In a lively television debate on Monday night, there was only one point of agreement between the Greens, the Left Party and the liberal Free Democrats (FDP). The administration of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) with their rival Social Democrats (SPD) was, they agreed, a disaster that must not be repeated.
Then, one by one, they dismissed the alternatives, in particular a series of three-way coalition options viewed by political analysts as the way of the future in Germany’s increasingly fragmented five-party electoral landscape.
“We want to end the grand coalition and prevent a left-wing government,” said FDP leader Guido Westerwelle, in a dig at the Left Party and the Greens.
“If I’d wanted to govern in a [three-way] coalition, I could have done that long ago.”
Green Party politician Jürgen Trittin also ruled out a three-way option with the CDU and FDP, saying the Greens were “not there to help [the FDP] to power”.
He conceded that they had already some policy common ground on tax, pension policy and opposition to a car scrappage scheme.
“I don’t think Mr Westerwelle is the devil,” said Mr Trittin with a grin.
But the two parties agree to disagree on who, in a three-way coalition, they should chose as their third partner.
Current polls give the CDU a 12-point lead on the SPD and suggest two outcomes: a return of the grand coalition or a return of Dr Merkel with Mr Westerwelle’s FDP as junior partner.
Senior advisers close to Dr Merkel say she would prefer the latter option.
But she has declined to make a pre-election alliance with the FDP and, according to party sources, she could just as happily live with the familiarity of a second grand coalition.
The only party with an empty dance card is the Left Party headed by Oskar Lafontaine.
A decade after he walked out on the SPD and the Schröder government, his election hopes are to poll well enough to limit everyone else’s options while establishing the ex-communist party as a strong opposition force.
As he watched his debate partners tie themselves in coalition knots, he remarked: “Sometimes it’s a mercy to be in opposition.”