The geopolitics of the world has been reduced to such a state that trans-Atlantic machinations were so openly afoot in shaping a new order in which the USA may be ready to abandon Germany along with the rest of the NATO and EU members as Trump is showing an incipient tendency to lean towards an authoritarian troika in Washington, Moscow and Beijing
The Germans have voted and short of saying ‘No Trump please, we are German’ they have done everything to keep an overbearing American influence out. It is all but certain that Friedrich Merz of the conservative centrist Christian Democrats will be elected Chancellor. Once he strikes a deal with the third-placed SDP he can try to fulfil his promise of dealing with the new world order in Trump’s second regime by seeing to it that Germany strengthens its own defence even as it continues to support Ukraine in defending itself in its war with Russia.
The stakes in a German election that invariably throws up mixed results got even higher this time as the far right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, backed by Elon Musk canvassing openly for regime change in a country that is neither that of his birth nor the one he is a resident of, was aiming for power at the expense of the centrist parties. AfD finished an impressive second but Merz will have no truck with it in sharing power, and he can afford to take that stance as he can weave a simple coalition of CDU and SDP and form the next government with a simple majority.
The geopolitics of the world has been reduced to such a state that trans-Atlantic machinations were so openly afoot in shaping a new order in which the USA may be ready to abandon Germany along with the rest of the NATO and EU members as Trump is showing an incipient tendency to lean towards an authoritarian troika in Washington, Moscow and Beijing. Merz has suggested that he could seek nuclear cover from Britain and France if the USA pulls out of Europe even as anxiety has taken over with the future of Ukraine so uncertain as Trump waxes and wanes over his peace deal ideas.
Of course, the businessman Merz, who owns a private jet and has never held public office before, must first form a coalition with the defeated Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democratic Party and, perhaps, the Greens before he can begin to govern. And then there will be his compelling domestic priorities like convincing his people that solutions can be found for the sharp rise in the cost-of-living index that hurts even more with no matching pay raises and the immigration problem which became such a huge poll issue that much of former East Germany seems to have voted for the AfD and the others have been demanding relief from Merkel-era policies that allowed unfettered immigration.
Keeping the nationalist, anti-immigrant far-right at bay politically may be a task that Merz would have to leave for a little later even as he fights his own relative unpopularity while having to take on this stupendous task of trying to lead Europe in trade and security issues with Trump and to reinvigorate a faltering economy that is a greater worry as Germany is Europe’s biggest economy. The clearly anti-establishment vote that has changed Germany’s political scene means that the AfD is here to stay and the centrists who have ruled Germany for so long are facing the biggest crisis in their identity and their politics.
