2008 State Elections in Austria and Germany

[Tender Branson]

New Tyrol poll by Market:

ÖVP: 45%
SPÖ: 25%
Greens: 15%
FPÖ: 8%
For Tyrol: 6%
KPÖ: 1%

So it seems like the poll you posted earlier with For Tyrol at 21% was bullsh**t?

Very likely, that´s why I wrote "if true" in the originial post ...

[Hash]

New Tyrol poll by Market:

ÖVP: 45%
SPÖ: 25%
Greens: 15%
FPÖ: 8%
For Tyrol: 6%
KPÖ: 1%

So it seems like the poll you posted earlier with For Tyrol at 21% was bullsh**t?

Very likely, that´s why I wrote "if true" in the originial post ...

On a side note, do you know of any seat calculator for Austria?

[Tender Branson]

New Tyrol poll by Market:

ÖVP: 45%
SPÖ: 25%
Greens: 15%
FPÖ: 8%
For Tyrol: 6%
KPÖ: 1%

So it seems like the poll you posted earlier with For Tyrol at 21% was bullsh**t?

Very likely, that´s why I wrote "if true" in the originial post ...

On a side note, do you know of any seat calculator for Austria?

No, but this poll would roughly lead to the following seat distribution:

ÖVP: 16
SPÖ: 9
Greens: 5
FPÖ: 3
For Tyrol: 3

[Middle-aged Europe]

And Hessian minister-president Roland Koch (CDU) is making the headline again with a fiercely "anti-immigrant" (well, anti-criminal immigrants) campagin:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,525734,00.html


This is so dominating in the news right now that it almost seems as if nothing at all happens in the Lower Saxony/Hamburg campaigns...

[minionofmidas]

Yeah. As was to be expected I suppose...

[Middle-aged Europe]

New Emnid polls were released.


Hesse
CDU 42%
SPD 32%
Greens 10%
FDP 8%
The Left 5%

Majority for CDU/FDP.


Lower Saxony
CDU 45%
SPD 32%
Greens 9%
FDP 8%
The Left 4%

Majority for CDU/FDP.


Hamburg
CDU 42%
SPD 31%
Greens 13%
The Left 7%
FDP 5%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/Greens.


Bavaria
CSU 54%
SPD 20%
Greens 10%
FDP 6%
The Left 4%

Majority for CSU.


http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,526796,00.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

Infratest dimap polls for Lower Saxony and Hamburg:


Lower Saxony
CDU 45%
SPD 33%
Greens 8%
FDP 7%
The Left 3%

Majority for CDU/FDP.


Hamburg
CDU 40%
SPD 35%
Greens 11%
The Left 6%
FDP 4%

No majority for either CDU/FDP or SPD/Greens. With results such as these SPD/Greens would be one seat short of a majority though.

[Tender Branson]

Election dates are finally set:

Lower Austria will vote on March 9 and Tyrol on October 5.

I found a 2003 Lower Austria Results graphic:

[Tender Branson]

New Poll:

Hesse - Infratest dimap:

CDU: 40%
SPD: 35%
Greens: 9%
FDP: 9%
Left Party: 4%

Majority for CDU/FDP.

Andrea Ypsilanti (SPD) and Prime Minister Roland Koch (CDU) now tied at 44% in a hypothetical direct vote for Prime Minister ...

[Tender Branson]

New Poll:

Bavaria - Infratest dimap:

CSU: 52%
SPD: 21%
Greens: 10%
FDP: 6%
Left Party: 3%
Others: 8%

Absolute Majority for the CSU, but worst showing in a statewide poll since 1 year.

[minionofmidas]

Who keeps polling Bavaria? The CSU will be reelected with ease in Bavaria. Even though the elections are still some way off.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And Hessian minister-president Roland Koch (CDU) is making the headline again with a fiercely "anti-immigrant" (well, anti-criminal immigrants) campagin:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,525734,00.html


This is so dominating in the news right now that it almost seems as if nothing at all happens in the Lower Saxony/Hamburg campaigns...

Haha, things seem to get rough somehow.

