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NY Times, Sept. 19, 2018
Merkel Emerges Weaker, and the Far Right Stronger, After Latest Bout
By Katrin Bennhold
BERLIN — For nearly two weeks Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to find a
way to fire her own domestic intelligence chief, a man who had publicly
contradicted her and become the darling of the far right for questioning
the authenticity of a video showing angry white men chasing an immigrant.
But she couldn’t — not without risking the collapse of her fragile
government.
Hans-Georg Maassen, the rebellious spy, has powerful friends, among them
his immediate boss, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the leader of the
Bavarian conservatives and one of Ms. Merkel’s pricklier coalition partners.
Instead of firing Mr. Maassen, Ms. Merkel had to allow Mr. Seehofer to
promote him. Mr. Maassen will get a pay raise of about 2,500 euros a month.
“You couldn’t make it up,” said Andrea Römmele, a professor of political
science at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin.
If the episode shows anything, analysts said in the aftermath, it is
that Ms. Merkel is growing more feeble even as the far right — in
Parliament, online and on the streets — is getting stronger.
The chancellor’s inability to act decisively has exposed the spectacular
weakening of a leader who not long ago was seen as a key defender of the
liberal order. That view was cemented by her decision in 2015 to welcome
to Germany hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Middle East,
Africa and elsewhere who were not wanted by neighboring European countries.
Three years later, as a nationalist and populist backlash is spreading,
Ms. Merkel has so little authority left that many here wonder how much
longer she can last.
“Merkel was an authority at home and abroad,” Ms. Römmele said. “She
stood up to Trump, negotiated peace deals and passed the laws she wanted
to pass. She was the queen of consensus.”
“Now she can’t even fire the head of an agency,” Ms. Römmele added. Six
months into her fourth term, “she has become a lame duck.”
Ever since an inconclusive election last September, Ms. Merkel has
stumbled from one political crisis to another. In the election, her
party saw a significant decline in voter support and a far-right party,
the Alternative for Germany, entered Parliament for the first time in
more than 60 years.
In the end it took six months to form a government, an unwieldy one
straddling left and right, with Ms. Merkel perched precariously at its
center.
That government almost fell apart in the summer, when Mr. Seehofer, the
interior minister, challenged the chancellor over her immigration
policies and demanded the reintroduction of border controls with Austria.
That earlier episode was just a foretaste of how the Alternative for
Germany, or AfD, has been using its toehold in Parliament — where it now
has the megaphone of being the leading opposition party — to reorder
German politics.
Mr. Seehofer’s party, the Christian Social Union, has been veering
sharply to the right ahead of state elections in Bavaria next month,
trying to fend off a challenge from the AfD, which is on course to
deprive it of its absolute majority.
But there was also the larger and more important question for Germany of
Mr. Maassen’s own political sympathies, and whether they were
undermining his agency’s ability to assess links between far-right
politicians and dangerous neo-Nazi groups.
“There is no evidence that the video circulating on the internet about
this purported event is authentic,” he told Bild, adding that there were
“good reasons to believe that this was a case of targeted misinformation.”
He later walked back on his claims, saying he had been “misunderstood.”
But Mr. Maassen, who has met several times with AfD politicians in
recent years, had vetted and authorized the initial comments before
publication. Reports that he had spoken to Mr. Seehofer before the
interview intensified speculation that the two men, both longtime
critics of Ms. Merkel’s migration policy, were trying to undermine the
chancellor’s authority.
If Ms. Merkel thought she could quell the turmoil inside her government
by moving Mr. Maassen out of his post, she was wrong.
On Wednesday, Mr. Seehofer publicly defended Mr. Maassen, saying he had
his “full trust” and calling him “competent and loyal.”
Mr. Maassen, who has been promoted to under secretary in the interior
ministry, will remain in place as president of the domestic intelligence
agency — the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, as it is
known here — until a successor is named.
Despite Mr. Maassen’s recent comments on the protests in Chemnitz, his
vast new brief will include overseeing “public security” and the federal
police — though not the intelligence office, Mr. Seehofer said.
The outrage among commentators and politicians, even from within Ms.
Merkel’s own camp, was widespread.
“I would like a president of the agency for the protection of the
constitution of whom the enemies of the constitution are afraid,” said
Peter Tauber, a conservative lawmaker.
Katrin-Göring Eckhardt of the Greens spoke of the “unbelievable
jiggery-pokery” in rewarding Mr. Maassen for “disloyalty” and for
“cozying up to the AfD.”
But fear of the far right — and, by extension, of new elections that
would most likely strengthen it further — was one reason Ms. Merkel and
her other governing partner, the Social Democrats, let Mr. Seehofer have
his way.
Many also pointed out the dangerous signal the deal had sent to voters.
“Ordinary people get punished for the smallest misstep and the elites
get promoted,” said Jens Hacke, a political scientist at the University
of Greifswald. “This message will only strengthen the AfD.”
Former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel called the whole episode “crazy.”
“If disloyalty and incompetence are rewarded with career jumps,” he
said, “then Horst Seehofer has every chance to become U.N. secretary
general.”
But a good dose of the criticism was directed at the chancellor herself,
underscoring the sense that though Ms. Merkel won the round, she was
weakened in the fight.
Some inside the Social Democratic Party, Ms. Merkel’s other coalition
partner, were so furious that they urged their leadership to quit the
government.
“My personal pain threshold has been reached,” said Kevin Kühnert, the
influential leader of the party’s youth organization. The price for
staying in government, he said, “has become too high.”
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