Tuesday, November 23, 2021
People of the week
The chancellors felt like Lindner and Habeck
By Wolfram Weimer
The coalition negotiations have revealed the balance of power in the new government. Christian Lindner and Robert Habeck form the future power center of the traffic light government. The Chancellor acts like her vice. The republic marveled at a completely new power architecture.
One of the strengths of Olaf Scholz is that he acts quietly and from the background, and does not have to push himself into the limelight in a modest Hanseatic way. As the future Chancellor, he will urgently need this virtue. Because in the foreground of the new traffic light government are Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner. The weeks of negotiations have shown that they embody the republic’s new center of power. The traffic light coalition is not defined by the Chancellor. Rather, the power architecture rests on the axis of the two younger makers.
Left: Robert Habeck. Further right: Christian Lindner.
(Photo: picture alliance / ASSOCIATED PR)
This will be a novelty for the Federal Republic. The political culture is shifting from the vertical leadership of a strong chancellor figure to the horizontal double leadership. There are four reasons for the felt double chancellors named Christian and Robert:
First the election result has blatantly weakened the figure of the chancellor. Since the 1950s, Olaf Scholz has been the first to come to terms with a tripartite government. This reduces the power of the Chancellor’s party from the outset. At the same time, the SPD only got 25.7 percent of the vote. Never before has a candidate with so few percentage points of his party become chancellor. Scholz’s legitimacy base is therefore much smaller from the start than that of all of his predecessors.
More like a vice president
On top of that, his coalitionists have added more seats than his own party. That is, they are numerically stronger than him. And even worse: you can change camp at any time in the legislature and elect a new chancellor with the Union. In terms of power politics, Olaf Scholz must therefore act more like a presidential vice-president of his two powerful coalition members.
Secondly Robert Habeck and Christian Lindner are more talented and better communicators than Olaf Scholz. In addition to these two powerful speakers and lithe stage directors, Scholz looks like the brittle expert. Lindner and Habeck’s lead in charisma reinforces the public’s impression that they are the cooks and Scholz is only the waiter.
Third Habeck and Lindner embody the new and the ambition of the traffic light government. Scholz, on the other hand, stands for the continuity of an SPD that has been in government for 17 of the past 21 years. Scholz stands for stability – Lindner and Habeck, on the other hand, for renewal. It is the Greens and Liberals who promise the avant-garde promise, i.e. the future. Both want to pragmatically modernize the republic and ideally embody a new digital-sustainable-liberal generation. That also makes her appear stronger than Scholz.
Same language of conciliatory power engineers
Fourth Habeck and Lindner have found an astonishingly good rapport. Her self-confident grip on dual power went hand in hand. Both know that they can only be the center of the new government permanently if they stand together. The silent coalition negotiations have shown that they can do this in a remarkably good way. They are similar in their power intelligence: Both are open to arguments and think strategically. By simply turning the usual tables of coalition negotiations and negotiating with one another, Lindner and Habeck demonstrated the power shift in 2021 to the republic. The CDU and SPD and their chancellor figures no longer determine the rules of the game, but the FDP and the Greens say where to go. This first coup acts like a basic law of the traffic light government.
Although both come from opposite political worlds, they speak the same language of conciliatory power engineers, both cultivate the habit of exercising power with gentle sympathy, both are political pop stars in their milieus and instinctively feel close in these roles. Both have a chummy mode with each other that is known in show business from actors behind the curtain.
Conclusion: Habeck and Lindner shine. The Chancellor has to be careful not to become the colorless actor of his own supporting role alongside them. And both open up – should they do their work successfully – a rare opportunity in four years. At the end of the traffic light government, you could run as a candidate for chancellor and dare to switch from the perceived to the real chancellor. The new power architecture of the multi-party republic makes a lot possible.