2010 State Elections in Germany

[Middle-aged Europe]

Guttenberg is probably thinking "boy, I really should have picked Interior instead of Defence" right now. Bad career move.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Even though Germany is polarized in its voting patterns, I don't get the impression that the same animosity exists towards their opponents as is the case in the United States.

I'm not sure whether it's a cause or a effect of this, but you also have to keep in mind that we have governing coalitions crossing the lines of the traditional political camps. Currently these are the CDU/SPD coalitions in Mecklenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia, as well as the CDU/Green(/FDP) coalitions in Hamburg and Saarland.

[Middle-aged Europe]

That may be part of, mind you there have been several times in US history where the party that controlled congress was different than that of the president and historically there was far more bipartisan cooperation than today.

Of course, the difference is that none of the political leaders in the U.S. ever chose to have a split control of presidency and congress. It was a situation forced upon by circumstances.

In the Saarland, the Green Party made a conscious decision to form a government with the CDU and the FDP instead of joining the SPD and the Left Party.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Westerwelle's recent rants about Hartz IV won't help the FDP either.

[Middle-aged Europe]

For eleven years, CDU/CSU and FDP worked for the common goal of winning a majority again. But this was more of a self-serving goal, because they never had paid much thought on what they're going to do with a governing majority once they've achieved it. After the 2009 victory, it turned out that they don't have that much in common, apparently. They like to govern together in theory, but not in practice.

There was an analysis by a political scientist on SPIEGEL Online yesterday, which blamed it on the FDP being one of the most ideological and least pragmatic political party nowadays (and therefore it clashes with the more pragmatic CDU). While SPD and Greens got rid of their supposed "free market bad, socialism good" doctrine during their time in government (1998-2005/2009), the FDP as a opposition party sticked to the premise that the free market can't ever fail and tax cuts are a priori good and desirable no matter the circumstances... even after the recent financial crisis. Another commentary even went so so far to compare the FDP to the U.S. Republican Party. Basically, they've become the GOP minus the bible-thumping.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Anyway, certain people in the CDU have started to courting the Greens now, for example by  becoming more critical of nuclear power (Norbert Röttgen, I'm looking at you). This is mostly done with eyes on NRW, but maybe there are also some hopes to turn into a back-up option for the federal level.

[Middle-aged Europe]

How do the rank and file in the Green party react to their party propping up the CDU in places like Hamburg and Saar and potentially in NRW??

Old-school Green voters are extremely pissed, of couse. Then again, a lot of them had already stopped voting Green when the party started sending soldiers to Afghanistan. The question "how much voters are we potentially winning/losing with this, and do the gains balance out the losses?" is probably always on the party leadership's mind. The federal party doesn't like to see too many CDU/Green coalitions on the state level for strategic reasons, but certain state chapters are doing it anyway.

The Green party was initially created as a leftwing splinter from the SPD and my impression is that a lot of people who vote Green in Germany are doing so to push the SPD in a certain direction in government and not to help bring in a rightwing government that wants to slash and burn social programs but will wink at the Greens by banning non-energy efficient light bulbs etc...

A lot of people are voting Green because they want to vote Green, not because of the SPD or any other party. Of course, in the current climate a lot of them also vote Green because they think that the SPD sucks and and that the Greens don't consist of a bunch of crybabies and losers who are writhering in self-pity. With up to 17% in the polls, Green is certainly more sexy.

It's doubtful that a CDU/Green coalition in NRW would "slash and burn" that many social programs. Even under the current CDU/FDP coalition, minister-president Jürgen Rüttgers likes to cultivate his image as a left-wing populist and man of the common people. That's certainly a necessity when you are governing a state which has been a SPD stronghold for four decades.

BTW: what happens to the Bundesrat votes from a state if the Greens are part of the ruling coalition? Do those votes then get neutralized and it in effect takes away the CDU/FDP 2/3 majority there that they need to pass a lot things?

As always, the state is forced to abstain in the Bundesrat.

[Middle-aged Europe]

He followed Günther Oettinger, who became EU commissioner for something.

Energy... but he should have gotten the portfolia for "Multilingualism" as well.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Fair enough, but unless a person is delusional, they have to know that they are not going to get a Green party majority government and that realistically they are voting to influence the makeup of the next coalition government.

Many of the current hardcore Green voters probably see the Greens as the best option and the SPD as the second-best (or least worst) option. Which means they prefer SPD/Greens over CDU/Greens, but CDU/Greens over CDU/SPD.

