🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

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They have the actual map here: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2021-09/wahlergebnisse-bundestagswahl-2021-wahlkreise-karte-deutschland-live

Anyway, impressive how well CDU held up in North-Rhine-Westphalia, given that it was completely shut out of almost all of Northern Germany otherwise. This is a really strange-looking map by historical comparisons.

That's the second-vote map, though.

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Strongholds and weakholds of the parties:

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It is soooooooo painful hearing Germans attempt to pronounce Jamaica and horrendously fail at it.

I really wish that coalition could get some different nickname just for purely auditory reasons.

There is already another term for Jamaica: Schwampel. But it never prevailed.

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BBC: German election: Seven things we learned

The 8th point was in fact relevant for the election.
Because some polling station ran out of ballots, additional ballots had to be delivered subsequently, which however was fraught with difficulties, as the streets were congested owing to the Berlin Marathon.

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BBC: German election: Seven things we learned

The 8th point was in fact relevant for the election.
Because some polling station ran out of ballots, additional ballots had to be delivered subsequently, which however was fraught with difficulties, as the streets were congested owing to the Berlin Marathon.

Hahahahaha wow

This is NYCBOE-level incompetence. Playing against the German stereotype here.

Berlin is not Germany. Berlin is an utterly failed city that has been experiencing serious problems in fulfilling its administrative duties for decades. If you want to apply for a new ID card, you need to wait up to twelve months. That's why you were allowed to produce an invalid ID card at the polling station yesterday. Only in Berlin, of course.
Ever since the BER Airport disaster Berlin has utterly lost its reputation as an organizer city.
Elon Musk already regrets having his Tesla Gigafactory built in the suburbs of Berlin.

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Not sure if mentioned yet, but two transgender politicians were elected to the Bundestag for the first time ever: Nyke Slawik from NRW and Tessa Ganserer from Bavaria, both are members of the Greens.

While we're mentioning LGBT MPs, here are the homosexual members:

SPD: Lars Castellucci (BW), Falko Droßmann (HH) 😂, Timon Gremmels (HE), Carlos Kasper (SN), Kevin Kühnert (BE) 🤮, Matthias Miersch (NS), Michael Roth (HE)
CDU: Atlas favorite Jens Spahn (NRW)
Grüne: Bruno Hönel 🙄 (SH), Max Lucks (NRW), Sven Lehmann (NRW) 😒, Ulle Schauws (NRW), Marlene Schönberger (BY)
FDP: Jens Brandenburg, Konstantin Kuhle (NS), Thomas Sattelberger (BY)
AfD: Alice Weidel (BW), whose wife canvassed for the SSM referendum in Switzerland. (The couple lives there.)

Two homosexual MPs lost their mandate:
Christian Democrat Stefan Kaufmann, who lost his direct mandate from Stuttgart I against Cem Özdemir, and Linke politician Doris Achelwilm, who wasn't able to retain her list seat owing to the abysmal performance of her party.

Moreover, the Linke nominated an intersexual candidate, Heinrich Alexandra Hermann, for the constituency Schwarzwald-Baar, but he/she delivered the worst result out of all eight candidates.

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The Tierschutzpartei got over 2% in Berlin (with its strongest results in East Berlin), Saarland (no Greens), Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It got 1,9% in Saxony and together with the Tierschutzallianz 2,3% in Saxony-Anhalt. In the old Länder it was consistently stuck around 1-1,5%.

Seems a trivial point - but - I've noticed in the past that the French Parti Animaliste gets its best scores in the north and east of the country where RN is also as it's strongest. and I'm pretty sure the same pattern applies with the PvdD in Holland.

In which case it seems actually worth remarking on the way this phenomena keeps on popping up - has anyone actually ever looked into it in detail?

Animal welfare and environmental protection go hand in hand with conservative values.
Most foresters are archconservative.
Adolf Hitler, Attila Hildmann and Brigitte Bardot are staunch vegans.
The Tierschutzallianz, btw, is an openly right-wing party.

