Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08MUNICH322
2008-09-29 12:59:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Consulate Munich
Cable title:  

GERMANY/BAVARIAN ELECTIONS: CATASTROPHIC CSU

Tags:  PREL PGOV GM 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO3866
OO RUEHFL RUEHKW RUEHLA RUEHROV RUEHSR
DE RUEHMZ #0322/01 2731259
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 291259Z SEP 08
FM AMCONSUL MUNICH
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4513
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MUNICH 000322 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/30/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV GM
SUBJECT: GERMANY/BAVARIAN ELECTIONS: CATASTROPHIC CSU
LOSSES MARKS END OF AN ERA AND FORESHADOWS POLITICAL CHANGES

Classified By: Consul General Eric Nelson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 MUNICH 000322

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/30/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV GM
SUBJECT: GERMANY/BAVARIAN ELECTIONS: CATASTROPHIC CSU
LOSSES MARKS END OF AN ERA AND FORESHADOWS POLITICAL CHANGES

Classified By: Consul General Eric Nelson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary: The Christian Social Union (CSU) in Bavaria
lost 17 points off its 2003 result and brought home only 43
percent of the vote in September 28 state elections. The CSU
also lost its 46-year absolute majority in the state
parliament. Although the CSU will make no immediate
personnel changes, the party will draw many lessons over time
from this historic loss. One likely outcome will be
increased CSU assertiveness at the national level to
re-establish its image as a defender of Bavarian interests
within the federal government. This will make the CSU a more
demanding partner for Chancellor Merkel, at a time when her
other Grand Coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party,
also is staking out its own positions in the run-up to next
year's national elections. The "catastrophic loss" for the
CSU, however, translated into excitement for the Free
Democrats (FDP) and Freie Waehler (Independents),who both
made big gains. The CSU could form a coalition with either
party, but early indications suggest the FDP is more likely.
The SPD, which actually lost some ground and returned its
worst result ever in Bavaria, is trying to focus attention on
the CSU's fall and to downplay the election as a reflection
on the new SPD national leadership duo of Frank-Walter
Steinmeier and Franz Muentefering. The parties will caucus
September 29 to chart new courses across this unknown
territory. End Summary

A CSU NIGHTMARE - BUT OTHERS GAIN
--------------


2. (SBU) "Well beyond any worst case scenario we ever
considered" is how Bavarian Minister President Guenter
Beckstein (CSU) characterized the "catastrophic" 43.4 percent
showing of the CSU in the September 28 Bavarian elections,
down 17 points from an historic high five years ago. The CSU
must seek a coalition partner in the Bavarian Parliament
(Landtag) for the first time in 46 years. On "a painful
day," the CSU has had to swallow the message that "the voters
still trust the CSU to lead Bavaria but do not want us to do
it alone any longer," Beckstein and his team admitted in a
series of interviews after the polls closed. SPD leader

Franz Maget deflected suggestions that the SPD's historic low
reflected poorly on the new national leadership team of
Foreign Minister Steinmeier and incoming SPD Chairman
Muentefering. He focused instead on what he said was "really
a Bavarian election." He was beaming, not because the SPD
had lost ground and got only 18.6 percent of the vote (down
one point),but because "so many voters had broken the habit
of voting for the CSU." Those voters crossed over to the
FDP, with 8 percent, up 5 points, and the Freie Waehler
(Independents),with 10.2 percent, up more than 5 points.
Bavaria remains politically center-right by splitting 60
percent of the vote among these parties. The Left Party got
just over 4 percent, a result that was an improvement for the
party but that leaves them under the five-percent hurdle.
The Greens held even with 9.4 percent, up about 2 points.


3. (SBU) The CSU lost its absolute majority only five years
after winning two-thirds of the seats under Edmund Stoiber.
The CSU has announced that it will conduct a "merciless
review" of the causes. Some commentators have identified the
apparent loss of CSU clout at the national level as a reason
for voter disenchantment. The CSU leadership's attempt to
revive a tax break for commuters -- which was brushed off by
Chancellor Merkel and other CDU heavy hitters -- was
emblematic of the CSU's dwindling influence. Poorly handled
state-level issues like the state-wide ban on smoking (which
alienated owners of small restaurants and bars, a critical
part of the CSU-friendly milieu) also played a role. After
caucusing on the mornnig after, CSU chairman Erwin Huber has
announced that the party would make no immediate personnel
changes. He said he had refused to accept the resignation of
party General Secretary Christine Hardethauer.


