German Elections & Politics

[Sozialliberal]

Well, Mecklenburg-West Pomerania has always been the worst state for the Greens (rural + high unemployment). They probably wouldn't have entered the state parliament in 2011 if it hadn't been for the nuclear disaster in Fukushima. Just take a look at the other state election results from that time: The Greens were ridiculously strong.

Anybody have the results for Rostock?

Results for the whole city of Rostock, largest city in the state and the only one with a population of more than 100,000 (about 206,000 currently):
32.6% SPD
16.8% AfD
16.6% The Left
15.4% CDU
8.0% Greens
3.1% FDP
1.6% NPD
1.6% Die PARTEI
1.2% Animal Welfare Party
3.0% other parties

source: http://service.mvnet.de/wahlen/2016_land/showHtmlContent.php?folder=2016_land&datei=L_Abs_Zweit.htm
I added up the respective constituency votes.

[Sozialliberal]

If neither red-red-green nor black-green had a majority, a thinkable alternative to the grand coalition would be a so-called Jamaica coalition (CDU/CSU, Greens and FDP). That coalition has only been tried out once at state level: from 2009 to 2012 in Saarland. It didn't last a whole legislative period because of disputes within the FDP state party. Needless to say that such a coalition would be the worst nightmare of the more left-wing Greenies.

[Sozialliberal]

 In the last Bundestag election had the FDP crossed the 5% threshold wouldn't that have led to a CDU-CSU/FDP coalition?

Yes, that would have led to a black-yellow coalition. However, it is no secret that Merkel is very fond of black-green. She said that the CDU had been ready to form a black-green coalition already after the 2013 election. The black-green coalition talks after the election were unsuccessful mostly because of the Greens. They had quite a left-wing tax plan back then. Having a left-wing tax plan while ruling out a coalition with The Left makes sense, doesn't it? The Greens eventually decided against a black-green coalition because they would have had to break too many of their election promises. The CSU is generally more sceptical of the Greens than the CDU. Especially now during the refugee crisis, the CSU fears that a black-green coalition would scare too many of its voters away.

While a black-yellow coalition is still a possibility, it's farther away from a majority than red-red-green or black-green according to the polls. So I didn't mention it.

[Sozialliberal]

The CSU is generally more sceptical of the Greens than the CDU. Especially now during the refugee crisis, the CSU fears that a black-green coalition would scare too many of its voters away.

Is there any chance of an actual schism between the CDU and CSU whereby the CSU decides to opt out of government altogether and act like a rightwing opposition party?

I think that's rather unlikely.

In order to get a better understanding of the matter, let's take a look at history:
When the German nation state was formed, Bavaria was sceptical about joining. You could say that this scepticism towards the rest of Germany, especially towards the "Prussians" in the north, lasts to this day. There's even a small secessionist party in Bavaria that received 2.1% of the vote in the last state election, but secessionism is too radical a position for most Bavarians.

The CSU governed Bavaria without a coalition partner continuously from 1966 to 2008 (that's 42 years!), because it always received the absolute majority of the vote in state elections. The party takes a lot of pride in this fact. They feel like they "own" Bavaria. So it was a huge shock for them when the party lost its absolute majority in 2008, but it could regain it in 2013. If the CSU became a federal party, the CDU would compete in Bavarian elections in return. That would be a disaster for the CSU, because it would lose its absolute majority of the vote again and could even be marginalized.

[Sozialliberal]

infratest dimap prognosis:

Meanwhile, AfD leader Frauke Petry's car was set on fire in Leipzig last night. AfD says that the violence against party members has come to resemble terror. According to the party, some politicians are engaging in a smear campaign and "no longer use democratic arguments" when talking negatively about AfD.

As much as I despise the AfD, that's just sad.

[Sozialliberal]

[Sozialliberal]

More charts!

Gains and losses


Seats


Prognosis for former West Berlin


Prognosis for former East Berlin

[Sozialliberal]

So will there be a revival of SPD-Linke coalition, but this time with Grüne also?

Almost certainly.

[Sozialliberal]

Well, only time will tell if a coalition is stable enough to last a whole legislative period.