Roland Koch had started his "anti-criminal immigrants" campaign after this incident in Munich where a senior citizen was brutally beaten up by a Turk and a Greek. Peter Struck, leader of the SPD's "caucus" in the Bundestag, has now said that Koch is actually happy about this incident and that he would never made it part of his election campaign had it been two Germans beating up a senior citizen. As a result, the CDU has demanded an apology from Struck. Struck's response: "Up yours!".

Very entertaining...

[BenNebbich]

i don't like struck.

but this seems to be a fine piece of work from him.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hesse (FGW, 01/11)

CDU 40%
SPD 36%
FDP 8%
Greens 7%
The Left 5%

Tie between CDU/FDP and SPD/Greens/The Left.

[minionofmidas]

I'll go out on a limb and predict the result right now:

CDU 40.5%
SPD 36%
Grüne 8%
FDP 6%
Linke 6%

Getting closer...

And yes, there does seem to be a genuine rallying toward the SPD among left-leaning voters going on. At least among the people I've spoken to recently...

[BenNebbich]

but if 'the left' stays under 5% it's a victory for koch.

but anyway, ypsilanti did quite well.

[minionofmidas]

but if 'the left' stays under 5% it's a victory for koch.

It's a possibility. (it also, obviously, remains entirely possible that CDU and FDP will pull out more votes than SPD, Greens and Left.)
I doubt it though - remember that Bremen poll that had the Left at 4% a week before they took 8.4%?
The reason is, of course, that (just as in the New Hampshire primary) polls influence the results. In 1999, no pollster expressed doubts about the FDP getting in, and then they took 5.1% in what is historically one of their two strongest states (the other is Baden-Württemberg). In 2003, there actually was an early poll that showed them at 4%, although later polls had were right on the money at about 8%. There was both a scare (pointless. Never any danger of it happening, not with Gerhard Bökel) that the FDP dropping below 5% would give Red-Green a victory, and later a mood that Koch needed a coalition partner to rein in his more dangerous instincts. (Since so many working class voters stayed home, this move away from the CDU was not sufficient to prevent Koch getting a majority, but that's beside the point. Koch also won new voters elsewhere, but again that's beside the point, which is only about where the extra FDP votes came from.)

[Tender Branson]

Getting closer...

And yes, there does seem to be a genuine rallying toward the SPD among left-leaning voters going on. At least among the people I've spoken to recently...

I agree with you. It will be a close race, because what can rally SPD members more than the polarizing Koch who was praised by the Neo-Nazis for his tough policies against young criminal foreigners ? Now he even wants to jail minors below the age of 14 ...

His confession of incompetence while hammering his hardline policies (Hesse ranked last among all states when the duration of lawsuits of criminal minors were examined) didn´t help either. Prediction: CDU loses 10 points compared with 2003 and the SPD gains a similar amount. Both parties will end up close to 39%.

Also:

Next Sunday elections in Graz, Austrias second largest city, will take place. They will serve as an indicator for the upcoming state elections. Latest polls for Graz from Gallup Austria:

ÖVP: 34% (-2)
SPÖ: 27% (+1)
Greens: 14% (+6)
Communists: 13% (-7)
FPÖ: 9% (+1)
BZÖ: 3% (+3)

A new Gallup poll for the Lower Austria state elections shows the ÖVP destroying the state Social Democrats once again - 53% (steady) to 31% (-3) ...

[Hash]

Go Communists!

[Tender Branson]

Go Communists!

Well, 2003 was really a good year for the Graz Communists, but this year their fight will be to stay ahead of the Greens. Both parties have already launched campaigns against the ridiculous islamophobic comments of the rightist FPÖ candidate, Susanne Winter, who said that the Prophet Mohammed would be considered pedophile by todays standards (marrying 6-year old kids). She also called Mohammed a "crusader" who wrote the Koran in an epileptic seizure ...

[Tender Branson]

Go Communists!

Well, 2003 was really a good year for the Graz Communists, but this year their fight will be to stay ahead of the Greens. Both parties have already launched campaigns against the ridiculous islamophobic comments of the rightist FPÖ candidate, Susanne Winter, who said that the Prophet Mohammed would be considered pedophile by todays standards (marrying 6-year old kids). She also called Mohammed a "crusader" who wrote the Koran in an epileptic seizure ...

