🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[Oryxslayer]

[...] but wouldn't this simply mean that the party is runnung around in circles? [...]

That's been their modus operandi since 2005. In part, I guess, caused by the fact that new political talent is joining every party but the SPD.

And this isn't something that can change, since the SPD voting pool skews towards the elderly.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1132678410583646219

R2G and Jamaica have majority.

[Oryxslayer]

So, what do you mean by "Cordon sanitaire", a term that was originally aimed at the stripe between the German Reich and the Soviet Union consisting of freshly minted states after WWI?

The Cordon sanitaire has a quite similar in political discourse as in historical discourse, just that instead of trying to isolate the post-revolution Soviet Union it is a method to isolate parties precieved to be extreme. It was first used in Belgium with the far-right Vlaams Belang, and is intended as a sanitary curtain that all mainstream parties adhere to and agree to not cooperate whatsoever with said extremists. In Germany this is of course the tactic used against the Afd currently and against the PDS until the late 90s when some SPD MPs in the East started (against Schröders will) to work with them.

We are currently at the point where the Coalitions that the mainsteam parties have to engage in (in the east) are getting way to large and instable so that the CDU will have to eventually have to break the cordon sanitaire either with Die Linke of the AFD to avoid imminent negative majorities (AFD+Linke are 40-45% in some states, how the hell can you say "oh well these are all fringe extremists, we arent talking to them"). Also the Ostracization and constant Opposition, and self-imposed Victim role (see the Bundestag-vice presidency) is only helping the Afd, instead of keeping them from power. This is sorta also what happened in Weimar Germany with the NSDAP so i am not exactly optimistic about the Cordon Sanitiaire.

Its not totally ungovernable since the SPD has broke the cordon as stated, and R2G is a normal thing in the east. So there isn't really a negative majority unless Union+AfD+FDP > 50%, and prevents R2G. Like the brandenburg poll has a high chance of returning a R2G majority. This of course doesn't solve saxony's problems though.

[Oryxslayer]

Linke are now strongest Party in Thüringen, thanks to CDU and SPD collapse, AFD surge.
Wont help Ramelow much though, as Red-Red-Green has no majority, nor has Jamaika nor has CDU-SPD-FDP.
And that my friends would be the first negative Majority since Weimar.

So what are the options:
Linke+CDU+???    (Extremely unlikely although Ramelow is one of the moderates in the Left)
AFD+CDU+FDP     (No way, if anywhere then in Saxony, and even there its like <5% Chance)
Linke+AFD            (National-Bolschewik Putin Fifth Collumn Coalition only in my dreams )
Snap election         (Very likely)
and the same,
even more chaos  
as before  

Someone will need to break the cordon sanitaire or there will be no more governments in the east. But who will the CDU choose they hate a bit less? AFD or Linke?
 

I mean with R2G at 44%+awarded others, its likely sitting at 46-48% of the chamber. That's more than enough for you to first deny and hope for the MOE, and then if it does come to pass, stick to your guns and hope someone provides outside support so as to avoid repeat elections. And FDP on 5% is certainly the high MOE result, since it missing the threshold gives R2G a majority.

[Oryxslayer]

I mean with R2G at 44%+awarded others, its likely sitting at 46-48% of the chamber. That's more than enough for you to first deny and hope for the MOE, and then if it does come to pass, stick to your guns and hope someone provides outside support so as to avoid repeat elections. And FDP on 5% is certainly the high MOE result, since it missing the threshold gives R2G a majority.

This does not happen in Germany. Minority Governments are already a big no-no in Germany (google Andrea Ypsilanti) and that was just the toleration of a red-green Government by the left. Who would tolerate the Red-red-green government? CDU? FDP? That would be a death sentence for the party involved. In other countries, i would agree maybe, but not in Germany.

Also there would not be a majority for Red-Red-Green even if the FDP were out.

1. I recognize no minority govt has ever been done before in Germany, and that Germany does not do this sort of thing. That's why I said 'hope' rather than negotiate, since it would basically be putting the govt to a vote and blessing that someone will prefer a govt to new elections. Like pile noted, this would be the kind of thing that collapses as soon as someone gets a good polling lead.

2. Oops I confused the 45 for CDU/Add and the 44 for R2G here. But either way, MOE. Also, as noted, tactical voting will occur when we get closer to the election.

[Oryxslayer]

It's probably better to think of eastern Linke as Ostalgic rather than left, and the Ostalgic Bloc hasn't really lost votes thanks to the AfD.

[Oryxslayer]

Could the free voter enter federal politics???

