2013 Elections in Germany

[Middle-aged Europe]

Both were below average. So who cares? The only good debates were the ones with Schröder in it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Well, at least Trittin accused Brüderle of lying.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Well, at least it was a debate where the candidates still seemed to have a pulse, while Merkel and Steinbrück were more like in a coma. It is for this very reason why I'd prefer a five-party debate. Both major candidates would probably be afraid of disappearing in the crowd though. It still would be interestig to see how Merkel would handle Trittin and Gysi and how Steinbrück would handle Brüderle, and, uh, Gysi.

[Middle-aged Europe]

New Bavaria state elections poll:



Solid 48-38 absolute majority for the CSU.

The same poll showed that 58% of the Bavarian voters (and even 31% of the CSU voters) oppose an absolute majority for the CSU. Which means that Bavaria is either going to vote schizophrenic or some of the CSU voters are going to give a tactical vote to either FDP or Free Voters.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In my opinion, the Greens had to deal with a couple of negative PR events and they were either unable to deal with it in an effective manner and/or they were were underestimating of how much of an negative impact it would have.

None of these events were objectively really bad. But they didn't know how to respond in the right way.

Tax raises: The tax platform of the Greens would actually lead to tax decreases for 90% of the population as have several independent "fact checks" have shown. The problem is how to communicate why some tax raises will lead to 90% of the population paying fewer taxes. You simply can't, because there's almost no way how to frame "tax increase" positively.

Pedophilia: All of the stuff had happened back in the 1980s and 90% of it had been already out in the open for a long time. It just wasn't common knowledge because nobody had used it (to that extent) as a campaign issue up until now. Again, the Greens were hit by it totally unprepared and they didn't really know how to handle it in public communication. In all likelihood, you can't really handle it anyway, because pedophilia is a red-button issue.

Veggie-Day: The Greens are supporting the introduction of a meat-free day in public cantinas. Again, this shouldn't be much of a problem because Germany's Agriculture Ministry (currently led by the CSU) is already supportung and funding Veggie-Day campaigns in places like Hanover. The Greens don't support anything here which isn't already happening. But again, the Green leadership was overwhelmed by the "Greens want to ban your meat" accusations and didn't know how to deal with it in an effective manner.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Addendum: Maybe the main problem of the Greens was and is a certain underlying naivete when it comes to the mechanisms of an election campaign.

I think the initial reaction to the pedophilia stuff must have been something along the lines: "This is just a smear campaign with old stories from the 80s, what matters are the issues and the voters are of course going to realize that..."

It may true that it is a smear campaign with old stories from the 80s, but its a fundamental mistake to assume that it won't have any effect on the voters just because of that. They assume that the average voter works and thinks like a well-informed, emotionally detached political analyst or scientist or something.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I think Syria might be some hidden issue in the last weeks damaging the Greens. "True pacifists" defecting to the Left Party because they don't trust the Greens on war-and-peace-issues anymore and more conservative bourgeois types seeing them still "unreliable" in foreign politics (The party was almost disrupted over Kosovo in 1998/99).

I don't think so... anyone who had a beef with the Green Party over Kosovo or Afghanistan has already left back then. Any re-alignment over these issues happened already in 1999-2001. Anyone who remained with the party isn't that pacifistic anyway (except Ströbele). Not that the Greens are pro-military strike with regards to Syria anyway.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Something occurred to me about this election.  It seems that the polls seems to show a neck-to-neck race between CDU/CSU/FDP and SPD/Green/Left with the understanding that if SDP/Green/Left comes out ahead then Merkel will have to go for a Grand Alliance.  If so its it not possible that CDU/CSU/FDP vote share falls below  SPD/Green/Left but because of overhang seats for CSU/CSU,  CDU/CSU/FDP trumps SPD/Green/Left in terms of seats.  Of course this is assuming that AfD does not cross 5%.  It seems that there is a reasonable chance this might happen since the CDU/CSU lead over SPD seems significant and tactical voting by FDP and AfD voters for CDU/CSU on the first ballot is likely to occur.   How likely do people on this thread think it is likely to occur.

The whole commie-scare stuff is so old - we had it in each election since 1990, and it never worked. Essentially, those people you can scare off with it are anyway voting CDU. Moreover, the Linke may be fiscally irresponsible, but is definitely not anti-capitalist. Don't forget as well that the largest nationalisation of the last fifty years, namely taking over several major banks, occurred under Merkel's rule (grand coalition).

