FDP Under Pressure To Pull Out Of Federal Coalition-FT (1/2)

On 30 October, local and regional-level party heads of the pro-business liberal Free Democrats (FDP) wrote to leader and Finance Minister Christian Lindner calling for the party to withdraw from the federal 'traffic light' coalition reports the FT. As has been the case for its federal coalition partners - Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) and the environmentalist Greens - the FDP has seen its support in nationwide opinion polls and performance in state elections suffer since coming to power after the Sept 2021 election.

• However, the FDP is the smallest party in the federal coalition leading to, "many voters perceiving the party as the “loser” in Scholz’s government amid a faltering economy and the war in Ukraine, with little evidence of its pro-business, small-government credo in action."
• Max Bergmann at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: "The problem for the FDP is that by getting the Finance Ministry they are central to everything. So they are both a wrench in the gears and prevent SDP/Greens from effectively governing, creating a muddled mess AND yet they also own the mess b/c they have the FinMin."
• Speaking on 30 Oct, Lindner hinted that the FDP's support for the federal coalition was not limitless, saying “There may already come a point where I say: it is better not to govern than to govern wrongly,”