German Elections & Politics

[Bumaye]

Why is Saarland a separate state instead of being part of Rhineland-Palatinate? It's so tiny

It's because of the special history of Saarland. Germany and France often fought over this area. So it was part of Germany at times, and at other times, it was part of France. In 1935, 91 % of the people of Saarland voted in favour of becoming part of the German Reich again in a referendum. After World War II, it became a semi-sovereign state (with a strong French influence). Parties that opposed a sovereign Saarland, especially pro-German ones, were not allowed and the freedom of speech was restricted for anti-sovereigntists. That policiy was very unpopular with the local population and the cause of protests. The then premier of Saarland even envisioned that it should become the first "European territory" (i.e. directly governed by the ECC, the later EU; think of it as kind of an EU version of Washington D.C.). The EU institutions that are now situated in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg would all be in Saarland if his plan had succeeded. The people of Saarland, however, voted against his proposal with a two-thirds majority in a referendum in 1955. The Saarland government interpreted the clear disapproval of the proposal as the people's wish to return to Germany.

 
 
Very good explanation. I just want to add that there have been over the years multible ideas to redraw the German map and change the states. Almost all include that Berlin becomes part of Brandenburg, Hamburg becomes part of Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen becomes part of Niedersachsen and well Saarland becomes part of Rheinland-Pfalz. 
 
To show two examples:   
 
The so called Döring-Modell from 2003: 
 
 
The so called 8-state-solution from 1995: 

[Bumaye]

who the hell created the concept...of...."nordelbingen"? this sounds soooo great, i would instantly vote for it.

 
 
It's by Werner Rutz. It is basically a wider metropolitan area of Hamburg which is interesting but I would object. I have lived in Greifswald, I've been in Bremerhaven, Emden, Hamburg, Kiel, etc. - If we go down this route I would prefer a true Northern State looking somewhat like what I've drawn below and call it Hansebund or something like that. Culturally someone from Wilhelmshaven is much closer to someone from Wismar then someone from Wolfsburg. Or someone from Stralsund is much closer to someone from Bremerhaven then someone from Cottbus. Our maritim, northern lifestyle is pretty unique but shared across the whole coastal area. 
 

[Bumaye]

CDU at 42.4% and SPD at 29.7% right now. Any new seat projection?

 
 
Most likely 24 CDU, 17 SPD, 7 Linke, 3 AfD. The two largest cities Saarbrücken and Neuenkichen aren't in yet but something big would need to happen to give Red-Red the majority.

[Bumaye]

Final result:  
  
CDU: 40,7%  
SPD: 29,6%  
Linke: 12,9%  
AfD: 6,2%  
Grüne: 4,0%  
FDP: 3,3%  
Family Party: 0,8%  
Pirate Party: 0,7%  
NPD: 0,7%  
Free Voters: 0,4%  
LKR: 0,2%  
  
All others received less then 1.000 votes each and 0,6% combined. 
 
Turnout: 69,7% 
 
Very bad result for the tiny parties. Free Voters and Family Party each lost for example more then half of their percents.

[Bumaye]

Wondering about the extent of the Piraten > AfD swing.

 
 
Pirates are not listed for themselves but the AfD got the biggest share of their voters from "others" - of course some of those votes are former NPD votes and probably also Family Party but the lion share should come from the Pirate Party. 
 
Looking at where the AfD votes came from it's pretty clear that they had no influence on the major parties but mainly collected votes from protest (non-)voters. 
 

[Bumaye]

Forsa dropped a Berlin Poll and I thought it's maybe interesting to compare it with the results of last October's election: 
 
SPD: 25% (+3,4) 
CDU: 20% (+2,4) 
Linke: 16% (+0,4) 
Grüne: 13% (-2,2) 
AfD: 8% (-6,2) 
FDP: 7% (+0,3) 
   
 
So it kinda proves the general direction we're seeing all over the country. AfD is falling but definitely isn't done yet. The SPD has it's Schulz-Effect which at the same time weakens the Greens while Linke and FDP don't give a f*** and stay roughly the same. 

