2013 Elections in Germany

[Middle-aged Europe]

What's the story behind the CDU leader in Lower Soxony having such a Scottish sounding name?

He has a British father.

And double citizenship.

What? Scottish father!

[minionofmidas]

What's the story behind the CDU leader in Lower Soxony having such a Scottish sounding name?

He's a dual Scottish-German citizen

Soon, hopefully. For now it's British-German.

That ARD thing is missing only the Hameln result, has been for, what? An hour?
The official state page has a 53-district result up, with comparison result for that part of the state. Applying a uniform swing to that gives a 0.2 CDU-FDP lead, actually, but it's missing a lot of Green strong areas (probably all of the Hanover area, plus x).

Come on. I wanna know who won. Tell me who won.

[minionofmidas]

ARD says that red-green have won according to their "final projection". But everybody knows better than to trust the ARD.

[Zanas]

I wouldn't trust an electoral system where you elect a Parliament that can end up plus or minus 10 members depending on outcome...

[jaichind]

For what it's worth, ZDF came up with the same seat projections as ARD.

ARD says that red-green have won according to their "final projection". But everybody knows better than to trust the ARD.

[minionofmidas]

For what it's worth, ZDF came up with the same seat projections as ARD.

ARD says that red-green have won according to their "final projection". But everybody knows better than to trust the ARD.

A few minutes earlier, too.

[RogueBeaver]

So if SPD wins by the skin of their teeth... interesting.

[minionofmidas]

Oh, I just noticed that red-green defeated a cdu-fdp coalition here in Hesse 22 years ago to the day!

[minionofmidas]

http://www.ndr.de/regional/niedersachsen/landtagswahl_niedersachsen_2013/eventlivestream865.html

Any moment now... NDR cameras already aimed at where the Landeswahlleiter is supposed to announce the result....

[Middle-aged Europe]

http://www.ndr.de/regional/niedersachsen/landtagswahl_niedersachsen_2013/eventlivestream865.html

Any moment now... NDR cameras already aimed at where the Landeswahlleiter is supposed to announce the result....

Come on, hurry up... I want to go to bed.

[Franzl]

http://www.ndr.de/regional/niedersachsen/landtagswahl_niedersachsen_2013/eventlivestream865.html

Any moment now... NDR cameras already aimed at where the Landeswahlleiter is supposed to announce the result....

Come on, hurry up... I want to go to bed.

Ich muss morgen um 6 raus...

[Middle-aged Europe]

http://www.ndr.de/regional/niedersachsen/landtagswahl_niedersachsen_2013/eventlivestream865.html

Any moment now... NDR cameras already aimed at where the Landeswahlleiter is supposed to announce the result....

Come on, hurry up... I want to go to bed.

Ich muss morgen um 6 raus...

There she is!

[Middle-aged Europe]

Official result

CDU 54
SPD 49
Greens 20
FDP 14

[Franzl]

And there you have it. Black-yellow and McAllister have been defeated.

[DL]

This must give the opposition quite a large majority in the Bundesrat as well?

[RogueBeaver]

By the narrowest possible margin. So no federal Mo either way.

[Franknburger]

Some more highlights from the ARD exit polls:

McAllister did a good job: 69 %
CDU/FDP should stay in government: 39 %
Time for government change: 57 %
Prefered coalition: red-green 52 %,  black-yellow 36 %

Which party is most competent:

Topic         Relevance      CDU    SPD       FDP
Education        45%           33      45       2
Employment     24%           43     37
Economy          13%           51     32        3
Families            12%           31     45

Essentially, McAllister was killed by

• Discontent with the FDP (which, ironically, the election result does not show)
• Red-Green campaigning for abolishment of college fees (Lower Saxony is one of the two states that still impose that fee) - I know from my sister and my sister-in-law, both with children that will finish school this year, that the issue was important, if not decisive for their vote
• Discontent with federal-level CDU/ CSU family policies (introduction of the so-called 'stove premium'- grants to mothers staying at home to take care of their non-school-age children, instead of investing the money into early childhood day care)

Another issue was nuclear policy, which does not show up in the exit polls, but becomes apparent in the huge Green party gains in the North-East, where the Gorleben proposed nuclear waste dump is located.

