🇩🇪 German state & local elections

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Stop the steal!

Anyway, I find it interesting that despite both getting the same vote total, the Greens appear to have lost 4 direct mandates and held 20 from 2021, whereas the SPD lost 21 and only held 4.

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First votes:

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Second votes:

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About what you'd expect really: the SPDs vote is very evenly distributed across the city.

Not exactly evenly distributed.

SPD second votes:



The SPD was merely the second choice of the electorate in most districts, no matter how well the party fared in the respective districts.

Second-strongest party per House district:

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Which districts are richer? Which districts are poorer?

I found this data about social welfare recipients (vulgo "Hartz IV"):



Many social welfare recipients:



Few social welfare recipients:

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...

That's so typical of you to only post polls that put a good complexion on your Greens. 🤮
If you quote our John King - which your comrade PUTP forbade me from doing btw - please quote him fully: 😡

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I found maps with different hues displaying the margin of victory.

First votes:



Second votes:

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Am I the only one btw who gets triggered by that green district in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf? It looks like a puzzle piece that is missing in Mitte-2. 😅

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Edit: what parties have got the blame for the Brandenburg Airport shambles over the past decade?

Wowereit, but that's long ago.

Wowereit did many things wrong, but one thing he did right by stepping down in time. Not immediately after the BER disaster, but early enough in order for his successor Müller to establish himself, in doing which he was obviously successful.

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Greens have formulated a clear preference for Red-Green-Red though, so it would largely depend on the SPD saying "no" to that one first. Then the path would be open for either CDU/SPD or CDU/Greens. Some vocies within the SPD seems to prefer going into the the opposition which would favour a Black-Green coalition, while the relative distance between CDU and Greens on transportation and mobility issues would favour a grand coalition.

Rumors have it that Giffey is being talked about as the next Federal Minister of the Interior in order to replace incumbent Nancy Faser, who is reported to leave office soon to zero in on her gubernatorial election in Hesse.

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I’m sure it’s been asked and answered before but what exactly are the AfD heavy areas on the Easter fringe like? Such as their “stronghold” Marzahn. What’s the vibes of these parts.

Educationally alienated blue-collar workers and Plattenbau occupants. Many Kevins and Chantals. Quite many Spätaussiedler. Also a relatively huge Nazi and Underground fighting scene in that area.

To get an impression how Berliners view Marzahners, here's a photo of a prominent "comedian" from that area who became famous for her parodies of the life style of those people:

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

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Some people from the RRG people are coping with the CDU's win by playing cheap identity politics ("only racist boomers supported the CDU because they are paranoid and love their cars!!!!").

*cough* PUTP's close personal friend and clan member Sawsan Chebli *cough*

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Well, there could be a situation, if Giffey really wanted to stay in power, where the best way to do this is to hold coalition talks with the CDU for maybe three or four months before they ultimately fail. Then you could say it's either a comtinuation of Red-Green-Red or another early election.

The best thing she could do to stay in power is to do NOTHING, as repeat election, as against regular and snap elections, don't trigger automatic elections of the head of government.

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SPD federal chairwoman Saskia Esken on nationl TV: "Kai Wegner (CDU) has no option for power".

Why are you quoting a guest from the "Anne Will" talk-show? Your comrade PUTP and even President Johnson (!!!!!), who thinks Will is a right-wing talk-show host, forbade me from doing that.
But nevermind, much more crucial is the question why you quoted Eskja of all guests? Why didn't you quote Spahn, who virtually rejected black-green, or your party chair Nouri Ouripuori (or whatever his name is), who frankly admitted that Berlin's administrative machine doesn't work.

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With the lost ballots having been counted, the SPD could widen its narrow margin.

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According to Tagesschau, some information leaked that SPD will be 53 votes ahead of the Greens in Berlin. Official announcement of the final results is scheduled for Monday.

Honestly, if Giffey attempts to hang on with this, it would be beyond embarrassing.

Is it correct that Giffey is to be transferred to the Federal Ministry of the Interior?
Do you have insider information regarding that rumor?

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I wonder if the following matter has already been broached: If the grand coalition is brought into being, the CDU will gain a majority in the Bundesrat.

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I wonder if the following matter has already been broached: If the grand coalition is brought into being, the CDU will gain a majority in the Bundesrat.

I'm not so sure about that. I thought that when coalitions are formed - especially grand coalitions - the state's delegation to the Bundesrat becomes "neutral"

That may be formally true, but in reality state parties usually toe the federal party line. Keep in mind that a bill subject to approval by the Bundesrat needs a majority of votes to get passed; as a consequence, an abstention of a Bundesland is considered a de-facto nay.

