Berlin mutiny shows Merkel star waning

Bloomberg

Angela Merkel’s first foray into politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall was as spokeswoman for an East German party called Democratic Awakening.
The last act of her political career may also be marked by a drive for a new beginning—this time from within her own parliamentary bloc.
The defeat of Merkel’s candidate for caucus leader, Volker Kauder, a loyal lieutenant who marshaled her forces in the Bundestag throughout her time as chancellor, was a surprise blow to her authority. That it was landed by her own lawmakers showed the depth of longing for change after almost 13 years of crisis management that has seen her domestic support wane even as her international reputation grew.
The opposition hailed Kauder’s replacement in Tuesday’s vote by Ralph Brinkhaus, a fiscal hawk, as evidence that Merkel’s time was over. While her own caucus sought to play down the significance for the chancellor, the chance that she’ll become marginalised at the head of an even more unstable coalition has surely risen.
“Can Merkel Still Lead?” asked Wednesday’s headline in Bild, Germany’s biggest-selling daily. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung called the chancellor a “Lame Duck” in an opinion piece, while business newspaper Handelsblatt proclaimed a “Revolt Against Merkel.”
“I shy away from saying this is the beginning of the end, but this is the biggest blow so far to her leadership that we’ve seen outside of elections,” Jan Techau, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, said in an interview. “This weakens her across the board.” Nobody close to the center of power was calling for her resignation and Merkel has demonstrated repeatedly she can bounce back from crises that appeared to signal her undoing.
“I’ve got no time for any talk of ‘earthquakes’ and ‘votes of no confidence’ and how terrible it all is,” Transport Minister Andreas Scheuer, a member of Merkel’s Bavarian CSU allies, said on ZDF television on Wednesday. “We have a meeting of the coalition already on Monday and so the caucus needs to work well together so that we can achieve something for our citizens.”
Still, the unexpected defeat adds to an extended period of political turmoil in a nation that’s more used to being a byword for stability. The year that’s passed since an inconclusive election has seen months of fraught negotiations to form a coalition government, then a revolt by her Bavarian allies in June followed by weeks of infighting over the fate of Germany’s domestic intelligence chief. All reflect an increasing polarisation of politics epitomised by the fallout of migration that has haunted Merkel since she refused to shut Germany’s borders in 2015.