[Bumaye]

AfD leadership now published their proposal  - signed by party head Frauke Petry -  to expulse far-right leader Björn Höcke from the party and compared him with national socialists/Hitler.

This is going to be fun.

 
 
I love the implication. According to a Civey Poll from February 52% of the AfD base are against kicking Höcke out of their party. That basically means a majority supports a national socialist.  Not that this would surprise me, just to hear it from the AfD leadership itself is so funny.

[Bumaye]

The trend of rising turnouts in state elections doesn't seem to stop today.  
  
If the current coalition doesn't win which seems likely since CDU is on a high at the moment I'd prefer SPD/Green/FDP. I'm annoyed by Die Linke opposing the Fehmarn Belt link.

[Bumaye]

The 2PM turnout for Schleswig-Holstein is still looking solid. I guess around 67-70% turnout in the end.  
  
  
  
As ApatheticAustrian said CDU and SSW don't go well with each other. The SSW is politically somewhere in between SPD and Greens. Pro asylum, pro same sex marriage, a scandinavian style school system, green energy, equal payment for men and women and obviously minority rights and more local self-governance.

[Bumaye]

Is CDU-FDP-Green or SPD-FDP-Green at all possible?  If not then it is back to good old Grand Alliance.

 
  
Both absolutely possible and much more likely. FDP's Kubicki supports the Jamaica-Coalition (CDU/FDP/Green).  
  
Very good results for FDP and Greens. Their charismatic state leaders definitely helped them a lot. Quite horrible for the SPD. The Schulz honeymoon is definitely over. Unfortunately that the AfD most likely made it in but whatever, the Pirates have shown very well that things can change drastic for a protest party until the next election.
  

[Bumaye]

Results by gender. (EDIT: Women on top, men below)   
  
  
  

[Bumaye]

Result by education. Right side is highly educated: 
 
 
 
When it comes to voters movement surprisingly the AfD has a rather low share of non-voters. 
 
 
 
They got the bulge of their votes from smaller parties, presumably the protest voters from the Pirate party.   
 

[Bumaye]

   Interesting that the Greens still got 8% of the non-highly educated, and Die Linke doing better among highly educated then non.

 
 
Nothing new, really. FDP, Greens and Die Linke are the parties that always score better with higher educated people. I actually put together 4 recent state elections based on the results by education earlier today: https://i.imgur.com/6HWryqU.png 

[Bumaye]

What is the Überhangmandate situation? The CDU looks like it can take 25-6 seats on the basis of first votes, while the ARD/ZDF distribution has them at 24.

 
 
1 Überhangmandat and 1 or 3 Ausgleichsmandate.

[Bumaye]

Some other - quite funny - statistics from yesterdays election: 75% of the voters describe the economical situation of the state as positive. During the rule of the CDU in 2009 it were only 23%. Yet a majority of 53% say that the economy was one of the deciding factors - to vote for the CDU. 
 
 
 

[Bumaye]

SPD 30.5  
CDU 34.5  
Greens 6  
FDP 12  
AfD 7.5  
Linke 5  
  
CDU/FDP currently at 89 seats if Linke is in. 91 are needed for a majority.   
 
Turnout 65.5%

[Bumaye]

54% for the right-wing parties in the workers stronghold of NRW is quite devastating to be honest. I expected the Greens to crash and burn but thought SPD/Linke would reach close to 40% combined, instead it's merely 35%.  
  
It's understandable though I guess. Cities like Essen, Dortmund, Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg, Herne or Oberhausen with each more then 10% without a job - of course these people want change. Though I doubt that the CDU is the right party for that.

[Bumaye]

Any link to follow the results?

 
 
http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2017-05-14-LT-DE-NW/index.shtml 

[Bumaye]

YES

left party under 5% means the fdp must deliver....

this party is killing possible left coalitions since a decade...

 
  
In the last 37 years there were only 5 years when NRW was not ruled either by SPD/Green or SPD alone.

[Bumaye]

well, imho black - yellow is better than the "groko"....at least clear responsibilies.

 
  
I disagree. Black/Yellow would probably mean no more tuition free universities which would be horrible imho.  
  