[Sozialliberal]

[Sozialliberal]

Seats update

[Sozialliberal]

how?

imho they contradict the social contract of post-war germany; promote, especially inside of the "new states", kind of "blood and soil" nationalism, leading politicians even attack famous german soccer celebrities cause of their skin colour.

those are - imho - anti-german, neo-russian values, trying to redeem pre-hitler concepts of VOLK (in an ethnical way) and nation.

They are certainly traditional German values. The Germans are historically an ethnically defined nation. Often used as the archetype for this in contradiction to the French civic nationalism.

Right, but that doesn't mean that racism is a "traditional value" of Germany. This is absurd. Ethnic minorities have been living in Germany for centuries.

What I actually wanted to post about: I discovered a speech by Alexander Hold, my favourite candidate by far in the upcoming presidential election, and I must say that it's truly brilliant and it reinforced my belief that he would make an excellent president. Certainly much better than Gauck, Wulff or Köhler. Too bad that I can't vote for him because the president isn't elected by popular vote (yet).

So I wanted to share my translation of his speech with you:

Alexander Hold (candidate of the Free Voters) on the presidential election;
"Alright, so Frank-Walter Steinmeier is going to be president without a doubt. No, not alright at all. Not because party-political calculations have often been more important to him than Germany's interests in foreign policy until now. Or because he hasn't exactly proven to be a great diplomat lately: He's made disparaging remarks about the Briton Boris Johnson, has called him irresponsible, outrageous, and has bluffed that he should get lost, only to realize that he will have to face him as the future foreign minister a few days later. Now he will have to face Donald Trump soon, who, as is known, can be very touchy when people are insolent to him. What will he [Trump] think about the fact that his German counterpart has called him a hate preacher recently?

But Mr Steinmeier's qualities are not what I'm concerned about. What's much more upsetting is that CDU/CSU haven't found anybody in their ranks who thinks that they can outface the candidate Steinmeier. CDU/CSU have over 150 seats more than the SPD in the Federal Assembly, and yet they let Sigmar Gabriel force his candidate on them. 'Well, if that's what Mrs Merkel wants.', you could say. But what Mrs Merkel wants shouldn't be the issue. It should not be about coalition arithmetic or retention of power. How can we point our fingers at underdeveloped democracies when the election of the head of state in Germany is arranged by three people behind closed doors months before? Democracy thrives on being able to make a choice, on offering a range of different worldviews, different goals and, above all, on different candidates. The fact that nobody in the CDU/CSU wants to get involved in an inconvenient contest with the risk of a defeat doesn't really reflect a steadfast commitment to democracy. After all, a defeat is not failure by a long shot but part of the game. That's true for politics as well as for football. If it were otherwise, no football club would play against the FC Bayern Munich, and no party other than the CSU would take part in Bavarian state elections. But what keeps both sports and democracy going is the courage to face defeat and, what's even more important, the chance of a surprise.

A pre-arranged presidential election won't result in a 'We all love each other.' mood in Germany. The only ones who will move closer together are those who already had the feeling that politics is nothing more than a small elitist circle who arrange everything among themselves and couldn't care less about the people. The people who feel neither understood nor represented are sadly becoming more and more with each day, particularly when a democracy doesn't offer a democratic contest any longer. That is the main reason why we can't be satisfied with the consensus candidate Steinmeier."

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vXRDciwIL2o

[Sozialliberal]

I was reminded of this: why is the electoral threshold in the European elections considered to be unconstitutional but the threshold in the federal election is not?

Because the federal elections are important, and the European elections are unimportant.

Well, actually the reasoning was like this: The Bundestag parties must be able to form a stable government and therefore it is of an advantage to have fewer parties in the parliament. On the other hand, the European Comission isn't formed by the European Parliament as such so it doesn't really matter if there are a trillion parties represented in the parliament.

Well, the German small parties cheered, but it didn't last long. The threshold was re-introduced through the back door. A law that was drafted by the MEPs Jo Leinen (SPD, Germany) and Danuta Hübner (PO, Poland) contained the introduction of an EU-wide minimum threshold of 3% for European Parliament elections. This minimum threshold was passed by the European Parliament in 2015 and would change the distribution of seats only in Germany and Spain.