Well, the "beware of Red-Red-Green!" stuff is aimed at mobilizing CDU/FDP core voters anyway. Recently, there were some reports that the CDU is concerned that CDU voters are assuming that the election is already decided and will stay home on election day as a result.

[Middle-aged Europe]

@Old Europe: My impression ist that members and voters of the party (not so much rank and file) is still quite anti-militaristic to pacifist. I don't know if Syria is the issue here (so I called it "hidden issue") but I tried to find something which would explain the late Linke surge and the Green decrease at the same time. Of course this doesn't need to be a direct voter stream, but if so, what else could explain such a stream at this point of the campaign?

Even if this is the case, the fact remains that the Green leadership isn't supporting military intervention in Syria and it isn't much of an campaign issue overall... because nobody is supporting war in Syria, not even the CDU. In the latest Emnid poll, the Left even dropped by a percentage point again.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I think it was a stupid move on the part of the CD/SU not to allow the FDP to win 3 or 4 direct district seats and allow it to enter the Bundestag at any vote percentage. Could it have been so difficult or damaging to find 3 retiring constituency MPs in safe seats, ask the local branch to stand aside, and tell CDU backers to "first vote" the liberals? That's what I'd have done.

Question is how you're gonna quell the ensuing rebellion within the CDU over this outragous procedure...

[Middle-aged Europe]

At this point, Steinbrück probably thought "who cares?"

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Steinbrück stunt worked... he managed to take over the headlines. And the headlines weren't actually that bad. It ranged from "WTF?" to "Steinbrück got balls", "He's got nothing to lose" and "Will it hurt or help him?"

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Greens will most likely see some kind of leadership reshuffle. Mainly because party statutes only allow two of the six members of the party's executive committee to hold a seat in parliament and after this election, at least four and perhaps even five members of the current executive committee are going to hold parliamentary seats.

A change in the party statutes to accomodate this situation was already ruled out, so this means that the Greens will replace at least one, possibly both, of their party co-chairmen. Which also means that the current co-chairmen may want to become one of the parliamentary leaders of the party. Whether this succeeds also depends on the election result of the party...

[Middle-aged Europe]

Is Steeinbrucks  off pose some kind off bizarre joke?!

Well, it was certainly not intended to be taken fully serious.

As see it there are either a CDU+FDP guvernment or CDU+SPD. But even if CDU and FDP gets a majority, might Merkel forme a Grand coalition du too the red-green majority in the Bundesrat?

This would be highly unusual and unlikely. And by that logic, Germany would probably be  governed by a Grand coalition most of the time, because any government - be at CDU/FDP or SPD/Greens - usually loses its majority in the Bundesrat sooner or later.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Mhm, AfD has been polled at 4% three times in a row now (Emnid, INSA, FGW). I wonder whether at least one poll will show them at 5% or above in the final week.

Psychologically, it would be very a important threshold which decides whether the party gets 3% or possibly up to 9% IMO. There's a common phenomenon in Germany that once people realize that their vote isn't wasted they start to jump aboard a new party in droves. We're closing in on that threshold now.

Of course, AfD entering the Bundestag would make a Grand coalition a certainty.

[Middle-aged Europe]

With the results from Bavaria, only three CDU/FDP coalitions remain in Germany: Federal-level, Hesse, and Saxony.

Federal and Hesse could be killed next sunday, so that only Saxony remains.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And I'm starting to wonder how likely a scenario would be in which the FDP is eliminated from Bundestag, while the AfD enters parliament at the same time. I suppose the average FDP voter (and especially the average FDP protest voter) also maintains some sympathies for the AfD...

[Middle-aged Europe]

My gut feeling is that today's election actually will hep FDP to get over 5% next week.   The logic is obvious, that CDU/CSU voters which are inclined toward CDU/CSU/FDP seeing that FDP falling below 5% in Bavaria are more likely to vote FDP tactically next week.

The CDU explicitly called on their supporters not to tactically vote FDP next week though.

The CDU wants to avoid a situation where the FDP suddenly ends up with 10% and the CDU just with 35%. If this means the FDP dies, then it dies. You've got to understand that Merkel will govern with the SPD just as willingly... perhaps even more so.

