🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[buritobr]

More than one poll showed that CDU has a small recovery, but at the expense of the FDP and not of the center-left parties.
The FDP had a surge some days ago. It had an average of 13% and now the average is at 11%. It is inside the margin of error. But a lot of polls showed this trend.

[buritobr]

The polls will close at 6pm local time. Soon after that, the TV stations will show the Prognose.
This video explains how the Prognose is calculated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgnmwbXH_24

An exit poll is conducted by sample. Voters are interviewed in 400 polling stations in the country. They answer a questionaire in which they say their vote, their gender, their age, their profession. But some votes are sent by mail. And the demographics of people who send their votes by mail is different to the demographics of the people who go to the polling station. So, the data of the exit poll receive an adjustiment according to these difference of demographics.

[buritobr]

The link to the debate in which the 7 parties's Spitzenkandidat are participating (same number of goals the German national soccer team scored in the semifinal of the 2014 World Cup, one goal for each party)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCS2YbH3RjQ

[buritobr]

Due to this danger, it is better for leftists between SPD and Linke vote for die Linke in order to hold seats in the Bundestag. It is not good to throw 4.9% of left-wing vote in the garbage can.

[buritobr]

Anymore poll expected for this night in Germany?
The most recent poll is a Wahlkreisprognose. It is the unique poll in which there were data collected on September 24th. The other ones had data collected until September 23rd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2021_German_federal_election

[buritobr]

When the voting day gets closer, all the polling firms show similar results. The variance becomes smaller. Earler polls show different numbers for same party according to the polling firms.
This convergence happens maybe because the voters are more sure of their decisions, and so, there is less bias.

But other motive can happen: each polling firm has its favorite party. In the earlier polls, each firm wants to increase the numbers of its favorite party in order to create a bandwagon effect. When the voting day gets closer, all the polling firms adjust in order not to make wrong forecasts. I don't know if this is usual in Germany.

[buritobr]

These Germans are in the paleolithic... they use paper ballots!

[buritobr]

I am surprised to learn that CDU voters go to the polls in the morning. The election takes place on Sunday. I though CDU voters go to the church in the morning.

[buritobr]

After I read some replies in this thread, it is important to become clear:

Die Linke IS NOT the former communists of the DDR. Die Linke was born as a merge of the PDS, which was the sucessor of the SED, and the WASG, a left-wing group that was a split of the SPD. The PDS itself was not like the SED. A minority in the PDS considered that the DDR was a very nice country.
Many Linke leaders weren't adults when the wall came down in 1989.
The SED was in the "authoritarian left" square of the political compass. Die Linke is in the "libertarian left" square. This party supported the legalization of the cannabis before all the SPD did it. Die Linke tries to be greener than the Greens, while the DDR didn't have a very good record in environment protection.
The 2021 polls showed that die Linke had 8% of the <24 vote and 4% of the >60 vote. It looks like that the old eastern Linke voters became very rare now.

Die Linke did very well in 2009, when few people had heard about Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, Melechon, Pablo Iglesias and Alexis Tsipras. Germany was ahead of other high income countries in options on the left of the mainstream center-left. In the end of the 2010s, die Linke declined.

[buritobr]

The SPD had 25.74% in 2021 and 25.73% in 2013. So, in percentage, the SPD had its 4th worst result after 2017, 2009, 2013. On the other side, the SPD won the plurality: only in 1972, 1998, 2002 this party had achieved this result.
Well, but comparing to the expectation of the beggining of 2021, SPD did a good result.

[buritobr]

What is the future of die Linke?

Will they dissapear in the long term? Will 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017 be exception in the history of german politics? Will they fail to have seats in the next election?

Or will they recover? Will 2021 be just a bad year for die Linke like 2013 was for the FDP?

[buritobr]

Armin Laschet didn't claim that there was voter fraud. Germany remains a sane country in this insane world.

[buritobr]

FDP is scheduled to meet with both SPD (afternoon) and Union (evening) today. SPD and Greens will also meet in the evening. FDP Leader Christian Lindner and his General Secretary Volker Wissing in recent comments aleady seem to slowly distance themselves from the Union. Wissing said something like "the Union must resolve whether they speak with one voice." Lindner stated: "CDU and CSU must clarify whether they actually want to lead a government. Some from within the CDU speculate their party might be back in the game after negotations for a trafficlight coalition failed. This is unconscionable for the country." Lindner wants a government formed before New Year's eve.

Meanwhile, 2017 SPD Chancellor candidate Martin Schulz called upon Laschet to resign after clearly losing the election. And even CDU Deputy leader, Health Minister and Laschet ally Jens Spahn demanded renewal of his party, both in terms of political contents and leadership. Whatever that means...

Hardly a surpirse, leadership of the Green Youth announced their staunch opposition to a Jamaica coalition and preference for a government led by Social Democrats.

Yeah, bottomline is that leading figures of the FDP continue to underline the greater ideological commonality with the CDU/CSU while at the same time starting to publicly question the readiness and willingness of the Union parties to enter (and lead) the next government. Could be considered a sign that the FDP is positioning itself for Traffic light and that the talks with the CDU serve the purpose of showing their own base that they had at least tried to make Jamaica work.