Of course there are also voters who would very much like to see SPD/Greens/Left instead and are pissed when it doesn’t come to be. But both the SPD (Thuringia) and the Greens (Saarland) have consciously decided against this option and went for a coalition with the CDU recently.

If I was German, I would be very tempted to vote Green on the assumption that the bigger the Green slice in the Bundestag, the better the chances that they can form a coalition with the SPD and provide the "best of both worlds" and give us social justice and sensitivity to environmental issues and social liberalism. But I would drop the Green party like a hot potato if i thought they were going to be a fig leaf for a rightwing CDU administration that was going to implement some neocon agenda.

Some voters are working on that premise, others don’t. Since clear majorities for CDU/FDP or SPD/Greens have become less common after the emergence of the Left Party, an “every party fights for itself and then it decides which coalition is possible or desirable” attitude has sprung up. Of course, there are voters who have problems with this attitude.

Historically speaking, it hasn’t been the case that people vote for the Greens to make the SPD stronger though. A SPD/Green coalition wasn’t really an option on the federal level from 1983 to 1994 (?). For all intents and purposes, the SPD fought for a CDU/SPD coalition in these elections, while the Greens wanted to become a stronger opposition party. I guess the only elections where a vote for the Greens would have most likely led to a SPD/Green government were 1998, 2002, and 2005 (and in two out of three cases it did).

This is the trap the Green party in Ireland fell into when they formed a coalition with the corrupt rightwing Fianna Fail party. Now the polls all show that they will be annhilated in the next election.

Hasn’t occured so far here. In the 2008 Hamburg election, the Greens won 9.6% of the vote. The most recent poll from Hamburg (12/09) showed them at 11%. In Saarland, they won 5.9% in the election and the first post-election poll (also 12/09) showed them at 7%.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Well, in Hamburg the Greens are now polling at 16% (2008 result: 9.6%). And the CDU is down to 31% (2008: 42.6%). Although the federal trend also plays a huge role here as well. Don't know whether the current debate/crisis over school reform in Hamburg is relevant.

We'll see how all this turns out. Currently the Greens are grotesquely high in the polls by appearing the most electable of opposition parties to disgruntled centrist CDU/FDP voters (who really, really ought to have known what they were getting with the FDP, btw.

It has also been theorized that the Greens' current strength partly stems from disgruntled SPD voters who are not staying home anymore but would vote Green instead (the ones who haven't turned into Left Party voters so far of course).

[Middle-aged Europe]

I think the latest Politbarometer poll from friday had some interesting numbers.

Preference for minister-president
Hannelore Kraft (SPD) 43% (+12% from March)
Jürgen Rüttgers (CDU) 41%

Support for coalitions (yes answers)
SPD/Greens 45%
CDU/SPD 38%
CDU/FDP 29%
CDU/Greens 24%
SPD/Greens/Left 15%

Most important issue
Unemployment 43% (-7%)
Education 39% (+17%)

Most competent party - education
SPD 35%
CDU 26%

Most competent party - unemployment
CDU 30%
SPD 30%


So, provided there's the right turnout for this on election day, will the SPD actually fare better (or the CDU fare worse) than it is anticipated now?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Forsa/Stern

SPD: 37% (nc)
CDU: 37% (-8%)
GRE: 10% (+4%)
FDP: 6% (nc)
LEFT: 5% (+2%)
OTH: 5% (+2%)

If Left gets past 5%: No majority for SPD/Greens or CDU/FDP (although SPD/Greens miss it by only 1% or so).

If Left stays below 5%: Majority for SPD/Greens.

Emnid/FDP (meh)

CDU: 37%
SPD: 33%
GRE: 12%
FDP: 8%
LEFT: 5%
OTH: 5%

If Left gets past 5%: No majority for SPD/Greens or CDU/FDP.

If Left stays below 5%: Exact tie between SPD/Greens and CDU/FDP.

GMS/Sat 1

CDU: 37%
SPD: 33%
GRE: 12%
FDP: 7%
LEFT: 6%
OTH: 5%

If Left gets past 5%: No majority for SPD/Greens or CDU/FDP.

If Left stays below 5%: Extremely thin majority for SPD/Greens.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I'm not a big fan of schwarz-grün, but I find it better like a grand coalition. But with the Nuclear politics of the CDU I don't see that it works very good. I don't think this coalition holds 5 years.