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Overall, I'm very happy about the election result. I think Lindner's plan is to persuade Baerbock to enter government with his buddy Laschet, but if she's smart, she won't give in to that. I think it's now Scholz's turn to try and form a government.

Btw, as it was reported today by both FAZ and RND there was a super-secret agreement between Baerbock and Habeck in place that if the Greens fall below 17% in the election Habeck gets to be Vice-chancellor in a future government. Apparently, he's in charge now.... perhaps evidenced by the fact that he gave all the important press conferences and TV interviews today.

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/bundestagswahl/bundestagswahl-gruene-wollen-robert-habeck-als-vizekanzler-haben-17557665.html

Wouldn't it be a smarter move by Habeck to become governor of Schleswig-Holstein? The Greens are constantly leading in the polls, and Habeck just won his constituency very surprisingly.

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The Tierschutzpartei got over 2% in Berlin (with its strongest results in East Berlin), Saarland (no Greens), Brandenburg and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. It got 1,9% in Saxony and together with the Tierschutzallianz 2,3% in Saxony-Anhalt. In the old Länder it was consistently stuck around 1-1,5%.

Seems a trivial point - but - I've noticed in the past that the French Parti Animaliste gets its best scores in the north and east of the country where RN is also as it's strongest. and I'm pretty sure the same pattern applies with the PvdD in Holland.

In which case it seems actually worth remarking on the way this phenomena keeps on popping up - has anyone actually ever looked into it in detail?

Animal welfare and environmental protection go hand in hand with conservative values.
Most foresters are archconservative.
Adolf Hitler, Attila Hildmann and Brigitte Bardot are staunch vegans.
The Tierschutzallianz, btw, is an openly right-wing party.

Then I mixed them up with Tierschutz hier! or however the People's Front of Judea is calling itself now.

Maybe I'm mixing them up. I just remembered that there are the animal welfare parties. Two of them are slightly conservative, the third one is very right-wing. When you mentioned Saxony-Anhalt I assumed that the Tierschutzallianz was the right-wing party.

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Question for European/German posters: What's your take we'll see a new govt? End of the year? Later? Or even sooner? Seems like this isn't just a question of negotiating a coalition treaty, various party "institutions" or even all members need to finally approve any agreement?

The time lag between the federal election and the chancellor's swearing-in the averages 49 days. Four years ago it even took 171 days thanks to the FDP.

And another question: Did any potential govt get a majority in East Germany? Seems like the strong showing of Afd there is reason for concern and any govt just elected by the more populous West may not win back voters that previously voted for non-extreme parties. That said, I'm not even sure that would work either, since Merkel is from the East and seems to be very unpopular there since 2015 happened.

The Thuringia state snap election was originally scheduled to take place on Sunday, but it was eventually cancelled last minute. I wonder if the AfD would has emerged as the strongest party in any state for the first time. The AfD has, until now, always finished runner-up in East German state elections, with the effect of strengthening the strongest party. So did they in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on Sunday.

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The term "Jamaica"-coalition only really became established in the 2010s. Prior to that, it was called Schwampel (Schwarze Ampel).

That's plainly and simply wrong. A black-green-yellow coalition was already referred to as "Jamaica" back in 2005. The term is reported to be coined by famous political scientist and talk-show crasher Karl-Rudolf Korte.

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/koalitionsvarianten-von-jamaika-bis-neuwahl-a-375434.html

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It's a bit OT, but it isn't a coincidence that Lindner looks a bit like Kubicki in that picture.
That's because Kubicki used to look like Lindner when was his age.

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Who is classed as a ‘worker’?

It's basically to be used synonymous with building laborers, craftsmen and low-income jobs you don't need an apprenticeship for (e.g. road sweeper), who get a wage instead of a salary; i.e. blue-collar workers as opposed to "Angestellte" (white-collar workers).

