🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[njwes]

After a couple of CDU officials had more or less accused Friedrich Merz.of being a spreader of conspiracy theories (due to Merz' accusation that the CDU convention wasn't postponed because of COVID but to prevent him from becoming party leader) the convention is now set for a new date in mid-January... for now anyway. Media has commented on recent events as the moment when the CDU leadership race turned "ugly".

What's your opinion on the issue?

[njwes]

It fell under the radar, but besides CDU, CSU, SPD, AfD, FDP, Left and Greens we might see another party entering the Bundestag in September. The South Schleswig Voter Federation (SSW), the minority party of Danes and Frisians which runs in Schleswig-Holstein local and state election, decided to participate in the federal elections for the first time since 1961.

They are excepted from the 5 percent threshold and just need to cling over the "natural threshold" required to get Bundestag seats, which equivales about 45,000-50,000 votes. They have a chance to do so, in the last state elections they received 49,000 votes.

SSW is nominally centrist but leans more to the left as the party governed from 2012 until 2017 in a "Danish traffic light" coalition in S-H together with SPD and Greens.

Btw, in theory, two other parties could benefit from this rule: The "Lusatian Alliance" (representing Sorbians) and the "The Frisians" party, representing Frisians specifically. On federal level, they would be excepted from the threshold too, but as neither party had statewide electoral success (LA is excepted from the threshold in Brandenburg only but never ran in state elections, The Frisians never got over 0.x % - Both parties have some local representation though), it seems extremely unlikely they'll run.

Why do you think they chose to go this route now? Would 1 seat in the Bundestag give them that much an opportunity to advocate for Danish and Frisian issues?

[njwes]

Worth mentioning that the Bundesamt für Verfassungschutz has classified the AfD as suspected right-wing extremists, surely?

That'll show them! 

[njwes]

Any chance the SPD is lured into another Grand Coalition? Would the CDU/CSU even go for that if it were their only good option?

[njwes]

I haven't looked at this thread in a whiiiiile--is SSW still on track to maybe get seats?

[njwes]

And did you mean the CDU in the comment about the gas pipeline?*

And for the russophilia, well, there had been strong connections between East Germany and Russia for forty-five years, of course this has an influence on how people here view Russia or think, they understand Russia. In fact, for the middle-aged and older generations, here, the US are much more alien and "un-European" than Russia. So, it doesn't strike me as odd, that parties who would have a huge chunk of their voter base in the East reflect this a bit. What strikes me as odd, is that the west German right-wing-conservatives who for two generations feared "the Russian in front of their door" are reviving the old German conservative russophilia of the Kaiserreich, too.

Isn't an obvious reason, perhaps, that a Marxist-Leninist USSR with huge number of soldiers in East Germany is objectively and qualitatively different than a fairly non-ideological, hybrid-regime-ruled Russia whose closest armed forces are now over in Kaliningrad?

I mean, 30 years is plenty of time to adjust to the changed realities--though, admittedly, many people even now like to act like it's still the Cold War (see: the D.C. foreign policy/military blob, etc). But maybe Germans are just more clear on this point

[njwes]

INSA is doing a ton of polls, there's another one from today showing little move. We need more to see the effects of recent events and the debate. If the numbers roughly remain unchanged over the course of this week, Laschet is in severe trouble. I mean, he already is, but time is running out now.

https://twitter.com/Wahlen_DE/status/1437421172535267340

Note that the survey period could be characterized as the worst time for Scholz so far. That the SPD's numbers remained unchanged is a great relief for the SPD, even if we are talking about just one poll. Time is running out for Laschet. It's only 13 days until the election, and people are already voting.

Is there any chance of FW entering or another party by passing threesold or winning a direct seat?

The South Schleswig Voters' Federation (SSW), minority party of Danes and Frisians, is exempted from the threshold and will likely just need about 50.000 votes to enter Parliament. Not guaranteed, but quite possible.

Beyond that? Meh. The only question will be which parties can cross the 0.5 % mark to receive federal campaign fundings.

Is it that the Danish and Frisian minority communities in Germany are constitutionally allowed to "endorse" a party to represent them,* and then that party is exempt from the threshold? Or rather, is it that the SSW, the party itself, is recognized in the Constitution as being by definition the party for Frisians and Danes--and thus exempted?

Sorry if it seems like splitting hairs! But I'm curious


*Perhaps through their ethnic organizations or whatever

[njwes]

But are the FDP actually socially "conservative" in any way though? I kind of assumed (as an ignorant American observer obvi) that they were sort of ~centrist~, just vaguely staking their social policy more or less on the fluctuating views of the median German voter.

[njwes]

Хahar, palandio, and Astatine: thanks for the answers on the SSW/minority parties!

[njwes]

Would you consider it acceptable if only a "minority" of the AfD thought Nazi Germany was a very nice country?

Well, that's probably right. A majortiy prefers a caricature of the FRG of the early fifties or of the Empire as the place to go...

I know this is OT, but I'm curious what the caricature of the early-50s FRG actually looks like? Is it just a particular respect for the Adenauer CDU of that era?