Here is how the parliamentary groups in the EP voted on the minimum threshold. I broke down the party membership and country of the MEPs who voted differently than their parliamentary groups.

EPP
In favour: 173
Against: 7 (3x M, Sweden; 2x PN, Malta; 1x KD, Sweden; 1x UDC, Spain)
Abstentions: 1 (Kok., Finland)

S&D
In favour: 164
Against: 2 (1x FI, Sweden; 1x Possibile, Italy)
Abstentions: 0

ECR
In favour: 0
Against: 60
Abstentions: 5 (4x N-VA, Belgium; 1x Conservatives, UK)

ALDE
In favour: 39
Against: 14 (3x ANO 2011, Czechia; 2x independent, Ireland/Spain; 2x UPyD, Spain; 1x CDC, Spain; 1x DP, Lithuania; 1x EAJ/PNV, Spain; 1x Freie Wähler, Germany; 1x LZS, Latvia; 1x MoDem, France; 1x PDR, Portugal)
Abstentions: 9 (3x VVD, Netherlands; 2x Kesk., Finland; 1x ANO 2011, Czechia; 1x DP, Luxembourg; 1x MR, Belgium; 1x V, Denmark)

GUE/NGL
In favour: 0
Against: 43
Abstentions: 3 (2x AKEL, Cyprus; 1x independent, France)

Greens/EFA
In favour: 1 (Grüne, Austria)
Against: 40
Abstentions: 0

EFDD
In favour: 0
Against: 36
Abstentions: 0

ENF
In favour: 0
Against: 17
Abstentions: 0

Non-Attached Members:
In favour: 0
Against: 10
Abstentions: 0

Countries whose majority of MEPs voted against the threshold:
UK (43 against, 17 in favour, 1 abstention)
Greece (11 against, 7 in favour, no abstentions)
Sweden (9 against, 7 in favour, no abstentions)
Netherlands (10 against, 9 in favour, 3 abstentions)

Ties:
Ireland (5 against, 5 in favour, no abstentions)
Finland (4 against, 4 in favour, 3 abstentions)

It should be noted that particularly the majority ratios of small countries can change because of absent members of parliament (e.g. in the case of Denmark).

Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-%2f%2fEP%2f%2fNONSGML%2bPV%2b20151111%2bRES-RCV%2bDOC%2bPDF%2bV0%2f%2fEN&language=EN (A8-0286/2015 Am 2/2)

[Sozialliberal]

Most polls are in field for 5 to 7 days...A poll released today would likely have been fielded partially pre and partially post the Schultz announcement. Wait another week and then we will have some real polls.

 
 
So we have some first Post-Schulz nomination polls and it definitely helps the SPD. In the projection of "Forschungsgruppe Wahlen" they climbed 3% in one week and in today's Ipsos poll the left leaning parties have 44%, the highest numbers they ever had in an Ipsos poll. 
 
Today Schulz officially became the candidate of the SPD and I can say that they are more euphoric then I ever saw them. He had a great speech today in the Willy Brandt Haus, the headquarter of the party where he mentioned first points of his campaign. Sounded pretty Sanders-esque to me. Bringing people together, fair taxation for huge corporations, justice and solidarity, fighting climate change, stopping the rise of the far-right in Europe and defend our democracy and our values against all attackers. As someone who likes bashing the SPD I have to say I liked it a lot.

And that's coming from Schulz, the guy who got Juncker off the hook after the Lux Leaks scandal had been revealed. Not convincing.

Schulz is charismatic and good at giving speeches, but so was Gerhard Schröder.

[Sozialliberal]

SPD, FDP, Greens would also be a possibility. The current leadership of FDP isn't as right wing as the previous and the Greens have a moderate ("realo") leadership.

Lindner (FDP chairman and top candidate in the Bundestag election) said that he would go for a traffic-light coaliton at federal level only if the SPD and the Greens followed right-wing economic policies in the tradition of Gerhard Schröder's Agenda 2010.

Regarding today's presidential election, I hope that Hold receives more than the votes of the 11 Free Voters' delegates. Maybe he can attract some delegates who don't feel comfortable voting for Steinmeier (especially in the CDU/CSU/FDP camp). We'll see.