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Year	Chancellor candidate	CSU top candidate	Union (PV)	Union (%)	CSU (PV)	CSU (% fed.)	CSU (% Bav.)	CSU share
1949	Konrad Adenauer	Hanns Seidel	7,359,084	31.0%	1,380,448	5.8%	29.2%	18.8%
1953	Konrad Adenauer	Fritz Schäffer	12,443,981	45.2%	2,427,387	8.9%	47.8%	19.5%
19571)	Konrad Adenauer	Fritz Schäffer	15,008,399	50.2%	3,133,060	10.5%	57.2%	20.9%
1961	Konrad Adenauer	Franz J. Strauß	14,298,372	45.3%	3,014,471	9.6%	54.9%	21.1%
1965	Ludwig Erhard	Franz J. Strauß	15,524,068	47.6%	3,136,506	9.6%	55.6%	20.2%
1969	Kurt G. Kiesinger	Franz J. Strauß	15,195,187	46.1%	3,115,652	9.5%	54.4%	20.5%
19722)	Rainer Barzel	Franz J. Strauß	16,806,020	44.9%	3,615,183	9.7%	55.1%	21.5%
1976	Helmut Kohl	Franz J. Strauß	18,394,801	48.6%	4,027,499	10.6%	60.0%	21.9%
1980	Franz J. Strauß	Franz J. Strauß	16,897,659	44.5%	3,908,459	10.3%	57.6%	23.1%
1983	Helmut Kohl	Franz J. Strauß	18,998,545	48.8%	4,140,865	10.6%	59.5%	21.8%
1987	Helmut Kohl	Franz J. Strauß	16,761,572	44.3%	3,715,827	9.8%	55.1%	22.2%
19903)	Helmut Kohl	Theo Waigel	20,358,096	43.8%	3,302,980	7.1%	51.9%	16.2%
1994	Helmut Kohl	Theo Waigel	19,517,156	41.4%	3,427,196	7.3%	51.2%	17.6%
1998	Helmut Kohl	Theo Waigel	17,329,388	35.1%	3,324,480	6.7%	47.7%	19.2%
2002	Edmund Stoiber	Edmund Stoiber	18,482,641	38.5%	4,315,080	9.0%	58.6%	23.3%
2005	Angela Merkel	Edmund Stoiber	16,631,049	35.2%	3,494,309	7.4%	49.2%	21.0%
2009	Angela Merkel	Peter Ramsauer	14,658,515	33.8%	2,830,238	6.5%	42.5%	19.3%
2013	Angela Merkel	Gerda Hasselfeldt	18,165,446	41.5%	3,243,569	7.4%	49.3%	17.9%
2017	Angela Merkel	Joachim Herrmann	15,315,576	32.9%	2,869,744	6.2%	38.8%	18.7%
2021	Armin Laschet	Alexander Dobrindt	11,173,806	24.1%	2,402,826	5.2%	31.7%	21.5%

1) First election after Saarland's reunification with West Germany. Only time the CSU competed outside of Bavaria; the federal CSU result includes the Saarland votes.
2) The voting age had been lowered from 21 to 18, hence the marked increase in votes.
3) First election after Reunification, hence the large increase in votes.

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I'd like to remind everyone that I conducted a poll - four years ago !!! - about Merkel possibly breaking Kohl's record as longest-serving chancellor of (post-WWII) Germany.

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Well if you squint you can still perceive a certain variation between Franconia and the rest of Bavaria, but fundamentally yes, both are an almost endless landscape of safe CSU districts and have been for quite a while [outside of the two big cities of Nuremberg and Munich of course].
Upper Franconia in particular, but also Middle Franconia around Nuremberg in good years, used to be fertile enough ground for the SPD to win direct mandates, but those times are long gone; Coburg and Hof still went red in 1998 but that's about it. Perhaps it lingered on more at the local level - the city of Bayreuth had only SPD mayors continuously from 1948 to 2006 for example.

Nowitzki City in Lower Franconia voted Green in the last Bavarian state election.

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Anti-Semitism prevailing and pervasive in the SED stronghold of Leipzig:

https://twitter.com/ZentralratJuden/status/1445341988145008642

There are far more Muslim and Antifa Anti-Semites in Germany than there are Nazi Anti-Semites.

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Election results by municipality map:

https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2021-09/ergebnisse-bundestagswahl-gemeinde-karte

I wonder how Habeck won the 1st congressional district with his Greens hardly winning any municipalities. He must be very popular there.
(I mean I was the only one to kinda predicted his win, but I am still surprised myself.)

