Heribert Prantl on the end of Germany's big political parties

According to recent opinion polls the German Social Democratic Party SPD and the Green Party are running neck and neck for the first time in history. This marks the end of the country's big parties, writes Heribert Prantl in the left-liberal daily Süddeutsche Zeitung: "The two once very large parties [the SPD and the conservative CDU] created the party-state along the lines defined by the expert in constitutional law Gerhard Leibholz. According to this model, in the modern party state, the popular will from which state power emanates in the form of votes and referenda 'can only (!) manifest itself in parties as the locuses of political action'. Consequently in the German Federal Republic the difference between state and party has become increasingly blurred - to the point where state decisions are transferred entirely to party or coalition committees, and the large parties control the state through its agencies, bureaus and offices. The voters have rejected this model en masse, and the downsizing of the once large parties is their way of defending themselves against it. Germany is now experiencing something new: the regression of the former party state and the growth of a more lively party democracy. The shrinking of the SPD and the CDU [together with its sister party the] CSU is part of this dynamic. ... Germany now has more major parties, none of which will be big."

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