Chancellor election | The cold heart of the bourgeoisie

"From today, hope reigns!" ran the headline in the "Bild" newspaper on Tuesday, confidently proclaiming its favorite chancellor. But when the votes in the secret Bundestag vote on the election of the new chancellor were counted on Tuesday morning, candidate Friedrich Merz lacked the necessary majority . The CDU, CSU, and SPD received 328 of 630 votes in parliament; Merz would have needed at least 316 – but he received 310, with 307 votes against.

A catastrophe, was the apt comment from those close to the CDU chairman, because in fact this is far more than an industrial accident. Firstly, because never before in the history of the Federal Republic has a chancellor election gone wrong. Secondly, and above all, because 18 missing votes is no small matter. If the result of the federal election was a wake-up call, as Merz recently noted, especially with regard to the AfD and the Left Party, then Tuesday morning's vote was a thunderclap that showed him where the hammer hangs. This potential for dissent will accompany the work of the new coalition as a constant threat, even if Merz achieved the necessary majority in the second round of voting on Tuesday afternoon.

It's obvious that the coalition agreement negotiated by the CDU/CSU and SPD and their personnel decisions have left a great deal of dissatisfaction. There are always those who are shortchanged in the allocation of positions ; but above all, it's clear that the CDU/CSU has prevailed across the board against the weakened Social Democrats, even if they gloss over the deadlock. But what's there to gloss over when Merz, for example, can state without contradiction that he has agreed with the SPD on a tightening of asylum and migration policy that goes far beyond what he intended to push through at the end of January with the help of AfD votes?

So, two threats are looming when the new coalition gets underway. There are dissatisfied members of the CDU/CSU who find the new government too liberal; and there are quite a few within the SPD who find the government's program too antisocial . And on the other hand, there's Merz's trial run from January: If necessary, he could do things differently, with the AfD, which keeps offering itself.

As a lobbyist for his class, Merz demands more respect for higher earners.

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Merz has long since become accustomed to the fact that he only reaches the levers of political power by indirect routes. At the beginning of the millennium, when CDU leader Schäuble resigned due to his involvement in a party donations scandal, Merz saw himself close to his goal, even becoming leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, but then lost the tough power struggle against Angela Merkel. Merkel, like Helmut Kohl before her, kept him out of government. Merz entered the financial world, earned millions as a corporate lawyer and in other jobs, and owns a private jet as a status symbol. As a lobbyist for his class, he demands more respect for the higher earners; he has set out his views, among other things, in the book "Dare to Venture More Capitalism," which he sees as a prerequisite for democracy and a path to greater justice.

However, the now 69-year-old has not forgotten his political ambitions. Since 2018, he has sought the CDU chairmanship again, twice unsuccessfully, before a third attempt in 2021 succeeded, which also paved the way for his candidacy for chancellor. In contrast to the Merkel era, Merz has moved the CDU significantly to the right again and propagates social chauvinism, often in conjunction with latent xenophobia. He once introduced the unfortunate battle cry of "German Leitkultur" into the political debate; decades later, he seamlessly picked up on this theme when he accused Ukrainian war refugees of social tourism, ranted about migrant children as "little pashas," and complained that foreigners were supposedly stealing German doctor's appointments.

This is probably what he imagines a political fight against the AfD to be, which he – as he confessed during his attempts to become CDU leader – wanted to halve. Instead, the far-right party is stronger than ever. And the firewall to the right that he affirmed isn't going anywhere. "If any of us raises our hand to cooperate with the AfD, we'll be expelled from the party the next day" – no one in the CDU fears this dictum, especially since he himself speculated on votes from the right in the Bundestag to embarrass the traffic light government.

In general, Merz is a man of quick, pointed, and sometimes even thoughtless words. More than 20 years ago, the financial expert promised to simplify Germany's complicated tax law so that the average worker could handle it on a beer mat. It's safe to bet that this idea won't be realized during Merz's chancellorship either.

Well-meaning media outlets have recently attempted, in sensitive portraits, to dig out the human side of this man who defines so much through money. But sometimes a brief spotlight speaks louder than many words. Several years ago, when Merz left his notebook, containing all sorts of sensitive data and documents, at a taxi stand in Berlin, a homeless man found it. The man took it to the police, and after some time, he received the owner's thanks – a book with a dedication from Merz, subtitled: "On the End of the Illusion of Prosperity."

Anyone who treats people in social need with such a lack of empathy and so casually, and who gathers around themselves people like Carsten Linnemann and Jens Spahn, who treat social policy like tiresome indicators, is the cold heart of the bourgeoisie. They have found a willing assistant in Lars Klingbeil. And lurking in the background are the pressure groups of capital efficiency, pushing them toward pension cuts, longer working lives, and other antisocial impositions.