But Lindner, Habeck and Baerbock are clear: With this approach they can secure almost any negotiating power. As soon as they come to an agreement, they are the chancellor makers. And that means: You can demand almost anything from the SPD or Union – always with the threat of switching to the other.

For the election winner SPD, this is an incredibly bad situation. Chancellor candidate Olaf Scholz would have an obvious way out of this dilemma: the grand coalition (GroKo). At the moment, a continuation of the union with the Union, only now under his leadership, appears to be ruled out on both sides. But does that really make sense strategically?

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With the threat of GroKo, the Greens and FDP would always run the risk with their demands that the Social Democrats might take a different path. They couldn’t ask for anything they wanted.

At first glance, it may seem unpopular for Scholz to bring another GroKo into play. It would be a merger with the loser in the election, it would be the continuation of a run-down government alliance, that’s how clear the narrative sounds.

But that shouldn’t matter to Scholz, because this strategic move would be about a central concern: to preserve one’s own agenda. The SPD candidate for chancellor keeps talking about voting mandates for the SPD, Greens and FDP, all of which achieved strong results. But Scholz first has only one mission: to enforce as many points of the SPD as possible. Because the voter chooses a party, not an alliance.

In addition, without the threat of a GroKo, the SPD will maneuver itself into a worse situation vis-à-vis the Union in the medium term. It could sharpen its profile in the opposition, while the SPD would lose its in the government. Scholz would receive the receipt in the next general election.

More: Finances, pensions, climate, digitization – where the trouble spots of the possible coalitions are

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