German Elections & Politics

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"Wir Deutsche" is actually terrible German...

Actually not. It sounds wrong, but it's officially correct:

http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/wir

Westerwelle also used to say: "Wir Liberale."

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Emnid poll about the approval ratings of Merkel's third cabinet

	Finance Minister	Wolfgang Schäuble	CDU	62%	28%	10%
	Chancellor	Angela Merkel	CDU	60%	34%	6%
	Foreign Minister Vice Chancellor	Sigmar Gabriel	SPD	54%	33%	13%
	Interior Minister	Thomas de Maizière	CDU	50%	35%	15%
	Justice Minister	Heiko Maas	SPD	42%	32%	26%
	Development Aid Minister	Gerd Müller	CSU	29%	23%	48%
	Environment Minister	Barbara Hendricks	SPD	37%	36%	27%

	Labor Minister	Andrea Nahles	SPD	38%	44%	18%
	Agriculture Minister	Christian Schmidt	CSU	28%	37%	35%
	Education Minister	Johanna Wanker Wanka	CDU	28%	37%	35%
	Health Minister	Hermann Gröhe	CDU	30%	41%	29%
	Defense Minister	Ursula von der Leyen	CDU	36%	54%	10%
	Transport Minister	Alexander Dobrindt	CSU	23%	60%	17%

Family Minister Katarina Barley and Economy Mister Brigitte Zypries (both SPD) were not polled as they assumed their offices only recently.

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Gabriel's good numbers are pretty ironic if we compare them with what they must have looked in January. He didn't became his party's Chancellor-candidate because he used to be unpopular. Yeah, yeah, I know, foreign ministers are often popular. That axiom didn't apply to Guido Westerwelle though... or does anyone know if his approvals went up after he had resigned as FDP chairman and the only position he continued to hold on to was foreign minister?

Westerwelle became quite "popular" after he had quit his party chairmanship and his vice-chancellorship. That's because he started to shut up and just do his work and at least tried to improve his English. Some self-appointed expert on "Phoenix" even suggested he should have stayed party leader and vice chancellor because of his recent approval ratings.

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And LOL@Müller... only 52% of the voters know who he even is. But not unsurprising considering that he heads the most arcane of the ministries.

Dead right. That ministry is so superfluous that the FDP had wanted to abolish it - until they came into power in 2009, and flying carpet minister Dirk Niebel needed a job, so...

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Spot the mistake on the following campaign poster by the AfD:



"Our program for Germany: secure medical coverage in rural areas."

Nuremberg doesn't lie in the Alps.

(The subject they are addressing on the election poster is, however, a very serious problem in Germany.)

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Spot the mistake on the following campaign poster by the AfD:



"Our program for Germany: secure medical coverage in rural areas."

Two mistakes. First of all, Nuremberg doesn't lie in the Alps. Secondly, the AfD seems to be looking forward to the election so much that they obviously want them early.

(The subject they are addressing on the election poster is, however, a very serious problem in Germany.)

Early ?

PS: you still didn't spot the main mistake

Ah, sorry! I took a look at my calendar and forgot that we still have August.

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PS: you still didn't spot the main mistake

There's another mistake?

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The Matterhorn is in Switzerland/Italy? I don't know my mountains all that well but the one in the poster resembles it.

Correct !

The Alternative for Germany is picturing the Swiss Matterhorn in their campaign poster.

That's what I meant. Kamala was just a little bit more accurate.
In the end it doesn't even matterhorn...

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[...]
In the end it doesn't even matterhorn...

Touché!

Sorry for the bad pun, but I had to make use of such a fit occasion.

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Meanwhile, Sultan Erdogan has advised his Turkish community in Germany against voting for the CDU, SPD or the Greens as these parties are supposed to be "foes of Turkey".
Instead, they should support parties that don't act hostile towards his sultanate - without telling which ones.

Oh, and Germany is supposed to have infringed European values, of course...

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Meanwhile, Sultan Erdogan has advised his Turkish community in Germany against voting for the CDU, SPD or the Greens as these parties are supposed to be "foes of Turkey".
Instead, they should support parties that don't act hostile towards his sultanate - without telling which ones.

Oh, and Germany is supposed to have infringed European values, of course...

Considering the remaining parties are FDP, Linke and AfD I wonder which of the 3 would Erdogan endorse

Erdogan's AKP has a spin-off in Germany called BIG (Bündnis für Innovation und Gerechtigkeit = alliance for innovation and justice).
I wonder why he didn't agitate against the Left, as they are staunchly pro-Kurd and pro-HDP, plus they strongly supported the Armenia genocide resolution.