Not this year, but if they manage to join the state parlament of Rhineland-Palatinate, this could be the start of them entering more state parlaments; they've already got stronger in many states. Then they would not be a Bavaria-only phenomenon. If they succeed in RLP, what I doubt at the moment, this could be a signal to voters in states like Hesse, Saxony, ..., that they can make the 5% threshold.
If they manage to get into enough state parlaments in the next 5 years, I could see them entering the Bundestag in 2026, but that is a big IF.

Aren’t they in another parliament outside of Bavaria? And what are the free voter politician centre left or right?

No, they are not (at least not at the state level).* There are two Freie Wähler representatives in the European Parliament however, and several more at the local level and in various city councils.

Center to center-right I would say. Definitely more conservative than the FDP on most social matters but hardly in an ideological way. In the European Parliament, they are part of 'Renew Europe' (liberals) though. I guess 'center-right regionalism with liberal elements' is an apt description.

*There is also one single MP in Saxony-Anhalt (former independent member of the CDU parliamentary group) who switched to the Freie Wähler in 2019.

You're forgetting Brandenburg, but there are other factors in play there such as the local party's relationship to what FW national organization exists, and the fact that they have ran prominent candidates and won direct mandates in 2014 and 2019, allowing them to 'cheat' the threshold.

[Oryxslayer]

Union: The reports of our death have been greatly exaggerated.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1401781433916608516?s=20

This is the second place map. CDU won every direct mandate except that one in the far south. EuropeElects sticks to the Eu color designations, which results in the confusing AFD/CDU color swap. What I inquiring about is the FW candidate, cause usually when they do well in one seat and occasionally get into Landtag's there is an interesting story behind it.

[Oryxslayer]

If the SPD indeed ends up victorious, it would definitely boost Scholz' standing and may create some momentum for the NRW and Schleswig-Holstein elections later on, where CDU incumbents catched up to the SPD's polling lead lately. The opposite "domino effect" basically happened in 2017, which also helped to derail the Schulz train.

On this point, I have noticed that the Union has retaken the lead in national polling to decent degree, and Scholz's honeymoon is over and his approvals are now underwater. Is that just the fight with King Soder taking it's toll, the confusion over Germanies Ukraine policy, or something else?

[Oryxslayer]

Yikes, that poll is accurate and if all parties at 5% or lower end up not making it over the threshold, the SPD could very well end up with an absolute majority with that poll result. That would be something.

I mean if there was to be a place where everyone gets screwed by the threshold, it would be Saarland. Linke and AfD have a large eastern base that guarantees 4-parties at minimum, and most of the western states have the large cities and commuter communities that give FDP and the Greens their best results. Saar has neither and the demise of the provincial Linke leaves the big two standing tall.

[Oryxslayer]

Yikes, that poll is accurate and if all parties at 5% or lower end up not making it over the threshold, the SPD could very well end up with an absolute majority with that poll result. That would be something.

I mean if there was to be a place where everyone gets screwed by the threshold, it would be Saarland. Linke and AfD have a large eastern base that guarantees 4-parties at minimum, and most of the western states have the large cities and commuter communities that give FDP and the Greens their best results. Saar has neither and the demise of the provincial Linke leaves the big two standing tall.

L O L

[Oryxslayer]

Has there been any recent polling on Mecklenburg-Vorpommern? Yeah is somewhat of a backwater in terms of population size, and yes it's a ways off from a election, but given recent events it might be interesting to see what the people think - especially since the SPD has been dominant here for 20ish years.

[Oryxslayer]

Any particular reason why the Schleswig-Holstein Union would prefer the FDP over the Greens, or visa versa? The government right now is Jamaica after all.

The other major contest is looking like a repeat of 2017, just with the FDP and Greens swapping positions. Union and SPD in a tight photo finish, Linke having no chance at entry, and AfD at a middling and irrelevant 7-8%.

[Oryxslayer]

Would be a very peculiar set of elections if first a popular SPD candidate wins a majority in Saarland, then a popular CDU incumbent wins a majority in S-S-H, then the two parties effectively tie in NR-W.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1523349350680002562?s=20&t=ht31eD4YE...

AfD out, Union a bit off of a majority.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1523370852297109504?s=20&t=ht31eD4YE...

Union would be just short of a majority based on the current count.

[Oryxslayer]

All of the (many) polls released today put the incumbent Union up about 3 points on the SPD in NRW, so while it wouldn't be a shocker for the SPD to win, the Union now has the advantage heading into the weekend.