[ObserverIE]

• Red-Green campaigning for abolishment of college fees (Lower Saxony is one of the two states that still impose that fee) - I know from my sister and my sister-in-law, both with children that will finish school this year, that the issue was important, if not decisive for their vote

As a matter of interest, how much are college fees in those German states that charge them?

[freefair]

In a way this is good for both coalitions? Nobody did terribly or got embarrassed (apart from the Left)

[jaichind]

I sort of feel, am completely ready to be wrong, that SPD gained more from this than CDU.  At least they can claim SPD/Greens beat CDU/FDP fair and square without any help from Left going over 5% or FDP going below 5%.  Of course the gain is tiny but I feel they are net winners from this.

[ERvND]

Some interesting results here, and I stand corrected on my overall prediction. At least I got "inflated FDP" tendentially right.

Talking about McAllister's very bad, not good, horrible day: His seemingly ingenious idea - give CDU voters a hint to vote FDP - backfired terribly. Not only did it not work; due to his shenanigans, his much celebrated and favoured CDU lost over 6% and 14 seats. Somehow I feel that his political future will lie outside of Lower Saxony.

For me, the real surprise of the evening was not the FDP's strong showing, but the all right result for the SPD. I had really expected for their vote to collapse, given the media climate right now. Instead they held their own, which I attribute to Stephan Weil, who was obviously perceived as a decent, competent candidate.

By the way: This is not over yet. One seat is a very thin majority, and red-green could have a hard time electing their PM, or hanging on for the full term.

[Franknburger]

For completeness sake, here the final official results:

CDU     36.0 (-6.5)
SPD     32.6 (+2.3)
Grüne  13.7 (+5.7)
FDP      9.9  (+1.7)

Linke    3.1 (-4.0)
Piraten    2.1 (+2.1)
Freie Wähler 1.1 (+0.6)
NPD      0,8  (-0.7)

Main voter movements as per ARD exit polls (Note: the figures don't always add up with the final result, especially not for CDU):

• CDU: Gains from non-voters / First voters (49 k) and from Linke (10 k),  losses to FDP (104 k), SPD, (37 k), Grüne (20 k) and others (6 k, Freie Wähler?)
• SPD: Losses to Grüne (49 k) and Piraten (6 k), Gains from non-voters (90 k), CDU (37 k), Linke (15 k), FDP  (20 k) and "others" (7k)
• Grüne: Loss to Piraten (7 k), gains from non-voters (59 k), SPD (49 k),  CDU (20 k), Linke (17 k), and FDP (9 k)
• FDP: Gains from CDU and from non-voters (9 k), losses to SPD, Grüne, "others" (7 k) and Piraten (5 k)
• Linke: Losses to non-voters (40 k),  Grüne, SPD, CDU, Piraten (9 k), "others" (3 k).
• Piraten: Gains from "others" ((13 k), non-voters (11 k), Linke, Grüne, SPD, FPD

Key trends:

• Strong CDU->FDP movement (loan votes)
• Some 3% movement from black-yellow to red-green; of which SPD picks up roughly 2%, and Grüne 1%
• Some 1.5% movement from SPD to Grüne
• SPD benefits most from increased participation (some 3% gain), followed by Grüne (first voters?) and CDU
  
• Linke lose almost 2% to non-voters (which threw them out of the new Landtag), but also significantly to Grüne, SPD, CDU (!) and Pirates (in this order).
  

[Franknburger]

• Red-Green campaigning for abolishment of college fees (Lower Saxony is one of the two states that still impose that fee) - I know from my sister and my sister-in-law, both with children that will finish school this year, that the issue was important, if not decisive for their vote

As a matter of interest, how much are college fees in those German states that charge them?

500 € / semester - not much in international comparison, but still a cost for parents.

[Franknburger]

To all map-makers out there: No point in doing result maps, they are available at http://vis.uell.net/nds/13/atlas.html (with individually scaleable color ranges).

However, I have not yet been able to find a 2008-13 swing map, and I don't think anybody has ever done a trend map on German State elections. Such maps would be great to have ...

[jaichind]

So in addition to this 500 € / semester fee, how much does the student/parents pay for college in Germany.  I assume it is different for public and private universities.

500 € / semester - not much in international comparison, but still a cost for parents.