Could make for an interesting final week in which CDU and FDP have suddenly become main competitors. FDP tries to get as much votes from CDU supporters in order to survive. Votes which the CDU refuses to simply give to the FDP.

The main strategic problem for the FDP is that most voters are merely interested in Angela Merkel to remain Chancellor. And the FDP is not required for Merkel to remain Chancellor.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Now the real mud throwing begins. The CDU is starting one last desperate attempt to capitalize on the "green pedophelia" thing, claiming Trittin's personal responsibility for a Green election platform for the Göttingen muncipal elections of 1981 that contained a passus advocating to punish only unconsensusal, violent sexual acts, which also implicits that 'consensual acts between adults and children' should be legal.

In my opinion, the funny thing is, that noone cared about the Green blurred positions towards the 1970s/1980s pedophelia groups and the appeal these positions had in parts of the homosexual movement, when that actually occured.

This really is the Greens' worst campaign since at least 1998. The Greens could get a result just like in 1998 too (6.7%).

[Middle-aged Europe]

The FDP's reaction to hearing the election results :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=np9tBI7_nq8

[Middle-aged Europe]

According to a press release, official results will be announced at 2.45 a.m. - so in about 45 minutes

http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/de/bundestagswahlen/BTW_BUND_13/presse/w13031_ankuendigung_vorl_ergebnis.html

[Middle-aged Europe]

Merkel should intentionally sabotage the grand coalition negotiations so that another election has to be held. Based on her personal popularity and the closeness of this result, I have to assume she'd gain enough seats in a redo election to have a majority.

AfD would probably enter the Bundestag in a redo, which means CDU/CSU still wouldn't win a majority on their own.

[Middle-aged Europe]

So, ideologically the parties from the FDP and further to the right (all the way to the NDP) won about 52% of the vote, and get slightly under 50% of the seats, all in one party of course.  Not a huge distortion by any means, but clearly a majority of voters did not vote for left leaning parties and they have a tiny majority of the seats.

Left/right is a most arbitrary and simplicistic and therefore meaningless categorization in this context. You're implying that voters of the FDP and the NPD want to see the same or at least similar policies implemented in Germany. But this isn't the case.

Also, the FDP had a federal chairman of Vietnamese descent for the past few years. If they had the power to do so, the NPD would strip him of his citizenship and deport him to Vietnam.

These are so diametrically opposed views of not only ideology but also reality and human dignity that it doesn't make really make much sense to put FDP and NPD in one category and SPD and Greens in another. On the contrary, SPD, Greens, and FDP belong in one category, and the NPD in an entirely different one.

[Middle-aged Europe]

So, ideologically the parties from the FDP and further to the right (all the way to the NDP) won about 52% of the vote, and get slightly under 50% of the seats, all in one party of course.  Not a huge distortion by any means, but clearly a majority of voters did not vote for left leaning parties and they have a tiny majority of the seats.

Left/right is a most arbitrary and simplicistic and therefore meaningless categorization in this context.

The FDP had a federal chairman of Vietnamese descent for the past few years. If they had the power to do so, the NPD would strip him of his citizenship and deport him to Vietnam.

These are so diametrically opposed views of not only ideology but also reality and human dignity that it doesn't make really make much sense to put FDP and NPD in one category and SPD and Greens in another. On the contrary, SPD, Greens, and FDP belong in one category, and the NPD in an entirely different one.

Well that touched a nerve... How bout you just forget about the NDP; they only go ~1.4%. Even excluding them, "rob in cal" isn't far off in his assertion

No, my point still stands even if we ignore the NPD.

A party of the supposed "right" could still be ideologically closer to a party of the supposed "left" than another party of the "right".

It's also possible that a voter has the CDU as their first preference, followed by the Greens as their second preference and hence wanting a CDU/Green coalition while totally disapproving of the SPD. I happen to know such people.

So, it's just a too simplicistic point of view. Boundaries are drawn where it doesn't make much sense.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Newly elected Cemile Giousouf, the first Muslim member of the Bundestag for the CDU. She's a Greek Muslim of Turkish descent born in Northrhine-Westphalia.




And as expected, we also got our first black Bundestag member ever, even though he failed to win the direct seat in Halle: Karamba Diaby.