I'd imagine that the CDU would give the Greens anything they want when it comes to nuclear energy. As long as it means they can stay in power, CDU politicians are willing concede a lot here. That's what they did in Saarland anyway. They know that's the price they gotta pay.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And you see that's the only thing I'm afraid of....that the CDU are willing to agree to the wrong compromises.

Like it or not, but that's how it's gonna be: Either a CDU/Green coalition has a clear stance against nuclear energy or there won't be a CDU/Green coalition at all. The Northrhine-Westphalian CDU has these two choices.

The bottomline is that the Greens could perhaps sell a coalition with the CDU to its members/voters. But if it's a coalition which isn't against nuclear energy, they're gonna have a riot on their hands. Knowing that, the Green leadership would probably prefer joining the opposition rather than entering a coalition with the CDU under these circumstances. And the CDU leadership is fully aware of that fact.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Well if the result is as we expect at this point.....what could be the alternative if the CDU do not agree to those Green demands?

Grand coalition? I suppose a possibility....but for some reason I tend to consider it terribly unlikely in NRW.

Well, SPIEGEL Online went out on a limb yesterday and declared the Grand coalition the most likely coalition for NRW... even beating the CDU/Green option.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,693339,00.html

Their ranking was something like this:
1) CDU/SPD
2) CDU/Greens
3) CDU/FDP or SPD/Greens
4) SPD/Greens/FDP or SPD/Greens/Left
5) CDU/Greens/FDP


Personally, I would say it's more like this:
1) CDU/Greens or CDU/SPD (this also includes SPD/CDU if the SPD manages to pull an upset)
2) SPD/Greens
3) who gives a sh**t about the rest?

[Middle-aged Europe]

WDR`s coalition of SPD and CDU:

Factually incorrect, since it isn't a given that Rüttgers would be part of a Grand coalition.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Alright, this one looks like an alien:



That's Rüttgers + the leader of the Left

[Middle-aged Europe]

Great, in the latest ARD update, the Greens have lost one of their seats to the SPD. Now that doesn't change much... well, except that CDU/Greens doesn't have a majority now either.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Great, in the latest ARD update, the Greens have lost one of their seats to the SPD. Now that doesn't change much...

It makes the medial blackgreen boosters shut up.

Beat me to it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hopefully if the SPD get even 1 vote more than the CDU in the overall popular vote...Kraft can demand to be premier in a grand coalition.

I bet if CDU and SPD end up with an equal number of seats, talk about the "Israeli solution" (a CDU premier for 2.5 years and a SPD premier for 2.5 years) will start soon. Whoever of the two had more votes in the end will be very reluctant to go through with this though.

[Middle-aged Europe]

ARD and ZDF seat projections are now concurrent, so I guess there won't be any changes again.

SPD 67
CDU 67
Greens 23
FDP 13
Left 11

Well, that's it. No SPD/Green or CDU/Green majority. I think CDU/Green/FDP and SPD/Green/FDP were both ruled out by the Greens and the FDP respectivley. This leaves SPD/Green/Left or Grand coalition.

I'm really interested how a Grand coalition would agree on a PM.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Monday: SPD and Greens are prepping themselves for a coalition with the Left.

Tuesday: The FDP has signaled its willingness to talk about about a coalition with the SPD and the Greens, provided that these two parties rule out SPD+Green+Left once and for all now. It's unclear whether the FDP is honest about its willingness to form a coalition with SPD and Greens. It's also unclear whether the FDP will be successful in coercing SPD and Greens to call off SPD/Green/Left.

Grand coalition is pushed back for now. As long as the SPD refuses to talk with the CDU, the CDU can't do anything about it.

So, it's either SPD/Greens/Left or SPD/Greens/FDP for the moment.

[Middle-aged Europe]

NRW update:

SPD/Greens/FDP and SPD/Greens/Left have both failed. Seems like Grand coalition now.

[Middle-aged Europe]

After the sudden resignation of Horst Köhler, the Federal Assembly has to elect a new president within 30 days, starting today.

CDU and FDP still hold a majority in the Assembly so the next president will be probably from the CDU again.

In the meantime, the current president of the Bundesrat (and mayor of Bremen) Jens Böhrnsen (SPD) will serve as acting head of state.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I've got to admit that the Northrhine-Westphalian SPD's course of action makes no sense whatsoever.

They have now offically ruled out any option they had:
- a coalition with Greens and Left
- a coalition with Greens and FDP
- a coalition with CDU
- a minority government with Greens
- early elections

This means that the current CDU/FDP government stays in office indefinitely, without having a majority in parliament. Please tell me that there's a strategy behind this...