German Elections & Politics

[Middle-aged Europe]

Leading Alternative politican Björn Höcke, head of the fascist wing of the party, calls Holocaust memorial in Berlin a "monument of shame".


German nationalist calls for end to Nazi guilt
https://www.yahoo.com/news/german-nationalist-calls-end-nazi-guilt-224455947.html?ref=gs

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Höcke has always been a good national socialist.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Green Party's primary is over. While Katrin Göring-Eckardt was already the designated winner since she was the only women running for the job her male counter part has been decided. It is the Green Party's chairmen Cem Özdemir - by a lead of 75 votes.  
  
The full results look like that:  
  
Özdemir: 35.96%
Habeck: 35.74%
Hofreiter: 26.19%

Göring-Eckhart: 70.63%  
  
This is especially interesting because both Göring-Eckhart and Özdemir are part of the so called "Realo" wing which is pretty centrist and generally seen as more open for a CDU-Green coalition. In today's Forsa Poll they would get 47% which would be just as much as the remaining meaningful parties combined.  
  
Özdemir by the way is an interesting guy. He was the very first German-Turkish MP in 1994 yet despite his heritage he was one of the main figures pushing for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide and is a strong critic of Erdogan. Erdogan in response called him a persona non grata. He supports an EU-Army, drug legalization, a slightly higher taxation of the rich and so on plus the typical green topics like feminism, LGBTQ rights, renewable energies, etc.

With Anton Hofreiter, there was only a single candidate from the party's Leftist wing running  and a particular weak one at that (probably the weakest of all four primary candidates). Hence his third place finish.

Ironically, the party had just recently passed a noticably Leftish platform during their federal congress last November. So, there's a majority which supports Left-wing positions, but the Left is somewhat leaderless and doesn't have any noteworthy representatives right now.

We'll see how this contradiction is reflected and/or solved in the election campaign.

Btw, voted for R. Habeck myself. But Özdemir would have been my second preference.

[Middle-aged Europe]

just recently found mister habeck....seems like a kind of outsider-part-realo-candidate, eh?

As the only primary candidate who's currently not holding office in the capital, Habeck kind of ran as the anti-establishment reform/protest candidate.

Interestingly, following yesterday's almost win he's now often mentioned as the new party chairman to succeed Özdemir this fall if Özdemir becomes either his party's group leader in the Bundestag or a cabinet member.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Take it this way: 70% may hold a wide range of more or less critical opinions regarding 2015's immigration politics (I am one of them). But that doesn't mean that they support the AfD (I mean most of them don't even vote AfD...). And that's a good thing and the German progressives should be glad instead of telling people: "Then f**ing vote AfD already. We don't even want to be voted by people like you. You're enabling the far-right. You're as bad as them."

If someone wants to vote for the AfD because "they're the only ones who have the interests of the common people at heart", I tell them that the AfD wants to cut pensions and privatize unemployment benefits. Works every single time. Bonus talking point for environmentally friendly people: Climate change denial and support for nuclear energy.

It's of course a strategic error to attack the AfD for their immigration and refugee policies alone. On the other hand, this doesn't mean that left-wing parties have to change their immigration policies at all. In my experience, as soon as you indicate that you might step back from your refugee policies a single inch, you have also people at your hands saying that they refuse vote for you any longer. That's the other side of the coin.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Breaking: Sigmar Gabriel won't run for Chancellor. He also intends to step down as SPD chairman and plans to succeed Frank-Walter Steinmeier as foreign minister in February instead.

Martin Schulz is supposed to become Chancellor-candidate and SPD chairman now.

http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2017-01/sigmar-gabriel-spd-kanzlerkandidatur

[Middle-aged Europe]

All polls have shown Schulz to be far more popular than Gabriel as Chancellor. Below ARD from December. Interesting to see whether this will be reflected in the SPD's numbers.

I'd expect a bit of a poll bump for the SPD now. Question is whether they will manage to sustain it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

gabriel got burn-out,

Gabriel's wife is also pregnant, with the birth being expected sometime in spring.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Curious manner this decision came to be. Everybody (including everybody in the SPD) seemed to expect Gabriel as Chancellor-candidate at this point. And today, he said "screw it, let's nominate Schulz" out of the blue. Most of the editorials seem to praise him for voluntarily putting personal ambitions aside so far.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I was reminded of this: why is the electoral threshold in the European elections considered to be unconstitutional but the threshold in the federal election is not?

Because the federal elections are important, and the European elections are unimportant.

Well, actually the reasoning was like this: The Bundestag parties must be able to form a stable government and therefore it is of an advantage to have fewer parties in the parliament. On the other hand, the European Comission isn't formed by the European Parliament as such so it doesn't really matter if there are a trillion parties represented in the parliament.

[Middle-aged Europe]

   Klartext, agreed about problems with thresholds.  But, in the last federal election it was kind of like a perfect storm, where both FDP and AFD came so close to crossing the 5% line but just missed it.  Wonder how many right leaning voters who supported another party in that election regretted not helping the AFD over the finish line.

A 4% threshold seems like a more reasonable target to reach. The last election was won by the right, but one couldn't know that from the results.

