🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

The Bundestag approved the Election Review Committee for a rerun of the federal election in 431 Berlin districts - subject to a ruling by the Constitutional Court.

Furthermore, parliament passed a bill that lowers the minimum voting age for EU elections from 18 to 16, against the opposition of CDU, CSU and AfD.

[Oryxslayer]

The Bundestag approved the Election Review Committee for a rerun of the federal election in 431 Berlin districts - subject to a ruling by the Constitutional Court.

Furthermore, parliament passed a bill that lowers the minimum voting age for EU elections from 18 to 16, against the opposition of CDU, CSU and AfD.

So we are in the situation where if the rerun and subsequent substitution - cause that's what it kinda is, substituting new results in the bad areas alongside the good ones from last time - cause Linke to lose a seat then everything changes. Now since the reelection is limited, and voters will probably know Linke's precarious position and opt not to disrupt it, things for them are unlikely to drastically change. But the possibility is there.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Constituencies isn't the ideal translation - that should be used for e.g. the Wahlkreis - 'polling disticts' or 'precincts' would be better and avoid confusion.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Constituencies isn't the ideal translation - that should be used for e.g. the Wahlkreis - 'polling disticts' or 'precincts' would be better and avoid confusion.

I know the difference between "districts" and "constituencies", as you can see in my second post regarding this topic. It was just a slip. Sorry!

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

So we are in the situation where if the rerun and subsequent substitution - cause that's what it kinda is, substituting new results in the bad areas alongside the good ones from last time - cause Linke to lose a seat then everything changes. Now since the reelection is limited, and voters will probably know Linke's precarious position and opt not to disrupt it, things for them are unlikely to drastically change. But the possibility is there.

Here is an interactive map that shows which districts are affected by the rerun.
Citizens of 12 constituencies will partly have to vote again.
Mainly constituencies Nos. 76 (Berlin-Pankow) and 77 (Berlin-Reinickendorf) are affected, which were won by a Green and a CDU politician, respectively. The two constituencies won by the Linke, 84 (Berlin-Treptow – Köpenick) and 86 (Berlin-Lichtenberg), remained untouched by the Election Day mess, though. Therefore, it's highly unlikely that Gysi or Lötzsch will lose their direct mandates, thus triggering an expulsion of the Linke from the Bundestag.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

No reply? No Thank-you post? No like? No reaction at all??? Okaaay...

Obviously, no one has read my post and therefore not seen the map I had linked.
So, here's a screenshot of it. The color blobs denote the precincts where the federal election is to be rerun; different colors symbolize different constituencies. To be exact, the polling districts are shown in this map. There is also a map for the postal voting districts, but it basically looks the same.

[Oryxslayer]

Whelp, any chance the federal election is expanded after the ruling now on the state contest? Probably zilch right?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Whelp, any chance the federal election is expanded after the ruling now on the state contest? Probably zilch right?

I'm not that sure about that. The final decision is still subject to a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court.
I can't see it happening that the entire state election plus all twelve borough board elections have to be repeated, whereas only a fifth of Berliners have the right to elect their representatives to the Bundestag again. Imagine you used to live in a failed precinct and you have moved to a different, perhaps even adjacent precinct in the meantime, so that your vote will never find itself in the 20th Bundestag.
Further, I could even imagine that hardliners from all parties might move to one of those 431 precincts, thus creating a "Bleeding Kansas" situation in our failed capital.

Oh, FWIW, February 12, 2023, is reported to be the new election date.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Good news for the Greens and the numerous Antifa movements; bad news for all tax-payers:

In December, both chambers of the legislative power passed a bill that lowered the minimum voting age for EU elections from 18 to 16.

Bundestag President Bärbel Bas subsequently initiated a discussion about if the voting age for Bundestag elections should be lowered also.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Very good news for Germany: There is a new entry that debuted atop the ZDF Barometer politician charts: our new Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. It is also amazing to see that Atlas' favorite German politician ACAB seems to keep on losing her once enormous popularity.



Meanwhile, the Ampel has lost its majority in the polls:

[DL]

Interesting that its quite possible that in the next German election both the Linke AND the FDP could fall short of the 5% hurdle in which case the main question mark would be whether Red/Green could get a majority or whether CDU plus AFD would have a majority. If the latter happened, I suppose it would inevitably lead to some sort of CDU led "grand coalition"

[Pick Up the Phone]

Interesting that its quite possible that in the next German election both the Linke AND the FDP could fall short of the 5% hurdle in which case the main question mark would be whether Red/Green could get a majority or whether CDU plus AFD would have a majority. If the latter happened, I suppose it would inevitably lead to some sort of CDU led "grand coalition"

Why do you think so? I suppose that such a scenario would rather lead to CDU-Greens (if possible). Nobody likes Grand Coalitions at the federal level, Merz/Habeck is a solid match, and the SPD would be spared the dilemma of what to do with Olaf Scholz and his loyalists.