______
Well, some group specific results:  
  
Workers:  
SPD: 37%  
CDU: 26%  
Linke: 10%  
AfD: 8%  
FDP: 7%  
Grüne: 3%  
  
College graduates:  
CDU: 31%  
SPD: 30%  
FDP: 18%  
Grüne: 11%  
Linke: 3%  
AfD: 2%  
  
Under 30:  
CDU: 31%  
SPD: 26%  
Grüne: 7%  
FDP: 7%  
AfD: 6%
Linke: 4%
  

[Bumaye]

AfD at 15.2% in Gelsenkirchen II (that is the southern one of the two Gelsenkirchen constituencies).

 
 
It's like poetry. The two strongest constituencies for the AfD so far are in Gelsenkirchen, the two strongest constituencies of Die Linke are in Dortmund. Gotta love the Schalke-Dortmund rivalry. 
 
Jokes aside it's pretty clear that the AfD is strong where the situation is most problematic. They are at more then 10% in cities like Gelsenkirchen, Bottrop and Herne while failing to reach 5% in areas such as Münster, Steinfurt and Coesfeld. 
FDP close to 20% in Düsseldorf. Some prejudices are true after all.

[Bumaye]

As it looks the SPD won the Ruhrpott, Cologne, Lippe, Aachen, Bielefeld and Minden-Lübbecke, the CDU winning everything else, most notably Düsseldorf, Münster, Bonn and Leverkusen. 

[Bumaye]

It seems it is CDU+FDP 100 seats, everyone else 99 seats.  

 
  
Yes but as it seems the FDP has f-ed up something and a court will have to decide about one seat.  
  
  
  
  
Die PARTEI by the way with 0,65% (55.000 votes). More then doubled our votes (22.915 or 0,29%) since 2012. The 2nd best result in a non city-state behind Saxony in 2014 (0,71%).  
  
Pirate party is missing 0,05% to reach the 1% they would need for the campaign cost refund.

[Bumaye]

I present to you all 63 minor parties that applied for the Federal Election: http://www.wahlrecht.de/bundestag/2017/
 
My personal highlights: 
"DU: The Urban, A Hip-Hop Party" 
"V-Partei³: Party for Change, Vegetarians and Vegans" 
"Die Violetten: The Violets, For spiritual policy"   
 
I personally thought about voting for "Partei der Humanisten", a center-left party with focus on secularism, science and European federalism. Their tax plans are a little to centrist for me but their foreign policy is much more realistic then those of leftist parties. Unfortunately they are not on the ballot in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. That's why I decided to vote for Die PARTEI once more. I can't stand Die Linke's naive foreign policy and their open relations towards Moscow and by voting for SPD or Grüne I risk to be stirrup holder of Seehofer, Von der Leyen, Schäuble and all those other freaks behind Merkel.

[Bumaye]

Has Der dritte Wege been banned?

 
 
No party has been banned since the KPD in 1956. They simply don't run this election, neither do other quite well known parties such as the Anti-Islam party "Pro Deutschland", the Erdogan-allied "BIG" or Lucke's new party "LKR". 
 

I have to say that I don't understand how Germans, after all of the horrendous experiences with non-democratic alternatives both on the left and on the right, can vote for a party like Die PARTEI that is intended to satirize politics but, by extension, inevitably satirizes democracy. I personally think voting for parties like these subconsciously leads to an erosion of trust in the democratic process with the general public and is more harmful to democracy than abstaining.

 
 
Die PARTEI is not anti-democratic at all so I don't understand the comparison with the likes of the NSDAP and the SED. They aren't even particularly against the system, they just see flaws in the system and display them in a satirical way. Furthermore if you get a little more into the party it is pretty clear that they have a democratic socialist core and idea and I'd say the majority of their voters knows that pretty well. Also their elected representatives take their positions quite serious and work hard to do a good job. Satire is really only a means to an end. It doesn't erode the democratic system, it adds something new. Why must politics always be boring? In fact I think it can reach people and get them politically engaged who'd normally not vote. Some political scientists describe parties like Die PARTEI as a gateway drug into the political discourse. I think that's pretty fitting when you see that 7% of the first time voters in Berlin voted for them last year - more then for the FDP and equally as many as for the AfD.