German Election Results Thread

[Middle-aged Europe]

Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg-Prenzlauer Berg Ost is certainly an interesting district.

It's the district where Greens (27.4%) and Pirate Party (6.0%) were the strongest and CDU (11.9%) and FDP (6.1%) were the weakest in all of Germany.

[Middle-aged Europe]

When's the last time a third party (not counting the CSU) won as many constituency seats as The Left did yesterday?

In 1953, the FDP won 14 direct seats, the German Party won 11 direct seats, and the Centre Party won a single seat.

1949: FDP 12, Bavaria Party 11, German Party 5.

That's closest thing to the Left's direct seats in 2009.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The leader of the FDP is gay? How progressive.

It's a non-issue though.

Are there/have there been any other major German political figures who have been openly gay?

Klaus Wowereit (SPD), Mayor of Berlin

Ole von Beust (CDU), Mayor of Hamburg

Volker Beck (Greens), Green party whip in the Bundestag

Klaus Lederer (The Left), The Left's state chairman in Berlin

Anja Hajduk (Greens), Minister of City Development and Environment of Hamburg

Karin Wolff (CDU), Minister of Education of Hesse


Those are the most important ones, I guess. I would only call the first three "major" though.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Vera Lengsfeld got 11.6%. The worst result in Germany for the CDU.

Did she ever have a chance in her constituency, or did making a clean breast of things with her campaign poster hurt her chances?

Her constituency was the only one won by a Green in the first vote (direct member election). From what I can tell it may be one of the, if not the, most liberal district in all of Germany. So she never really had a chance.

It's probably one of the most left-wing districts in all of Europe.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I noticed that among the smaller parties (those below 5%) most of their voters didn't give them many first (constituency votes) but only the more important  (assuming they won more than 5% of course) second vote.  However, the NDP actually won more first than second votes.  If many NDP voters had done like most small party voters and given a bigger party their first vote, and assuming the majority of them voted for the CSU CDU perhaps the CDU could have won even more overhang mandates.

I guess it's unlikely that many members of the NPD's hardcore voter base would vote for a CDU candidate. To them, the CDU consists of Jew-loving, pro-American traitors. And there's only one punishment for treason: death. But you don't vote for them. You don't vote for someone and then execute him. Wouldn't make sense.

As far as the more casual NPD voter is concerned... they could perhaps vote for a CDU candidate. Or maybe a LINKE candidate, considering that those are most likely anti-establishment, anti-mainstream protest voters.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Al

Wow, Saxony stands out, it's almost as blue as Bavaria. Why is it so much more conservative than the other ex-DDR states?

Saxony is not more conservative, it's more pro-CDU.

Saxony was dominated by popular minister-president Kurt Biedenkopf from 1990 to 2002. During this time, the CDU won three consecutive absolute majorities and was able to govern without any coalition partner. During this period of extreme CDU dominance (for a large part a result of Biedenkopf's popularity), the SPD was never able to gain any foothold in Saxony. And now it's too late for it. The fact that current minister-president Stanislaw Tillich is also quite popular, doesn't help eieither.

[Middle-aged Europe]

You can't really count the NPD as "right wing" in the way we'd count the CDU as right wing. The CDU is a democratic party and the NPD is a totalitarian party. At least 90+% of all CDU voters would rather vote for the SPD than for the NPD. Hell, a clear majority of CDU voters would probably prefer the Left Party over the NPD (if forced to choose).

That's like combining the vote totals of FDR and Stalin ("left wing") on one hand and the vote totals of Winston Chuchill and Adolf Hitler ("right wing") on the other hand in an effort to compare both sums with each other.