According to Euronews, Members of Germany’s Social Democrat’s (SPD) have called for a three-way left alliance as a unified bloc as an alternative to Chancellor Merkel’s “grand coalition” between the two largest parties over their poor election results.
Despite key victories for the party on migration and energy, the coalition suffered a blow in the European elections, securing just 16 per cent of the vote.
Senior SPD figures have suggested a left-wing alliance including the resurgent Greens, who are leading the governing conservatives in some polls, and The Left, a successor party to East Germany’s ruling communists.
Deputy SPD leader Ralf Stegner told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that “of course” a leftist alliance was “the strategic alternative to one with the conservatives.” Malu Dreyer, one of the three intermittent leaders of the SPD, also proposed the idea: “We need to boost our credibility. One option is of course a coalition of the SPD, Greens and Left,” she told Saturday’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
Their comments add some legitimacy to the bid from the left of the party for such a three-way alliance which has never materialised at the national level but has in two federal states. The three parties are attempting to forge a left-coalition in the state of Breman, despite the Christian Democrats (CDU) winning most votes in May. Indicating that the CDU may not hope to keep power even by coming first in elections.
This comes as Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) hits a new low in public approval ratings, reflecting growing disillusionment in the ruling party largely due to their open-door immigration policies.
In a warning to centre-left voters she said: "Anyone who dreams of a new government and votes Green must know they could wake up with the Left party," she told Bild am Sonntag. "Bremen shows: if in doubt, the Greens will always prefer the left to conservative policies."
The growth of alternative political parties, such as Alternative for Deutschland (AFD) and The Greens, emerges from the dissatisfaction with the Merkel governments response to the growing refugee crisis, which has seen thousands of people crossing the Mediterranean Sea into Europe from war-torn countries during her tenure as chancellor.