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So actually he told them not to vote. That's the only reading that makes at least a little bit of sense.

Or they are to vote for the BIG, the German branch of the AKP.
Funnily and totally unexpectedly, the Turkish Community in Germany (a registered association) has repudiated the sultan's remarks and chided him for his instruction in the matter of democracy and told his members to go to the polls "now more than ever". (Notice, the vast majority of the Turkish Community in Germany are members of the SPD or SPD-leaning).

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The British tabloid press has already picked up on Högl's anti-social behavior:

http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/843345/Barcelona-terror-attack-Germany-MP-joke-no-respect-video

Her "apology" rather reads like a feeble excuse and a sweeping wipe against anyone who has criticized her for her disrespectful behavior. No sign of her seeing sense...

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42 parties will be found on the ballots, but only nine are competing nationwide:

• SPD
• DIE LINKE
• GRÜNE
• FDP
• AfD
• FREIE WÄHLER
• Die PARTEI
• MLPD (Marxist–Leninist Party of Germany)
• BGE (party for unconditional basic income)

Furthermore, eight parties are only competing with direct candidates, i.e. without party lists:

• Bündnis C (Christians for Germany)
• DIE EINHEIT (German spin-off of United Russia)
• DIE VIOLETTEN (German Roseanne Barr Party)
• FAMILIE (conservative family party)
• DIE FRAUEN (German Taylor Swift Party)
• MIETERPARTEI (party for renters)
• Neue Liberale (founded by former, very moderate FDP politicians from Hamburg)
• UNABHÄNGIGE (party for direct democracy and first-past-the-post voting)

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Any independents or minor parties with a chance (even if it's extremely remote) of winning one of the FPTP electorate seats based on local strength or something?

No. In the last Bundestag election, Wolfgang Nešković, a former member of the SPD, the Greens and the Left and a former Federal Court judge, ran as an independent candidate in a Brandenburg district after he'd left The Left (hö hö), while retaining his Bundestag seat, which he'd won via direct mandat. Nešković received 8.1% of the vote, coming fourth, which is an outstanding result for an independent, but prior to the election his chance of winning had been estimated as quite high.

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As no one has mentioned it yet: The Landtag of Lower Saxony has dissolved yesterday.
Only one CDU member, Annette Schwarz, refused to vote for the dissolution because she thought a constructive vote of no confidence - i.e. the parliament remains in force and elects a new minister-president - were the better solution as most voters had already prepared themselves for the original election date on January 14. Early elections are set for October 15.

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Do you guys all speak German?

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Well, guess I gotta vote for the Party of Reason...

Isn't the PDV (party of reason/sanity/rationality) a hardcore-neoliberal party that considers the FDP too communistic?

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Well Tender, you know what you have to do now: https://die-partei.at/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/aufnahmeantrag-21.pdf  
  
Of course for me Die PARTEI is on top as well, at least for the relevant parties.  

Believe it or not, DIE PARTEI does have a realistic chance of being represented in the next Bundestag...

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Believe it or not, DIE PARTEI does have a realistic chance of being represented in the next Bundestag...

 
 
I did call them relevant with my comment. A party with alomost as many members as the AfD that runs in the whole country and is in the EU parliament obviously has some relevance. Though I don't think we will get more then 5%. I already would be very pleased with 2% which would be more then 10 times higher then last election.

Do you know who competes in Ströbele's district, who will have resigned after the election?

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Do you know who competes in Ströbele's district, who will have resigned after the election?

 
 
The Kançler himself, Serdar Somuncu. Problem is the polls see him at 6,5%. Ahead of AfD and FDP, sure, but still far behind Linke and Grüne. http://wahlkreisprognose.de/berlin-bund.html#fhain 
 
If he could land ahead of the CDU, that would be great already.

Do you happen to live in that district?

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Nope, living in Schwerin, Wahlkreis 12. It's a save CDU win here. Probably gonna give that vote to the MLPD candidate, just for the lols.

I wonder how many people living in that district even know that The Kançler is a direct candidate.
Next week, the heute show is returning from the summer break, maybe he Welke will "mention" in his show that his colleague Somuncu is running...

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Germans don't go for joke candidates or parties...ever. You guys ought to know this.

DIE PARTEI has a seat in the European Parliament, where Jörg Sonneborn actually does good work.

And btw, we are talking about district 84, where most citizens don't consider themselves German...

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Germans don't go for joke parties...ever.

False, the FDP is polling above the threshold.

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The favorability of a black-yellow coalition has risen by 7 percentage points since April.
The possibility of black-green has been become less popular by 5 percentage points since then.