[DL]

When I say "grand coalition" I mean either CDU/SPD or CDU/Green since now the Greens are a "big party" similar in size to the SPP at the federal level.

Wouldn't it be very difficult for either the SPD or the Greens to form a government with the CDU when the CDU is let by a rightwing fanatic like Merz who is on the "wrong" side of virtually every single social or cultural issue and I believe is a bit of a climate change denier? Could there be a hypothetical situation  where the only way the CDU could form a government with either the SPD or the Greens would be if they ditched Merz and proposed another chancellor who was more palatable?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

When I say "grand coalition" I mean either CDU/SPD or CDU/Green since now the Greens are a "big party" similar in size to the SPP at the federal level.

Wouldn't it be very difficult for either the SPD or the Greens to form a government with the CDU when the CDU is let by a rightwing fanatic like Merz who is on the "wrong" side of virtually every single social or cultural issue and I believe is a bit of a climate change denier? Could there be a hypothetical situation  where the only way the CDU could form a government with either the SPD or the Greens would be if they ditched Merz and proposed another chancellor who was more palatable?

Merz initiated the black-green "pizza connection" in the 90's, along with Cem Özdemir among others. Thus, he should be "palatable" to the Greens.
One oughtn't disregard PUTP's archfoe Governor Söder, btw, who was already the chancellor "of the hearts" prior to the last federal election. He's seeking re-election in the largest German state this fall, and if he manages to receive a majority of votes, he will be Merz's greatest party rival.

[Yeahsayyeah]

The black-green "pizza connection" of the nineties was initiated by people like Laschet, Röttgen, Altmeier, van Klaeden and the likes. People that where young at the time and at the left or center of the CDU -and some outspoken "Realo" Greens of course, like Matthias Berninger, Cem Özdemir, Volker Beck etc.

Friedrich Merz wasn't part of it and was staunchly anti-Green at the time.

[Isaak]

The black-green "pizza connection" of the nineties was initiated by people like Laschet, Röttgen, Altmeier, van Klaeden and the likes. People that where young at the time and at the left or center of the CDU -and some outspoken "Realo" Greens of course, like Matthias Berninger, Cem Özdemir, Volker Beck etc.

Friedrich Merz wasn't part of it and was staunchly anti-Green at the time.

Indeed – "at the time." 2023 Merz has little to do with 1999 Merz, so I am a bit puzzled by this take:

Wouldn't it be very difficult for either the SPD or the Greens to form a government with the CDU when the CDU is let by a rightwing fanatic like Merz who is on the "wrong" side of virtually every single social or cultural issue and I believe is a bit of a climate change denier? Could there be a hypothetical situation  where the only way the CDU could form a government with either the SPD or the Greens would be if they ditched Merz and proposed another chancellor who was more palatable?

Merz is many things, but certainly neither a "rightwing fanatic" nor a "climate change denier". In fact, he has largely followed Merkel's moderate approach so far, even introducing a gender quota for CDU leadership positions and – at least prior to the 2021 election – praising the Greens at any opportunity ("They are a very disciplined and intelligently led party from which the CDU can learn a lot.")

I really don't think that there would be any serious problems with him serving as Chancellor in a CDU-SPD or CDU-Greens government. Obviously, some left-wingers and the youth organizations of either party would complain – but they complain all the time and nobody really cares. Cf. Berlin.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

The black-green "pizza connection" of the nineties was initiated by people like Laschet, Röttgen, Altmeier, van Klaeden and the likes. People that where young at the time and at the left or center of the CDU -and some outspoken "Realo" Greens of course, like Matthias Berninger, Cem Özdemir, Volker Beck etc.

Friedrich Merz wasn't part of it and was staunchly anti-Green at the time.

Perhaps you're right. I thought saw a picture of Merz and Özdemir in a documentary on the pizza connection. Maybe that's owed to the Mandela effect.

Speaking of glyphosate Berninger: It's astonishing how many Greens from the "Realo" wing commit sins against their own alleged principles by working as lobbyists, such as Marianne Tritz, who used to earn her money as a tobacco lobbyist after she had been voted out of the Bundestag.

Another honorable member of the original "pizza connection" is Antje Hermenau, a very conservative, anti-PC, anti-COVID-19 measures, pro-Russian Green B'90 member, who has been a welcome guest on several political talkshows recently.

[Logical]

The proposed new electoral system sounds horrible.
Does the Bundesrat have the power to block this abomination? https://twitter.com/HzBrandenburg/status/1636719809697132544

[DL]

It doesn't sound so bad to me. There is clearly a problem with all the distortions caused by the proliferation of "Uberhangt mandaten" that needed to be solved and this seems like as a good a way as any to solve it.

