Germany politics are and have been for the last couple of years in a rather curious state where the opposition appears to have given up on attacking Merkel in a

Germany politics are and have been for the last couple of years in a rather curious state where the opposition appears to have given up on attacking Merkel in any meaningful way. I think there are several factors that play into this. First of all, after the 2005 election a grand coaltion between Merkel's CDU and the social democratic SPD was formed leaving only the three smaller parties with a combined 166 out of 614 seats as the opposition. This put the SPD in the position of the CDU's junior partner instead of their usual position of attacking the CDU's political agenda. What may be even worse from the SPD's perspective is that the are now in the position of having supported the decisions made in Merkel's first term which would make it less than believable to attack those decisions now. In the 2009 election the CDU only lost a marginal amount of votes while the SPD suffered heavy losses to the benefit of the three smaller parties. This allowed Merkel to form the traditional coalition consisting of CDU and the liberal FDP thereby leaving 290 of 622 seats to the oppposition and allowing the SPD to resume their role as the main force in opposition. Except they never did. Instead of mounting attacks on the government, they stayed tame and oftentimes even concurred with the government on decisions despite no longer being in power. I am not sure about their reasons. Their lack of charismatic leadership personnel may have played a role, but that can only explain so much. The second and more important factor is probably Merkel's very specific style of governing. She tends to be extremely passive, never exposing herself and opening herself up to criticism. If possible, she avoids making decisions at all. If she has to make decisions, she will always take the popular choice. If hard or controvesial decisions have to be made, she never makes a proposal herself. A proposal is either leaked to the press or presented by one of her ministers. In case said proposals garners widely negative reactions, the minister takes the blame giving Merkel the opportunity to shield herself from the fallout. Should an extraordinary event like the Fukushima accident lead to a sudden reversal in public opinion (towards nuclear energy in this case), Merkel will immediately flip her position and take the opposite one. If you have paid close attention to German politics in the last couple of years, you will see these exact steps repeated over and over again. The worst part is, it works. Her latest approval rating is at 60% compared to 25% for the SPD candidate. Somehow she has managed to lull not only to public but also her political opposition to sleep over her two terms in office. This leaves us in 2013, a month away from the election with an opposition that behaves more like her pet kitten than her political challenger. What is even worse, is the fact that it leaves the population without a real choice for political change.