Have you ever noticed how top politicians are virtually never ill, with the exception of Charles Kennedy? In Germany, the rather unappealing SPD Leader Kurt Beck (pictured) has just come back after a two-week illness, which makes me think he is a man in trouble.
And so he is, for the SPD is losing votes in spades to the new Left Party (if only we had a credible Old Labour Party here!). The swing state of Hessen held its elections in January and there is still no Government there - which makes it sound more like Belgium or Italy than a country like Germany which regards itself as a serious democracy .
The SPD's woes mask a bigger problem in Germany, however, and that is the breakdown of their multi-party PR system. The breakdown is due to a strange combination of a political shift overall to the left, bitter inter-party relations and simple mathematics.
Germany's 3-Party political system more or less worked in the 1960 and 1970s - where the small FDP (a socially liberal but free market party) would form a coalition with either the soft conservative CDU or the Leftish SPD. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Green Party emerged in a 4-party system. The governing coalition would be either a CDU-FDP effort (1982 to 1998), or the SPD with the Greens (1998 to 2005).
The big problem has arisen with the rise of a 5th party, "Die Linke Partei", or the Left Party. The coalition maths - as seen nationally and in Hessen - simply don't work with 5 parties, when the other 4 parties refuse to deal with one of them, in this case the Left Party. Indeed, Germany has moved to the Left - even the CDU say they are in the "middle" now, but a left-wing government cannot be formed, as the SPD refuses to deal with the Left Party to create a left of centre government. The Left Party is formed of dissident Social Democrats and ex-East German Communists, which makes it a pretty unattractive bunch to all but a small fraction - but the small fraction is slightly more than 5%, which is what one needs to get seats in German elections.
So, returning to Kurt Beck, his sin was to call in February for the SPD to start embracing local coalitions with the Left Party. This would clearly have implications for the future of such a pact on the national level (where there is currently a shaky so-called "grand coalition" with the CDU). Beck has been slated by both SPD members and the CDU for dealing with the former Communists, and was driven to his sick-bed.
In short, the whole scene - for all the parties - is close to disastrous (except ironically the Left Party which is milking its "outsider" status). For more, read this excellent commentary from Der Spiegel
The moral of the story for us? Don't embrace P.R.