[Sozialliberal]

Full results

1253 votes in total
931 votes for Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD, CDU, CSU, Greens and FDP)
128 votes for Christoph Butterwegge (The Left)
42 votes for Albrecht Glaser (AfD)
25 votes for Alexander Hold (Free Voters)
10 votes for Engelbert Sonneborn (Pirate Party)
103 abstentions
14 invalid votes

[Sozialliberal]

Full results

1253 votes in total
931 votes for Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD, CDU, CSU, Greens and FDP)
128 votes for Christoph Butterwegge (The Left)
42 votes for Albrecht Glaser (AfD)
25 votes for Alexander Hold (Free Voters)
10 votes for Engelbert Sonneborn (Pirate Party)
103 abstentions
14 invalid votes

The AFD was quite happy with the result apparently, because their candidate got more votes than expected as there were only 35 voters belonging to the AFD. 8 votes probably came from CDU/CSU members. There were only 95 voters belonging to Die Linke, so a substantial part of the Greens probably voted for Butterwegge.

Also note that Engelbert Sonneborn received only 10 votes though the Pirate Party had 11 delegates in the Federal Assembly. I guess that Volker Pispers voted for Butterwegge instead. Pispers is a left-wing stand-up comedian, who was nominated as a delegate by the Pirate Party of North Rhine-Westphalia but is much closer to The Left policy-wise. He is not a member of any party.

Of course, I'm glad about Hold's good result! I would be even gladder if I could have voted for him myself, though.

[Sozialliberal]

I suppose the question going forward is if the SPD wants a leftist coalition at the federal level. In which case those 6 Bundesrat votes from NRW should probably be kept in the red-green(-red) camp rather than use it as a starting point for a sozialliberale renaissance. Although I suppose a federal traffic light coalition may sound somewhat enticing as well...

Both the SPD and the FDP were a lot more left-wing in the 1970s than they are now. So the closest approximation to the social-liberal coalition of that era would be a red-red-yellow coalition. We all know that won't happen in the foreseeable future, though. I kind of miss the FDP of the 70s. (Yeah, okay, it was not free from flaws, either, but no party is.)

Have the FDP moved leftwards in exile?

in some ways, yes.

party chair lindner is talking a lot more about the danger of "big corporatism" and is promoting their social/cultural values much more.

There have been some positive changes in policy under Lindner, but the overall picture disappoints me. He criticizes multinational corporations for their tax evasion, and at the same time, the FDP dismisses any criticism of TTIP and CETA (special courts for investors, and other nasties) as scaremongering. He talks about the importance of formal education for social mobility, and at the same, he's in favour of tuition fees for higher education. I could go on and on.

I'd say while the FDP has become more hipster they didn't become more left-wing.

Exactly. They hired an advertising agency to create a "We're the hip, new, modern party in Germany now!" campaign for them. *pukes*

[Sozialliberal]

It's because of Oskar Lafontaine's popularity. Lafontaine was the state premier of Saarland from 1985 to 1998, when he was still an SPD member. He was a driving force in the creation of Die Linke. So it is seen as "Oskar's party" by many people in Saarland.

[Sozialliberal]

Martin Schulz was officially nominated as candidate for chancellor and as the new party leader of the SPD. He won 605 of 605 votes cast, and thus a result of 100%. That has never happened before in the SPD.

They should change the party name to Schulz-Partei Deutschlands!

[Sozialliberal]

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" (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.

[Sozialliberal]

 If the Bundestag election leads to a CDU/CSU FDP near majority of seats, with RRG further behind in seats and a AFD delegation holding the rest of the seats, would a minority CDU/CSU FDP government be a possibility?

Why would they risk a minority government with the FDP when they can get another cozy grand coalition with the SPD as junior partner, who then keeps on losing the next general election again in 2021 ?

I guess SPD could just say no, but not likely to happen. Plus, wouldn't CDU/FDP/Greens be another viable alternative?

