German Elections & Politics

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Is the city of Berlin very liberal like most cities, or is it a rare conservative-leaning city?

Berlin is extremely liberal for the most part. Nevertheless, there are some upscale neighborhoods in the west (boroughs Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Reinickendorf and Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf) and some Trump-style working class neighborhoods (boroughs Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Treptow-Köpenick, Lichtenberg and Pankow) and in the east.
The polling location map of the latest Berlin state election is a good litmus test:

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Are the conservative parts of Berlin similar to the American working class vs. elite upscale tensions?

Which conservative parts? The blue conservative parts mainly consist of Trump conservatives, the black conservative parts mainly consist of Cruz conservatives, and the yellow conservative parts mainly consist of Forbes conservatives.

Where is the most conservative part of Germany located?

The most conservative part of Germany is Swabia in Eastern Baden-Württemberg and Western Bavaria. Its biggest cities are Ulm (BW) and Augsburg (BY).

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The yellow blob belongs to the very wealthy Grunewald district within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.

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Is the city of Berlin very liberal like most cities, or is it a rare conservative-leaning city?

The FDP gets very few votes (outside the incredibly rich bits of Berlin); like they do in every city in Germany.  So no, Berlin isn't "very Liberal".

liberal in the American sense ≠ liberal in the European sense

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I doubt Merkel will seek a grand coalition again. It looks like she might go for a Jamaica Coalition

I think she'll only need the Greens.

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I doubt Merkel will seek a grand coalition again. It looks like she might go for a Jamaica Coalition

I think she'll only need the Greens.

But doesn't she prefer FDP?

Only officially. Merkel has never been a conservative. She only became a member of the CDU because Kohl was at the helm during Reunification.
Her political views bear much more resemblance to the Greens than to the FDP.

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I doubt Merkel will seek a grand coalition again. It looks like she might go for a Jamaica Coalition

I think she'll only need the Greens.

But doesn't she prefer FDP?

Only officially. Merkel has never been a conservative. She only became a member of the CDU because Kohl was at the helm during Reunification.
Her political views bear much more resemblance to the Greens than to the FDP.

Huh ok that makes sense, but wouldn't the more conservative elements of the CDU/CSU want her to go with the FDP?

Of course. But she will be lucky and happy if a black-yellow coalition doesn't get enough votes. Furthermore there has been a strong black-green movement for over twenty years call "pizza connection" making the case for a black-green coalition. It's named after a meeting of various CDU and Green politicians, including Hermann Gröhe, Armin Laschet, Peter Altmaier, Ronald Pofalla, Julia Klöckner, Kristina Köhler, and on part of the Greens Katrin Göring-Eckardt, Cem Özdemir, Volker Beck, in the Italian restaurant Sassella in Bonn in 1995.

Pofalla and Altmaier later become Merkel's Head of the Federal Chancellery and the former was also her party's Secretary General. I think that says a lot about Merkel.

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1st:  How did Schulz completely collapse?
2nd:  Will AFD, FDP, The Greens, or Die Linke win the race for third?
3rd:   Is there a scenario in which CDU, FDP, and The Greens combined can't form a government?

1st:  Actually, he didn't collapse. It was just a short rearing up because something allegedly new surfaced in the media, and now he's still over Gabriel's level of polling.

2nd:  No clue, but I'd say AfD.

3rd:  You mean numerically? No.

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1st:  How did Schulz completely collapse?
2nd:  Will AFD, FDP, The Greens, or Die Linke win the race for third?
3rd:   Is there a scenario in which CDU, FDP, and The Greens combined can't form a government?

1st:  Actually, he didn't collapse. It was just a short rearing up because something allegedly new surfaced in the media, and now he's still over Gabriel's level of polling.

2nd:  No clue, but I'd say AfD.

3rd:  You mean CDU/CSU? No.

Reasoning for AFD?  Polls in Austria, France, and Netherlands all overestimated the Far-Right party.

I think it's because the AfD (with a lower case f) is simply different from all the other parties.
Plus, the left-wing terroristic violence at the G20 summit and the same-sex marriage bill could have a marked effect on the right-wing populist movement.

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Election.de recently gave their forecast, as of July 24, 2017, for current constituencies/riding level outcomes both in terms of first and second place finishes.

That would give CDU 214 CSU 45 SPD 35 Die Linke 4 and Greens 1.

Which Green is supposed to win the direct seat according to election.de? Ströbele is not running again, and while he won district no. 83 quite overwhelmingly, his Green Party only came third in his constituency as to the second vote. Are they referring to Özdemir in Stuttgart I?

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They're referring to Canan Bayram who's currently running to succeed Ströbele in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. While it will be harder for her to win the district, it's not entirely impossible.