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Yes but when a state government is a coalition (which it almost always is) doesnt that mean that the state delegation to the Bundesrat is mixed - in other words if there was a CDU-SPD coalition in Berlin and Berlin had 5 Bundesrat members - it would send 3 CDU and 2 SPD members or something like that.

What Logial said.
Plus, each Bundesland is allocated between three and six Bundesrat seats; Berlin has four.



There was an incident, I think even a precedent, in 2002, when Brandenburg's Interior Minister Jörg Schönbohm (CDU) voted against the liberal Migration Act, whereas his Governor Manfred Stolpe (SPD) voted in favor of it. Bundesrat President Klaus Wowereit (SPD) interpreted those divergent votings as an aye and assigned all of Brandenburg's four votes to the approval of the bill, which led to the passing of the same. The Federal Constitutional Court later quashed Wowereit's improper mode of procedure and therefore declared the passing of the Migration Act null and void.

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Somewhat off-topic, but I always considered the Bundesrat some sort of constitutional error. It's in dire need of some reform.

Joschka Fischer proposed abolishing the Bundesrat in 2003 at a time when the Merkel CDU obstructed any agenda of the red-green government by misusing the power of that constitutional organ.

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Next state election: Bremen, May 14

The only state with a four-year legislative session.
Without the AfD, however.

The Bundesland Bremen (officially: Freie und Hansestadt Bremen) consists of two cities: Bremen and Bremerhaven.
The parties submit separate slates for either city prior to state elections. In order to enter the Bremische Bürgerschaft, they only need to surpass the 5% threshold in either city. (The delegates elected in Bremen simultaneously act as delegates for the Bremen City Council in personal union.
Owing to internal quarrels, the AfD of Bremen City has illicitly two executive committees, hence two different submitted slates. The electoral authority of the city of Bremen rejected the AfD's slate for the city, whereas the electoral authority of Bremerhaven initially approved the party's slate for their city. The election committee for the whole state now rejected the Bremerhaven slate also. Thus, no AfD available on the ballots and therefore the AfD will not be represented in the Bremische Bürgerschaft whatsoever.

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Why does Bremen have 4 year cycles instead of 5 like every other state. Come to think of it, why does most state governments get 5 year terms when the federal government has 4.

Until the 2000s, all 16 states used to have four-year terms, when Blair-esque and Bush-esque neo-cons from the UK and the US started to heavily influence the German political and economic system. Having five years' legislative periods instead of four was seen as a "necessary" step to reduce public costs and thus relieve pressure on the fisc, plus it was regarded as a a way to undemocratize political and social procedures in order to carry through neo-liberal, emplover-friendly reforms against any left-wing opposition.
Note that government coffers were empty at that period, and that the unemployment rates were extraordinarily high back then. Furthermore, our national press were as neo-liberal and employer-friendly as never before, as they were influenced and undermined by PUTP-esque think-tanks such as the INSM. Magazines such as the SPIEGEL used to be left-wing prior to that ear, until they became neo-liberal during that time, whereas they're now thoroughly woke as fugg.

tl;dr: cost-cutting effects plus reducing democratic participation in favor of neo-liberal reforms.

The last state to lower the length of its legislative sessions from five to four years was Hamburg in 2015.

It's a relic of the past. Most states switched from four year to five year terms during the 1990s. Bremen and Hamburg were the last, though latter for the first time adopted five year terms now (last election was in early 2020, next will be early 2025).

Hamburg already adopted a five-year term in 2015.

Coming back to Bremen: There was a ballot measure on the extension of the length of a legislative term in Bermen in 2017. 48,4% voted in favor of it, 51,6% against it.

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A Syrian refugee has been elected mayor in a Swabian village.
Like many other Syrians, Ryyan Alshebl came to Germany in 2015. Now the 29-year-old with a Green party membership card is the new mayor of the 2,500-strong community of Ostelsheim in Baden-Württemberg.
He fled Syria in 2015 and is now the mayor of Ostelsheim: The Swabian village in the Calw (known for the KSK) district elected Ryyan Alshebl as the new town hall chief on Sunday with an absolute majority of 55.41 percent of the votes, as the municipality announced in the evening.

The 29-year-old ran for election as an independent party. Privately, however, he is a member of the Greens. He describes the experiences during the election campaign as “overwhelmingly positive”.

At the age of 21, Alshebl fled his hometown of Suwayda in southern Syria. He has been working in the administration of the Althengstett town hall for seven years now. As mayor, Alshebl now intends to move to nearby Ostelsheim, he said.

Alshebl is probably the first Syrian mayor in the region. According to the municipal council of Baden-Württemberg, there have not yet been any other applicants with Syrian roots for a mayoral office. In the election on Sunday, the 29-year-old prevailed against the non-party candidates Marco Strauss and Mathias Fey.

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Brandenburg is the third state where the AfD is leading in the polls. The next state election will be held in fall 2024.