All that said, the Greens are effectively kingmakers, being the main single party that can give either the Union or the SPD a majority coalition. Like nationally, they could break custom and align with the loser, but one imagines that would be a difficult pill to swallow.

[Oryxslayer]

Notable spd underperformance when compared to polls for most of the campaign,  which were tied, and final polls which has a slight union lead. Anyway, union-greens will form the government, spd could have attempted to challenge German political customs if it was closer to polls, but not like this.

[Oryxslayer]

Prediction time: how many direct seats will non-Union/SPD (aka Greens) win? In 2017 that number was zero, in 2021 the Greens won 4 federal mandates from NRW.

[Oryxslayer]

Prediction time: how many direct seats will non-Union/SPD (aka Greens) win? In 2017 that number was zero, in 2021 the Greens won 4 federal mandates from NRW.

The answer appears to be 8, as well as the Cities of Aachen, Cologne, and Münster.

[Oryxslayer]

Yes, Lindner is in a difficult situation right now. He had probably thought that as Minister of Finance, he would be the power behind the throne (like Schaeuble was between 2009 and 2017) and now he is doomed to watch Habeck/Baerbock getting all the attention. In retrospect, it really was a stupid decision not to insist on the Foreign Affairs ministry.

In general, hardly anyone in the FDP is happy with the traffic light coalition and its agenda so far. If the situation does not improve, there will be calls to leave it sooner rather than later.

Could Scholz cobble together a coalition if that happened or would that certainly lead to new elections?

In case it happens (still a long way to go), I see no way for Scholz to continue. There are only two possible non-FDP coalitions: Kenya/GroKo and Red-Red-Green. Merz obviously would laugh off any offer to join and I have a hard time imagining Scholz working with the Linke.

Also, in such a hypothetical, R2G didn't win a majority of the seats in 2021, and its hard to image the (small) majority of the Bundestag letting such a government last or do anything.

[Oryxslayer]

RIP Franzi. I don't think the SPD will come out on top in a snap election, although CDU, Greens and SPD were virtually tied in the latest INSA poll (21%, 20% and 20%, respectively).

The incompetence is just staggering here, though. Truly an embarrassment for the capital of the Europe's largest economy. Germans should be more cautious by laughing at America right now when it takes days to count the votes. At least the US doesn't have to repeat entire state elections.

I mean that's more due to vastly different legal standards, Austria had to re-do an entire presidential election over an issue( poor quality glue in postal votes) that would be a minor headline in a use election.

Larger, centralized election agencies mean a small technical error affects a ton of voters. Every year there's some US county that doesn't open the polling locations on time, misprints ballots, gets affected by a natural disaster and needs sufficient accommodations, or fails to get everything in the mail. The thing is, this only affects singular county systems,  so its easy for the local counts to order a remedy while everyone else proceeds as normal.  I think hurricane sandy is the only time a whole state got affected.

[Oryxslayer]

and 2.) the SPD has led the government of Berlin for the past 22 years, and yet many things regarding quality of life are disappointing/bad and municipal services can be so unreliable. If we can't even administrate an election properly, why should voters trust us to govern the city for an additional 3.5 years? Thankfully no one has openly challenged me on this question, but I definitely have thought about it quite a bit ever since it became apparent that we may have to have a repeat-election.

Question time! I'm seeing quite a few polls pop up in my feed with Union leads so now it isn't exactly impossible to imagine a non-SPD party coming in first. However R2G will basically always have a majority, so this prompts my questions:

1) Would the current coalition continue even if it loses votes and the first place slot? On one hand you have Germany's political culture and expectations, on the other hand there is nature of this election and it being a repeat with an incumbent coalition already in place.

Also there's the possibility that the SPD even falls to 3rd behind both the Greens and the Union, meaning a continuation government would still mean a change at the top at minimum, but its always safer to be on the SPD in these engagements.

2) How much can be blamed on local factors and how much can be blamed on the National situation being bad for the SPD? We've got a situation in national polling that looks like some 2021 SPD voters
  -> Greens and Union, and some 2021 Union and FDP voters going -> AfD. Obviously there's always more under the hood (and I think a lot of this trend is Ukraine-influenced), but the Union, Greens, and AfD are up, with SPD and FDP down. However these trends would suggest a Greens lead in Berlin polling based on past results and alignment of electoral bases, not a Union one. So are all parts of the local R2G catching flack?

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1622294323072012290?s=20&t=-uAdl7H1i...

With one outlier in favor of the SPD, its only fair that we get one in favor of the Union.