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Since this post had been reported for being "too big", I'll do you a favor and hope that I've now made it compatible with this site's ToS... 🙄

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That's the Ruhr (in German: Ruhrgebiet).

Some people also call it Ruhrpott.

It does depend a bit on what you mean by rural, but all gemeinden in NRW include at least one (and often more) substantial market town. The main feature of the places with the largest CDU leads on the map is that they are also very, very Catholic: the hinterland of Paderborn for instance. These were actually the places where modern Political Catholicism in Germany was born, back in the 19th century.

It's one of the most conservative regions within Germany. Not "Trump-conservative", but rather "Cruz-conservative".
Oh, btw, I worte a post about that area similar to yours, but PUTP said I had absolutely no clue about German demography and called me a Nazi thereupon.

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Its interesting that both the Greens and the FDP do so much better among 18-29 year olds. I have a pretty clear stereotype in my mind of a German 20-something who votes Green (don't Germans call them "muesli-fressers"?:-))

But who are the 20-somethings who vote FDP? I'm pictured uptight young (mostly men and some women) who studied economy and commerce and who waddle around with briefcases and dream of jobs as real estate agents or working in a bank tower in Frankfurt.

Am I right?

Somewhat, but I also think even a lot of lower income ones voted for them.  They opposed lockdowns although not other public health restrictions and generally speaking lockdowns were much harder on people in their 20s who tend to be out a lot more than older people.  While not all of them, I suspect some voted FDP over that and may not necessarily agree with them on other economic issues.  Because Germany tends to result in coalitions that are usually close to centre, younger voters who do have same loyalty to a party as older ones will easily crossover for a variety of reasons.  Its not like US where most always vote for a party on one side of the spectrum  There isn't the same hatred towards left or right that you see in English speaking world from other side.  Personality and stance on issues and general competence rather than where one falls on political spectrum play in bigger role in how Germans vote.  Because all parties close enough to centre, ideology matters less than in places that are more polarized. 

That's true. The FDP interestingly increased their vote share among "workers" (blue collar mostly) and unemployed, while suffering a big dip among pensioners, making it their worst group when considering occupation. The perception and stance on age-related issues like Covid-19 especially seemed to have played a bigger role than the priorities during the campaign might suggest.

At this juncture, I'd like to mention JuLi chair Jens Teutrine, the official youth organization of the FDP, whose life career isn't typical of a leading FDP politician whatsoever.

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As this hasn't been done before (at least I hope so), I've compiled a map displaying the split-ticket voting regarding the first and second vote.
I neither discovered any SPD/CDU nor any Grüne/CDU constituency, thus I hope there are really only 15 different permutations.

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It's very likely the SPD will occupy all of the three of the highest offices in Germany (federal president, president of the Bundestag and chancellor). I guess the party will soon announce a candidate for Bundestag president.

As of November 1, 2022, the SPD is likely to even occupy the four highest offices, once Hamburg's First Mayor Peter Tschentscher is going to assume the office of Bundesrat President.

Caucus leader Rolf Mützenich's name was floated, however, my prediction is a woman since Steinmeier and Scholz are male.

My first thought was Ullala, but she's already left the Bundestag voluntarily.
But I'm dreading anyway that it will be wannabe-Otto Wels and full-time boozer Martin Schulz who is gonna be offered that post.

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Aside from that he even won't be a member of the incoming new Bundestag and is therefore ineligible to become the president.

Really? Then I'm relieved. On the other side, with that woman with the unspeakable name, who thinks that German culture doesn't exist, we would come out of the frying pan and into the fire.

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Apparently, the program of the future coalition want to abolish coal energy. I'm surprised FDP accept this insanity.

Abolishing coal AND nuclear in an heavy industrial country is...interesting.


Good news for French and Italian industries.


And good news for russian diplomacy.

The litmus test won't be about coal; the crucial question will be if the FDP is going to cave in to pressure from SPD and Greens regarding the speed limit question...