4. (SBU) The "Freie Waehler" (FW),a collection of
independent candidates without obvious ideological bent, and
the FDP each capitalized on these diffuse feelings of
discontent, picking up ten points between them. The FDP
returns to the Landtag after a 14-year absence. The party
has been offering itself as a coalition partner and this is
the most likely outcome, plus it would give the FDP a
tailwind for the 2009 Bundestag election campaign. As for
the FW, commentators argue that theirs was a protest vote,
especially since the party has no official regional
"platform." They are a communal party, traditionally
focusing on local issues, and this was its first time running
state-wide. The Greens held steady, arguing that the CSU was
punished for its national position on genetically modified
organisms as expressed by Federal Minister for Food Horst
Seehofer.


MUNICH 00000322 002 OF 002


NATIONAL REVERBERATIONS
--------------


5. (C) Bavaria's political revolution will have serious
implications for Germany's national political system.
Historically, Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU has benefited
from a strong showing by their sister party, the CSU, in
conservative Bavaria. The CSU's dramatic decline now
threatens the prospects of a possible CDU/CSU-FDP coalition
government after the 2009 election. Such a coalition is
questionable if the CSU is not polling comfortably over 50
per cent. The chance of such a coalition becoming reality is
now less likely. A weakened CSU could be burdened by
infighting; it could also spar with the CDU, blaming it for
inadequate support in advance of the September 28 elections.



6. (C) The federal Grand Coalition will now worry about the
political math in the Bundesrat (Upper House),especially the
decline of its majority. Currently, the Grand Coalition
(CDU/CSU and SPD) has 41 of 69 votes in the Bundesrat. As a
result of the loss of CSU's majority in Bavaria, the CSU must
now enter into a coalition, most likely with the FDP. Since
this coalition arrangement will not reflect the composition
of the Grand Coalition on a national scale, it will lose
another six votes, resulting in a razor-thin majority in the
Bundesrat (35 of 69 votes). Adding salt to the open wound,
if CDU Minister-President Roland Koch (Hesse) lost power to
an SPD-Green coalition, then Merkel's coalition could be
reduced to a minority in the Bundesrat. This would further
hamstring Merkel's legislative agenda but would not
necessarily lead directly to a collapse of the Grand
Coalition.


7. (C) Regarding the outlook for the election of the federal
president in May 2009, the Bavarian returns will likely have
no direct effect on incumbent President Horst Koehler.
Either of the CSU's coalition partners, the FW and the FDP,
are more likely to support Koehler than SPD candidate Gesine
Schwan.

NO REASON FOR REJOICING IN THE SPD
--------------


8. (C) FM Steinmeier, SPD Chancellor candidate, said
September 28 that "this earthquake result will affect the
party landscape nationwide." It does not appear, however, to
have lifted the SPD out of its polling doldrums. The
Bavarian SPD failed to capitalize on the political tailwind
generated by the new SPD leadership in Berlin. Despite
several campaign appearances by Frank-Walter Steinmeier and
Franz Muentefering, Bavarian voters apparently remained
unimpressed by the SPD. The SPD therefore has focused on the
decline of the CSU and future infighting between the CDU and
CSU. The Muentefering-Steinmeier duopoly will be pondering
the result at a time when they are attempting to reinvigorate
the SPD with a new leadership and new platform. The Left
Party's respectable showing even in conservative Bavaria is
also an indicator of the SPD's failure to stem the rise of
the Left Party.

COMMENT
--------------


9. (C) With its demotion from hegemon to merely the dominant
power in Bavaria, the CSU is the victim of its own economic
and development successes in the region it ruled alone for 46
years. Bavarian politics is starting to reflect life in the
modern, successful Bavaria, more complicated and colorful
than ever before, and a leader in Germany in many fields.
Chancellor Merkel and the CDU now must reassess the remaining
power of their once monolithic partner, yet another of the
reverberations of shifting political forces in Germany a year
ahead of the next federal election.
NELSON