Lessons learnt from Europe's powerhouse

Apart from the most talked about how the coalition make-up German Chancellor Angela Merkel will be after her massive personal victory in Germany’s election, there were also other two issues emerging in spotlights.
First, will Merkel’s junior coalition Free Democratic Party (FDP) pass the 5-per-cent threshold to enter the Bundestag, the German parliament? Second, how far will an anti-euro Alternative for Germany (AfD) go?
The outcome of Sunday’s election saw the FDP crash out of the Bundestag for the first time since 1949. Its popularity has plunged some 10 per cent since the last election. With 4.7 per cent, the party was below the 5-per-cent benchmark.
Some observers even said it was difficult for it to get back into the Bundestag in the next four years. There is a consensus among German voters that the party had only itself to blame for the poor showing.
“The mistakes did not begin in the last few weeks before the election but started in 2009 when they joined Merkel’s coalition and said they would reduce taxes but then they did nothing,” Ingo Kahle, political news anchor of RBB-Inforadio in Berlin said.
However, the outcome surprised the German media who thought the party would finally return to the Bundestag, according to Kahle.
The FDP will find it difficult to recover, Volker Perthes, managing director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, said.
According to Kahle, FDP supporters this time cast their votes for the AfD instead. Moreover, the party also received votes from the undecided and last minute voters.
However, by winning only 4.9 per cent of the vote the AfD could not make its debut in the Bundestag.
Founded just six months before the election by a group of Euro-sceptics, academics as well as former members of Merkel’s CDU party, the alternative party was seen as a potential force in the future.
“The AfD has a chance in the EU parliamentary elections next year and it is possible it will become an influential party in the EU,” Perthes said.
These two cases could be a good example for other political parties, including those in Thailand. Parties who fail to keep their promises made during an election campaign could be punished by voters just as the FDP was, while a new party with definite goals could be successful.
In Germany, one party could become extinct while another party is emerging. That is one of the uncertainties of politics.