Bayram is currently the directly elected state parliament MP from "Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg 5". She won that district in 2006, 2011, and 2016 with 28%, then 32%, and then 34% of the vote. (The first time she ran as a SPD candidate, in 2011 and 2016 she stood for the Greens there.)

Never heard of her. Never. Had you not written that she's a woman I would have thought she were a man.
I still think Özdemir has a better chance of winning a direct seat than that no-name.

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The relevant question is how much of a no-name she is in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. People from outside her district can't vote for her and hence don't need to know her.

Touché! But how many voters know their congressmen? Many just checked the field with Ströbele's name which can be proved by a look at the second vote.

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I get that the Stadtstaaten are a bit financially unstable, and the Saar and NRW are postindustrial, but what's up with Schleswig-Holstein?

A state whose only economic branches are fish, shrimps and sheep's wool and whose only export hit is Holstein Friesian cattle can't survive on his own.

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I get that the Stadtstaaten are a bit financially unstable, and the Saar and NRW are postindustrial, but what's up with Schleswig-Holstein?

 
 
What do you expect? Their two biggest companies are the Oil Refinery Heide and the Shipping Company Oldendorff Carriers. The city of Stuttgart alone has Mercedes, Porsche and Bosch.   

I just discovered that Germany's only oil well (offshore platform "Mittelplate") belongs to Schleswig-Holstein. Thus they are the Iraq of Germany? And still dead broke?

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It's time that all minister presidents have to be elected directly!

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It's time that all minister presidents have to be elected directly!

This shows a disturbing lack of understanding of the German political system.

No, that shows a sophisticated understanding of the German political system and its inherent anti-democratic disadvantages.

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The SPD will go for early elections either with the federal elections in September or in October.

Is that even possible at this point ?

Don't know about the German election law, but here the election calendar starts 3 months before an election ... so the earliest date would be early November.

Here is a detailed FAQ site about snap elections in Lower Saxony. If the parliament is dissolved, the sovereign has to elect a new one within two months.

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And she left because she wasn't put on the state parties list for the next state election in January. What a self-absorbed bit**.

The completely weird thing about Elke Twesten is is that by looking at her Facebook profile you get almost the impression that she must have decided to switch parties and blow up the government last night while she was drunk or something.

In her last Facebook post before switching parties from July 20 she praised a (quote) "Red-Green initiative" that created an independent information center for asylums seekers, calling it "a great signal!". Facebook commentators below that post are now busy pointing that her new party, the CDU, opposed created the center in question. In her penultimate post prior to her party switch, she celebrated the legalization of same-sex marriage in Germany. In the two posts before that she shared promotional videos from her own party. On March 17 she criticized the CDU for not being progressive enough with regards to instituting a quota for female candidates in their party.

She reminds me of the Green politician Marianne Tritz (also from Lower Saxony), who became a lobbyist for the tobacco industry back in 2008. Green politicians seems to be quite flexible...

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Most likely election dates are apparently the 22nd or the 29th of October or the 5th of November.

No! I'm very sure the Lower Saxony snap elections will be held on Federal Election Day.

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I think that the Left will lose significantly in the East (from 22.7% down to ca. 15-17%), which would mean slightly more than one percentage point less on the federal level.

In the West they will lose some voters and win some voters, the question is which group will be larger. The stereotypical new Left voter would be relatively young, often urban, culturally rather "progressive"/"alternative" and would come from the SPD, Pirates or Greens. Looking on recent election results in cities it is quite easy to spot this trend. Also with the rise of the AfD the Left has become less toxic to some leftish swing voters.

So do I say that the Left will get 10% because of all the new Berniecrats? No, not at all, they might as well get 7% or so. But what I wanted to say is that seeing the losses of the Left towards the immigration-sceptical right might cause you to overlook where the Left might actually make gains.

The rise of the AfD in East Germany to the detriment of the Left reminds me somehow of the demise of the Democratic Party in the Deep South...

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I think the AfD and Green poll numbers are correct and for the FDP we'll have to wait and see what happens after Barney Lindner's comments.

Nobody really gives a crap about Crimea so I doubt these comments will move the needle.

I wonder if Scooter's Crimea crime (sorry for the pun) will become a political issue.

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No, that shows a sophisticated understanding of the German political system and its inherent anti-democratic disadvantages.

The non direct elections of executives is the most democratic method, in a separation of powers system

No. Period.

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Lower Saxony early election set for October 15.

Super Sunday !

... with both elections very likely resulting in big conservative wins.

I wonder which election will arouse more attention in the foreign media.

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It's time we'll get a term limit for chancellors!!!

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When I saw the election poster for the first time, I initially only saw the upper half of it.
I thought it was a poster from Die Partei.