[Logical]

It doesn't sound so bad to me. There is clearly a problem with all the distortions caused by the proliferation of "Uberhangt mandaten" that needed to be solved and this seems like as a good a way as any to solve it.

Having single member districts that may not return any member is dumb as *** and the whole reason for this reform is to reduce the number of elected politicians which is cheap populist drivel. Germany still has fewer parliamentarians per citizens than UK, France, Spain and Canada! The most simple and straightforward way to solve the overhang problem is to force the CDU/CSU to run in a single list which would reduce the number of extra compensation mandates by almost a 100. This can be accomplished without touching the electoral system at all.

[DavidB.]

Really bad proposal. As Logical said, the entire purpose of single-member constituencies is undone if the winner of a district is not elected. To combat the explosion of the number of seats, they should have introduced either an MMM system, letting go of proportionality (not sure if this would be constitutional though), or they could have simply gone for multi-member constituencies.

[Amanda Huggenkiss]

Really bad proposal. As Logical said, the entire purpose of single-member constituencies is undone if the winner of a district is not elected. To combat the explosion of the number of seats, they should have introduced either an MMM system, letting go of proportionality (not sure if this would be constitutional though), or they could have simply gone for multi-member constituencies.

No, it wouldn't. The constitutional court has affirmed multiple times that the German electoral system is at heart a proportional system. If the court hadn't said this in 2011 or so, the Bundestag wouldn't have introduced compensatory seats in 2013, and we wouldn't be in this mess.

[Lechasseur]

Given current polling, it looks like the CDU/CSU are favoured to lead any government formed after the next election, but is Merz or Söder more likely to be Chancellor?

And why does it seem like many voters like Söder but not Merz? Are they really that different?

[Yeahsayyeah]

Really bad proposal. As Logical said, the entire purpose of single-member constituencies is undone if the winner of a district is not elected. To combat the explosion of the number of seats, they should have introduced either an MMM system, letting go of proportionality (not sure if this would be constitutional though), or they could have simply gone for multi-member constituencies.

No, it wouldn't. The constitutional court has affirmed multiple times that the German electoral system is at heart a proportional system. If the court hadn't said this in 2011 or so, the Bundestag wouldn't have introduced compensatory seats in 2013, and we wouldn't be in this mess.

I think, compensatory seats are the best thing that ever happened to the German electoral system, but aside that, there was this whole "negative seat impact of getting more votes" angle of the Constitutional Court decision. And the mechanism which lead to that and which is directly tied to the overhang seats, was clearly bad and everybody can see, why that was unconstitutional (It only took the Court 60 decades to notice, who the electoral system worked, but whatever...).  

I'd clearly prefer a fully proportional system with open lists, so that the voters can decide which of the candidates of each party should get into the parliament. It shouldn't be decided on geographical randomness. So  I don't care that much for districts and it should have been outright abolished as it doesn't do, what it actually did since now - guaranteeing some kind of minimum of equal geographical distribution of representatives.

My main complaint is the abolition of the "Grundmandatsklausel". I don't think, that it is healthy to exclude parties via the arbitrary 5 per cent treshold that command strength in significant regions of the country.

This seems to have been a last minute decision and I don't know who pushed for it. It's clearly not necessary to make the law constitutionally sound (that was the official reasoning) as the districts still exist and have some merit.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Given current polling, it looks like the CDU/CSU are favoured to lead any government formed after the next election, but is Merz or Söder more likely to be Chancellor?

The next election is 2.5 years away, so let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Previous governments have come back from far worse polling situations to win re-election.

Of course, whether another Traffic Light coalition will be formed if one or two partners gets a beating while there is still a majority is another question.

And why does it seem like many voters like Söder but not Merz? Are they really that different?

In policy, not terribly so. It's mostly a personality thing.

Merz comes off as an elitist and has the "rich a$$hole" air around him. He creeps a lot of people out, and comes off as stilted. He is literally the Mitt Romney of Germany.

Söder is more populist, and comes off as a strong personality, but he's actually very funny and personable. It would be fun as hell to go to Oktoberfest or a Volksfest with him, even if I would not want him to be Chancellor. He is much more comfortable in the media and is quite slick with changing his positions and brushing off criticism, something that Merz absolutely isn't.

Of course, things can change. If the Scholz government for some reason collapses and early elections are called, or if things are still looking bad in September 2025, then Merz could get elected if he is still around then. And conversely, Söder, being a CSU guy, could alienate a lot of voters if he leans too hard into the regionalism or brings back the Christian conservative culture war stuff, especially for voters in northern Germany and the former DDR.