There's no such thing as "the" right.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yeah, this is something people from countries with a sharp left/right divide often don't get about politics in countries like Germany or the Netherlands.

I'm quite aware that the FDP can go into coalition with the SPD, but that's certainly not in a way that is compatible with its current platform. Either way, disenfranchising 9.8% of the electorate, as happened in 2013, is unfair. Its not like 2 million list votes each is something to ignore in a PR system.

The issue here is actually that the CDU prefers to form a coalition with SPD or Greens instead of one with the AfD.

And the SPD prefers - at least on the federal level - to form a coalition with CDU or FDP instead of one with the Left.

So, there are not two political "camps", but up to four: CDU/FDP, SPD/Greens, Left, and AfD.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Schulzmentum!

[Middle-aged Europe]

It's going to be very funny when the AfD surge takes mostly from the CDU, causing the SPD to emerge as the larger party in the coalition and inadvertently electing Martin Schulz as Chancellor

Not gonna happen.

The best/only chance for the SPD to get Martin Schulz elected as Chancellor is to form a coalition with the Greens and the Left. But even then, the SPD would have fewer seats in the Bundestag than the CDU/CSU.

[Middle-aged Europe]

26% seems to be the absolute SPD peak, lol.

We'll see... needless to say the SPD isn't exactly what it used to be.

[Middle-aged Europe]

26% seems to be the absolute SPD peak, lol.

Ummm, there's a poll coming out this evening who proves that wrong. More at 6:00.

[Middle-aged Europe]

No spoilers, please!


Anyway, here's the Infratest shock poll:

CDU/CSU 34% (-1)
SPD 28% (+5)
AfD 12% (-2)
Greens 8% (-1)
Left 8% (+-0)
FDP 6% (+-0)

[Middle-aged Europe]

If the three left wing parties reach 30/9/9 it would be enough to win the election and it can certainly work out

What makes you think that Schulz would want to even consider a coalition with the Linke instead of the one with CDU? Ideologically, the gap between Merkel and him is infinitely smaller.

If the SPD ends up with fewer votes/seats than the CDU/CSU, but a coalition with Greens and Left becomes numerically possible, then such a coalition would be the only option for him to become Chancellor.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Martin Schulz' candidacy helped to create some, um, interesting memes so far:

[Middle-aged Europe]

If the three left wing parties reach 30/9/9 it would be enough to win the election and it can certainly work out

What makes you think that Schulz would want to even consider a coalition with the Linke instead of the one with CDU? Ideologically, the gap between Merkel and him is infinitely smaller.

If the SPD ends up with fewer votes/seats than the CDU/CSU, but a coalition with Greens and Left becomes numerically possible, then such a coalition would be the only option for him to become Chancellor.

And do you think he would want to be a Chancellor in a coalition with the Linke?

It's not as much of a matter whether he wants to become Chancellor in a coalition with the Left. The issue is how hard he wants to become Chancellor.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Well, if Berlin is anything to go by, a RRG coalition at the federal level could provide a Klöckner-led CDU with an outright majority.

Andrej Holm resigned as secretary of state after only five weeks in office, prompting the CDU to call it the "worst start of a Berlin Senate ever" or some similar nonsense.

This only proved that the CDU is suffering from both amnesia and hyopcrisy.

The last time the CDU came to power in Berlin back in 2011, their own justice minister resigned after only one and a half weeks.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And, of course, do not forget, that for many people the Left are still untouchable because of their history.

That doesn't hinder coalitions with the Left on the state level in Berlin, Brandenburg, or Thuringia, and it isn't really an obstacle for the federal level anymore.

The issue here is really foreign policy.

That and the person of Sarah Wagenknecht... who joined the SED in 1989 at the age of 19 shortly before the Wall fell, but is generally considered too extreme to form a coalition with. The other leaders of the Left (Bartsch, Kipping, Riexinger) are considered sufficiently moderate, but Wagenknecht is regarded as too much of an ideologue. Unfortunately, they made Wagenknecht their lead candidate for the upcoming election.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Isn't Wagenknacht to the (relative) right of her party on refugees, or am i mistaken?

Wagenknecht is to the right of the CDU on refugees. Another reason why a coalition with her would be difficult.

On any other issue though she's in the left corner of her own party.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And, of course, do not forget, that for many people the Left are still untouchable because of their history.

That doesn't hinder coalitions with the Left on the state level in Berlin, Brandenburg, or Thuringia, and it isn't really an obstacle for the federal level anymore.

Wouldn't the fact that those states are in the East play a role? I'm having a harder time imagining say, a conventional, middle aged civil servant being ok with his party cozying up to die Linke.

I don't really think so. The Left is governing in eastern states, because the party is electorally stronger there.

The fact that the Left is governing Berlin also means that she's in power in West Berlin. One of the two federal chairman of the Left is from West Germany. Bodo Ramelow, the Left's minister-president of Thuringia, is originally from West Germany. The line is certainly blurred.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I love how that INSA poll is currently the headline on bild.de, but you have to pay bild.de to see the results of the poll.

[Middle-aged Europe]

By the end of February the SPD will be at 75%.

Jealous?! I sure am!