German federal election (September 18, 2005)

[Jens]

Fascinating who an election that looked like an utter defeat for the left actually looks like a very close run now. Any idea on the possiblilty on a Grüne-Links-SPD coalition?

[Jens]

Latest from ARD

CDU: 35,2%  -3,3% 225M  -23M
FDP:    9,8% +2,4%   61M +14M

SPD:  34,3% -4,2% 223M - 28M
Grüne: 8,1% -0,5%   50M   -5M

Linke:  8,7% +4,7%  54M +52M

A clear defeat for both the major parties and a triumf for Left. 308 is needed for a majority, neither SPD/Grüne or CDU/CSU/FDP is close to this. I wonder whether CDU wants to enter a grand coalition where they arn't clearly the biggest party.

Interesting enough CDU/FDP have a majority in West Germany 47,5% vs SPD/Grüne 43,9% with Linke just missing the threshold with 4,9% while SPD/Linke alone gets 55,7% in former DDR. Linke gets 25,4% of the votes in East Germany, just slidely larger that CDU

[Jens]

Saarland (hold your breath)
Turnout 79.4 (-0.6)
SPD 33.2 (-12.7) 4 seats (4 direct, incl. 1 overhang)
CDU 30.2 (-4.8 ) 2 seats
Left 18.5 (+17.1) 2 seats
FDP 7.4 (+1.0) 1 seat
Greens 5.9 (-1.7) no seats
other 4.7 (+1.7)

Any reason for the Linke result in Saarland? Lafontaine country perhaps??

[Jens]

I had a lookaround for the NPD. They topped 5% in 8 constituencies, all in Saxony:
Sächsische Schweiz - Weißeritz 7.1%
Kamenz - Hoyerswerda - Großenhain 6.5%
Bautzen - Weißwasser 6.3%
Annaberg - Aue-Schwarzenberg 6.3%
Freiberg - Mittleres Erzgebirge 6.1%
Görlitz - Löbau-Zittau - Niesky 6.0%
Döbeln - Mittweida - Meißen II 5.8%
Delitzsch - Torgau-Oschatz - Riesa 5.2%

Sounds like the usual suspects.

Interesting; what are all those areas like? Seeing as the NPD are the most blatently Neo Nazi far-right party in the E.U it'd be interesting to see what the areas they do well in are like

Interestingly, NPD did quite strong around Bautzen, and in Brandenburg their best result is in Lausitz.  These are the last outposts of Germany's ownly surviving "native" ethnic minority: the Luzica Sorbs (a Slavic group).  Most likely, there is no causal link: these are just remote and poor Eastern German districts (the remoteness is also one reason for the Sorbian survival there), but still interesting.

Another reason is also the short way to the Polish border. It doesn't promote tolerance to be a low wage worker in an area with high unemployment rates and still lose your job to even cheaper Polish workers.
Saxony, by the way, never stops to surprise me. Before WWII it was a stronghold of SPD and KPD. These days it is the ex-DDR stronghold of CDU. I wonder what changed??

[Jens]

The change in Saxony was becoming apparent during the Weimar Republic, Jens. It was a Social Democrat stronghold during the Kaiserreich (every single one of its 23 Reichstag seats was won by a Social Democrat at least once - though never more than 22 at a time), but much less pronouncedly so during the Republic. Nazis also did well there.

Later on, yes, but KPD and USPD also did very well. I don't have the numbers here, but i'm pretty sure of it. Any idea why? A change in the work force or just general SPD downturn?

[Jens]

A road in East Berlin is to be renamed for Frank Zappa.

Btw - how far to go til PA-13?

Hilarious We have a square in Cph named after a Danish hippie musician, Eik Skaløe. It makes good sense cause the academy of rytmic music is in that square, but the academy is on the old naval base and the naval academy is right next to this square named after a hippie. Needless to say the street sign "Eik Skaløes Plads" is the most stolen in Copenhagen. 

[Jens]

We have a Rufus Thomas Blvd.  Oh yeah, and that Presley fellow has a major street named after him too

Jaime Pressly??

[Jens]

Ah, Jens, your knowledge of American cultural icons is even greater than you knowledge of American politics!

LOL

My pleasure to serve...