A CDU/CSU + Greens + FDP coalition, also called "Jamaica coalition", would be a possibility if neither red-red-green nor black-green nor black-yellow had a majority. The left wing of the Greens, which I'd term the "alternative wing" (as in "alternative lifestyle"), would certainly try very hard to prevent this coalition. The alternative wing prefers red-red-green to black-green. The right wing of the Greens, which I'd call the "bourgeois wing", would be more open to a Jamaica coalition because they generally prefer a coalition with the CDU to a coalition with Die Linke. Both Green top candidates for this year's Bundestag election are representatives of the bourgeois wing, which is a sign that this wing is currently the stronger one within the party. The CSU definitely wouldn't like to form any coalition with the Greens, but they're a spineless lot, so I wouldn't rule it out.

By the way, a Jamaica coalition could be formed after this year's Schleswig-Holstein state election, as both the CDU top candidate and the FDP top candidate suggested. The Greens of Schleswig-Holstein said that they didn't rule this coalition out.

In case anyone is confused about the colours of the major parties:
CDU/CSU = black
SPD = red
AfD = blue
Die Linke = red (also "dark red" when Die Linke is contrasted with the SPD)
Greens = green
FDP = yellow

[Sozialliberal]

there are not stable trends regarding the small parties atm,

you can only make out that the cdu is rising and the spd is falling, even while the cdu is rising much more than the spd is falling.

everything else is unclear and alle 4 small parties are in crisis.

Considering the instability of polling for small parties and that there's usually a 2-3% margin of error, is there a chance of all minor parties falling below the 5% threshold and having a parliament with just CDU/CSU and SPD?

<0.2% chance imho. You cannot just add up a perceived instability and a supposed 2-3% MOE for four parties in the same direction.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

The chance of both FDP and Greens falling below 5% is clearly below 10% imho.

The imminent risk for the small parties to fall below 5% in September is vastly overstated imho. AfD is not in danger because their main issue has not completely faded yet. The Greens are not in danger because they really have a hard voter core that will save them. The Left has some strategical challenges ahead (Eastern base melting, Western voters unreliable), but currently they seem safe. Only the FDP is at risk because more than any other relevant party they rely on loan voters and function as a vote bank for disaffected centrist and right-wing voters.

I agree with what palandio said. We also have to remember that the FDP's failing to re-enter the Bundestag in 2013 didn't happen for no reason.

From 1998 to 2009, the FDP was in opposition. In those 11 years, Westerwelle called for a "lower, simpler and fairer tax system" countless times. Then, in the 2009 election, the FDP received the highest result in the party's 60-year history, and they finally entered government after being in opposition for so many years. However, they didn't deliver when they entered government. They lowered only the VAT for lodging establishments such as hotels. Controversially, they did that after receiving donations to the value of 1.1 million euros within one year, which came from a billionaire who owns 14 hotels in Germany. There are also other reasons, but I don't want to get off-topic.

Unless Die Linke and the Greens mess things up as the FDP did when they were in government, they should not be in danger of dropping out of the Bundestag.

[Sozialliberal]

I sthere posbily of the government SPD-Linke- Grune-SSW? Are SSW ready to go with die Linke?

A new ZDF poll shows the CDU overtaking the SPD in Schleswig-Holstein (votes next Sunday):



Greens remain quite strong up there. Any reason for that ?

As far as I know, this specific coalition hasn't been discussed. Generally speaking, the more parties are involved, the more unstable a coalition is. So a three-party coalition is preferable to a four-party coalition.

The SSW top candidate said that he wants to continue the coalition with the SPD and the Greens, and that the SSW will go into opposition if this coalition doesn't have a majority.

[Sozialliberal]

Could you imegune CDU-FDP-SSW? It seems close to the majority. In the last poll 47 % vs. 47 % SPD-G-AfD....

but ssw is below threshold

I think SSW is exempt from the threshold.

The SSW is exempt from the threshold because it represents the Danish and the Frisian minority in Schleswig-Holstein. Note that the SSW had never been in government before 2012. It was disputed whether the SSW should make policy on issues that don't affect the Danish/Frisian minority in particular.

The SSW was not on good terms with CDU/FDP for some years. The black-yellow coalition, which governed from 2009 to 2012, cut funds for Danish schools in Schleswig-Holstein. The CDU sharply attacked the SSW before and after the 2012 state election. They even distributed leaflets in which they falsely claimed that the SSW demanded "pocket money for offenders on parole". The CDU later tried to reconcile with the SSW, but the SSW is still on friendlier terms with SPD/Greens.