Geographic political divides in countries

[Colin]

Lewis would know far better than I but in Germany it seems to be:
(Using Conservative and Liberal in the American sense)

Bavaria: Extremely Conservative, votes only CSU (CDU)

I don't know if Bavaria is extremely conservative, if so its only conservative socially. I've always believed that the CSU dominance was mostly because of regionalism and the general weakness of the SDP than because of any ideological beliefs.

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I think this has to do more with traditional support from Catholics for the CDU. I believe I have heard that alot of the voting trends within Germany are based more off of tradition and how people traditionally vote for parties than on issues. This may hold true in Baden-Wurttemburg. Saarland is strongly SDP, IIRC, and is heavily industrialized. It was also Die Linke's best state outside of the East, if only because of Oskar Lafontaine.

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Well that follows the same pattern as just about every other country. Urban areas and large cities vote for the left. The FDP also has always been a traditionally Protestant party thus that explains that its traditional strongholds are in Northern Germany which is majority Protestant.

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CDU, or in Bavaria CSU, heavily IIRC.

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No, no, not really on the CDU. Outside of Saxony they also have a rather large amount of support, for the East, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where Merkel is from. They are currently the largest party, in the state elections, in Thuringia, Sachsen-Anhalt, Saxony, and they are currently second in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The only major areas where the CDU is weak is in Brandenburg and Berlin. Brandenburg has the largest support for the PDS in the East and in Berlin the CDU has been wracked by scandals.

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Well East Berlin has voting patterns similar to surrounding Brandenburg and West Berlin seems comparable to Western cities, though with a larger base of support for the Greens.

Of course Lewis knows much more about this than I do. I only know what Wikipedia and Deutsche-Welle tells me.

[Colin]

Poland:

Based on the October 2005 election, there is a clear divide between the Pro-European West half,

Wouldn't call it Pro-European but definitely economically right. Most developed area in Poland.

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It's definitely not pro-Russian. I think if any politican in Poland was pro-Russia he would get lynched. It's more Rural, more socially conservative, more populist, less developed. But as for a pro-anti-EU breakdown it doesn't really work since most Poles seem to fall into the Euroskeptic mold.

[qupte]The current horrible Polish government won because of its strength in the East.[/quote]

Yeah the identical twins; both of them complete dolts.

[Colin]

When you say Bavaria's voting pattern is due to regionalism, does that mean it considers itself somewhat seperate from Germany? A relative of mine has been to Munich and that region a few times and he said Bavaria is like a German Texas: everything is big, bombastic and conservative, and the culture is somewhat different.

Yes absolutely. Bavaria is like the South or Texas. While it is conservative it sees voting CSU as a statement of Bavarian pride, IIRC. Bavaria has a different culture, different dialect, and a different history than Northern Germany. It didn't come under Prussian control until 1871, when the German Empire was founded, and almost remained its own independent entity. I think the CSU plays off of that protraying itself as the party of Bavaria and the party of Bavarian "exceptionalism" in a way.