The article:

Austrian Politician Calls Prophet Muhammad a 'Child Molester'



A candidate campaigning for the Graz city council in Austria says it is time that Islam was "thrown back ... behind the Mediterranean," and alleges Muhammad wrote the Koran in "epileptic fits."

Election campaigns, it would seem, are uncomfortable times for immigrants to be in Europe. First, it was Roland Koch, the conservative politician in the German state of Hesse who turned up the rhetoric and began railing against "criminal young foreigners" in his country. Now, an Austrian politician has followed suit.

Susanne Winter, a right-wing politician with the FPÖ party running for a city council seat in the city of Graz, blasted Muslims on Sunday, saying that "in today's system" the Prophet Muhammad would be considered a "child molester," apparently referring to his marriage to a six-year-old child. She also said that it is time for Islam to be "thrown back where it came from, behind the Mediterranean." Not yet finished, she also claimed that Muhammad wrote the Koran in "epileptic fits."

In an interview with the daily Österreich published on Monday, Winter continued the onslaught saying that child abuse is "widespread" among Muslim men and that Graz is facing a "tsunami of Muslim immigration." In 20 or 30 years, she warned, half of Austria's population would be Muslim.

Her comments have resulted in a storm of protest in Austria, with politicians and commentators of all stripes taking Winter and her party to task. Austrian prosecutors are also looking into the possibility of filing charges against the 50-year-old politician for incitement.

Her comments, said Omar Al-Rawi, head of integration for an Austrian association of Muslims, showed "a lack of respect" and they "had no basis in fact." He told the Süddeutsche Zeitung that such Islam bashing has reached a point in Austria that "one wants to puke."

But despite the strong reaction generated by Winter, such rhetoric is hardly foreign to political campaigns in Austria. Her party was created by Jörg Haider, the notoriously right-leaning politician who found success in the 1990s and earlier this decade with a mixture of xenophobia and nationalism. He has since moved on, but his rhetoric has remained the same. Campaigning recently for his new group, the Association for Austria's Future (BZÖ), he said, "We are still allowed to say Gruss Gott," -- the traditional Austrian greeting -- "and don't have to praise Allah."

Winter's comments are also reminiscent of controversial remarks made recently (more...) by Roland Koch in his campaign to be re-elected as the governor of the western German state of Hesse. Following a brutal pre-Christmas attack by two youths -- one German born with Turkish parents and the other an immigrant from Greece -- against a pensioner in a Munich subway, Koch has turned youth crime, particularly that perpetrated by those with foreign backgrounds, into his No. 1 campaign issue. Among other questionable comments, he said it must be clear that the slaughtering (of animals) in the kitchen ... runs counter to our principles."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,528549,00.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

Alright, I admit that Roland Koch is fairly harmless.

[Tender Branson]

Alright, I admit that Roland Koch is fairly harmless.

Winter is a racist, xenophobic b**ch:

She said to a Nigerian immigrant who was thrown out of a Graz club and called a "n" that "there is something in his genes that leads to a lack of self confidence against people of white colour".

She also thinks that "n" is a positive word of German origin and doesn´t want to tell her future grand-children of "10 little Africans" instead of "ns" ...

She also admitted that she never had any friends who are immigrants or of foreign ancestry.

Also, in Lower Austria, Barbara Rosenkranz, married to a former NPD member, was recently elected as the main FPÖ candidate for the upcoming state elections. Also very xenophobic (she was the only member of the Austrian parliament to vote against the EU constitution) she and her husband have 10 kids with the funny names of Hedda, Ute, Alwine, Sonnhild, Volker, Hildrun, Mechthild, Arne, Horst und Wolf - all very Germanic ...

Expect FPÖ/BZÖ to cross the 20% in the next federal elections 2010. They got what they wanted with her comments: Free Air Time.

[Hash]

Wow, the FN seems moderate compared to them.

[Tender Branson]

There´s a new report out, which deals with the harsh (?) methods of Hessian authorities against juvenile criminals. The Gießen county authority sent a 16 year-old violent boy to Siberia for 9 months together with a counsellor, so he can learn to control his aggressions in isolation and during hard work.

http://www.welt.de/politik/article1558109/Hessen_schickt_16-jaehrigen_Schueler_nach_Sibirien.html