German Chancellor Angela Merkel holds flowers after she was reelected as CDU party leader during a party meeting of Christian Democratic Union in Karlsruhe, Germany, Monday, Nov. 15, 2010
When Chancellor Angela Merkel took to the stage to deliver a speech at her conservative party's conference in Karlsruhe on Monday, the audience of 1,000 delegates might have expected the usual sober, pragmatic address. But instead Merkel took a different tone, one that promised a new, fiery, passionate style of leadership. "What is the reason behind our actions? It's unity and law and freedom for the German fatherland," she began, referring to Germany's national anthem. Gone was the image of Merkel the Reformer from her early years as CDU party leader back in 2000; no more was Merkel the Moderator, who led an uneasy coalition with her ideological opponents, the Social Democrats, from 2005. This was Merkel the Arch-conservative, reaching out to the core conservative and Christian values of her party's traditional base.
Accompanied by raucous applause, Merkel's speech on Monday warmed the hearts of supporters on the right who've had to put up with a barrage of setbacks since last year's federal election, including the plummeting approval ratings of Merkel's center-right government and mass protests against the decision to extend the life of Germany's nuclear reactors. "Germany doesn't suffer from too much Islam, but too little Christianity," she said, touching on the thorny issue of integration. Flexing her new political muscle, the former physicist also stressed the importance of family and called for a ban on the screening of embryos to be used for IVF treatment. And it was exactly what the audience wanted. After her speech, Merkel easily won re-election as leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with 90.4% of the vote.
"It was a passionate and polarizing speech — quite out of character," says Gerd Langguth, Merkel biographer and professor of political science at the University of Bonn. "By stressing her party's Christian roots, Chancellor Merkel is trying to win back some of the core conservative voters who've drifted away."
During her 75-minute speech, Merkel was clearly in a fighting mood. Rather than resorting to her usual careful language, she trumpeted her government's successes, taking credit for pushing through health-care reform, launching a necessary austerity plan, and saving the euro by bailing out Greece. "In her former speeches at party conventions, Merkel was several steps ahead of her party, making the CDU aware of new challenges," says Richard Hilmer, director of Germany's influential polling institute, Infratest dimap. "This time she was right in the middle of her party."
While conceding that the government got off to a rocky start after the September 2009 election, when the three-party coalition was plagued by bickering over tax and energy reform, Merkel couldn't resist the temptation to remind the conservative delegates of the swift turnaround in Germany's economic fortunes under her rule. "We've led Germany out of the worst economic and financial crisis since the foundation of the federal republic," she boasted, pointing to an unemployment rate which has dropped from 5 million in 2005, when she was elected Chancellor, to just under 3 million. Merkel even had a dig at her critics in the Obama Administration when she defended Germany's export-oriented economy: "We won't let ourselves be beaten up for the fact that we manufacture good products."
But, in a sign of her new found toughness, Merkel again ruled out tax cuts in the foreseeable future and said the priority is to maintain fiscal prudence. She also blasted the opposition parties and ruled out a coalition with the Social Democrats or the Green Party, which has capitalized on a wave of anti-nuclear protests and is riding high in the opinion polls.
Karl-Rudolf Korte, professor of political science at the University of Duisburg-Essen, says the Chancellor was determined to "sharpen her party's profile and show leadership." But given that one of her coalition partners, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), has seen its popularity plunge from around 15% to 5%, has Merkel boxed herself into a corner by ruling out an alliance with the resurgent Greens? "Merkel needs the support of disgruntled voters in the center — the kinds of people who are backing the Greens," warns Korte.
Merkel's real challenge will be to outwit and outmaneuver the opposition parties in 2011, in the run-up to a series of crucial regional elections in six states, including the conservative stronghold of Baden-Württemberg, where polls suggest the CDU-led coalition could lose power. After pledging that this would be an "autumn of decisions," the Chancellor seems to have realized that she has to take the initiative. "Angela Merkel has to win over the growing number of undecided voters — especially among the conservatives — and those voters who are about to shift, or have already switched sides to the Green Party," says Infratest's Hilmer.
At the end of her speech, Merkel received a 10-minute standing ovation. "Chuck all the forecasts in the bin," she told the party faithful, referring to the poll projections of the CDU hemorrhaging support. "We can make it." Her new rallying cry may have moved her audience and set the tone for a new way forward. But it will take more than words for the Iron Chancellor to unite her quarrelling coalition partners and stem the drift of conservative voters.