2013 Elections in Germany

[Velasco]

Germany (and likely Hesse) to officially vote on Sept. 22:

                                                                       (...)

So, basically we now have:

15.09. - Bavaria
22.09. - Germany and Hesse (?)
29.09. - Austria (?)

I have already for some time been thinking about the "51st state"comment -but now you relally deserve it

You mean Austria as the 51st ?



Not really, since there are only 16 German states ...

And the 17th is already the "Balearic Islands".

So, we would be the 18th German state.

Or the 19th (after Switzerland) ?

Indeed, the Balearic are annexed de facto. Some islands down here will be added soon.

Looking at some polls above, I think it's a shame the lack of a competitive candidate inside the SPD. We're condemned to see a Great Coalition. Bad news for Europe (and for the South, of course)

[Velasco]

Why would there not be a coalition of left-wing parties (i.e. SPD-Grüne-Linke) ?

The Linke is the continuing Communist Party of the GDR (from what I gather) and nobody outside of the leftist strongholds in the East wants to be at all associated with the Linke - poor connotations, etc.

Die Linke would probably call the SPD (and certainly the Greens) too bourgeois for their liking anyway.

I think that collaborating with Die Linke wasn't anathema for Klaus Wowereit in Berlin. I think that some day there will be a normalization of the relations with this party, unless there are going to be always CDU-SPD coalitions, in which case it's unknown if elections in Germany will make sense as a competence between CDU and SPD anymore.

[Velasco]

I saw a demonstration of a party called Partei der Vernunft (PdV,Party of Reason) turning into Unter der Linden towards the Brandenburg Gate. I was clueless about it, so I asked google. Apparently is a crazy libertarian party (I say crazy because an organization who claims to have the reason on its side it's a bit crazy to my eyes; make this extensive to all parties if you want). Wikipedia says that Ron Paul likes it. The party won some seats in local councils at Lower Saxony and got a 0.1% of the vote in the 2012 North Rhine-Westphalia state election. Chances? Potential to become in the next protest party or something?

[Velasco]

The holiday season is gradually coming to an end, and the "hot phase" of campaigning begins:
 - Angela Merkel has volunteered as high school teacher, enlightening a school class in Berlin on life in the former GDR, That's probably the closest she will ever get to taxi-driving....

I watched a lovely pic yesterday in the press. Chancellor Merkel adores children, doesn't she? It's not very original for an electoral campaign. The school might project The Lives of Others or something else instead.

Can anybody translate gemütlich?. Someone used the word to describe the German environment today.

[Velasco]

Gemütlich means "cosy".

"Cosy", yes. I questioned for the meaning of the word because German language has certain subtleties and because of it a was hoping that some German speaker was explaining to me. I've read the word in an article where the author says Germany is in a gemütlich era (quiet and grey). In a bad translation "among citizens there has spread the conviction of which there's nothing like being at home. Occasionally, by the chinks of the windows, some echoes filter of the noise that causes the economic crisis thereabouts, particularly in the south of Europe. So foreign problems guarantee the satisfaction on the state of things in the proper country." Later it says that there are not absence of experts who notice the risks of policies focused solely in the short term, but this neither affects by no means the general atmosphere nor influences a campaign exempt from ideological debate.

[Velasco]

Do you not think I'm a German speaker
I think the author is insinuating that Germany is in a comfortable era, or any equivalent synonym for comfortable.

If you speak German, my apologies. Perhaps is insinuating some shade of comfort.

A blog that tried to find an appropriate transaction also offered "comfortable", "snug", "homely", "placid",  "unhurried" and "relaxed". The best translation is probably ""the feeling of sitting in front of a fire with a glass of port"
The literal translation would be "be-mood-like" (as "in the mood", "mood -> modest").

With a glass of port and a blanket, I guess. There's nothing like feeling warm and comfortable indoors when outside is cold and snowy, like in Berlin last March. It's incredible all the debate around the meaning of a word in that forum (are "gemütlich" and "bequem" the same thing?, etc). Thanks.

[Velasco]

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg
list vote Left 25.1 (+0.1) SPD 24.0 (+3. Greens 20.8 (-6.6, wtf?) CDU 15.4 (+3.5) Pirates 5.8 (-0.2) AfD 2.8 FDP 2.2 (-4.0) PARTEI 1.9
direct vote Ströbele 39.9 (-6. SPD 18.0 (+1.3) and second place

At least Ströbele holds comfortably the seat. May I suppose that SPD gained some ground in Kreuzberg and Die Linke in Friedrichsain or isn't that constituency so dual? How Prenzlauer Berg East vote?

[Velasco]

There won't be a Red-Red-Green government because the SPD are stupid.

There's a red-red-green majority only because FDP and AfD failed to reach the threshold by a few decimals. It would be stupid trying that coalition now when the center-to-the left parties have been actually defeated. Merkel won. Period. However, I think that the cordon sanitaire around Die Linke cannot last.

It's fascinating that map in the Berliner Morgenpost.

[Velasco]

First and Second Vote results.