Some politicial observers already say trafficlight might be the better option of the FDP and some of their leading figures secretly prefer it. A red-green-yellow government would allow the Free Democrats to occupy the centrist or pro-business/solid budgets lane that otherwise the Union would do and pose as a "corrective" for SPD and Greens when it comes to economic growth. CDU/CSU may find themselves in further misery as they would seem more or less obsolete. Their "competence values" in polls have already massively declined when it comes to economic policy.

Also, Lindner isn't stupid and can read polls. In the most recent ZDF survey, even most FDP voters now prefer that option and think it more stands for renewal to saving Laschet into a Jamaica coalition.

I observed that during the campaign, the Spiegel was anti-SPD. But now, this magazine is much more for the Traffic Light than for the Jamaica. Maybe, they were anti-SPD during the campaign because they had fead of the red-red-green. But since this coalition is not possible anymore, they can support Scholz.

[buritobr]

If the FDP really refuses to work together with the SPD and the Grüne really refuses to work together with the CDU/CSU, is there any possibiity of a SPD-Grüne minority government?

[buritobr]

Did Christian Lindner committ a huge error in 2017 when he refused the Jamaica Coalition and said "Es ist besser, nicht zu regieren, als falsch zu regieren"?
He lost an opportunity for the favorite coalition of the FDP concerning the possible coalitions. Or did he really think that Union+FDP could have >50% of the seats in 2021?

[buritobr]

Sum of the progressive vote

1949: 35.0% (SPD+KPD)
1953: 31.0% (SPD+KPD)
1957: 31.8% (SPD)
1961: 36.2% (SPD)
1965: 39.3% (SDP)
1969: 42.7% (SPD)
1972: 46.1% (SPD+DKP)
1976: 42.9% (SPD+DKP)
1980: 44.6% (SPD+Grüne+DKP)
1983: 44.0% (SPD+Grüne+DKP)
1987: 45.3% (SPD+Grüne)
1990: 40,9% (SPD+Grüne+PDS)
1994: 48.1% (SPD+Grüne+PDS)
1998: 52.7% (SPD+Grüne+PDS)
2002: 51.1% (SPD+Grüne+PDS)
2005: 51.0% (SPD+Grüne+Linke)
2009: 45.6% (SPD+Grüne+Linke)
2013: 42.7% (SPD+Grüne+Linke)
2017: 38.6% (SPD+Grüne+Linke)
2021: 45.4% (SPD+Grüne+Linke)

This is an oversimplification, party platforms change, sometimes there can be progressive vote outside these parties.
But we can see here that since 1969, the sum of the progressive vote is stable around 45%. The exceptions are the bad performances of 1990 (reunification) and 2017, and the good performances of 1998, 2002 and 2005, when Gehrard Schröder was running.

[buritobr]

Yes, I read that the FDP in the 1970s had a left-wing that was more "liberal" concerning the support of the civil rights than "liberal" concerning the support of the free market economy. This wing doesn't exist anymore.

KPD had 5.7% in 1949, more than PDS/Linke in 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002 and 2021.

[buritobr]

Yes, I wanted to mean "left" and I used the word "progressive" as a synonym.
I included the DKP in the 1970s because 0.3% is not negligible.

Die Partei is only a funny party.
I didn't include the Pirates in the sum because some Pirates are libertarian.

[buritobr]

Don't know if anyone has touched on this, but pre election polling was somewhat close in general to results, but most or all polls at the end were showing a red red green majority, some even a pretty big one like 48-44. So I suppose thats getting into the direction of moderate polling failure.

I already expected that red-red-green would not get the majority and wrote it in the forecast thread.
Except the german elections in 2002 and 2005, the right does always better than the polls predict

[buritobr]

Is there any possibility of the Ampel coalition be confirmed tommorow?

[buritobr]

Do you think some young people will vote for the CDU when they get older?
If not, the CDU is in a serious trouble

[buritobr]

FDP secretary-general Volker Wissing has said that they're planning to wrap up the coalition negotiations until the end of November with the election and inauguration of Olaf Scholz as Chancellor intended for the week of December 6.

December 6 is Saint Nicholas Day.

Saint Nicholas wears red and transfers money to the poor, like the social democrats

[buritobr]

Does the junior party of the coalition have a big bargaining power to set its agenda?
I believe this is a possibility because if the coalition breaks, the party which has bigger loss is the party of the chancellor.

[buritobr]

What I observed:

The federal elections in the Bundesrepublik Deutschland took place in:

Years after the Olympics and before the World Cup: 1949, 1953, 1957, 1961, 1965, 1969
Olympics years: 1972, 1976, 1980
Years after the World Cup and before the Olympics: 1983, 1987
World Cup years: 1990, 1994, 1998, 2002
Again, years after the Olympics and before the World Cup: 2005, 2009, 2013, 2017, 2021

Every sequence was broken when there was only a 3 year interval, instead of a 4 year interval. Unlike what happened in the Weimar Republic, there was never a shorter than 3 years interval in the BRD.
The elections take place again in years after the Olympics and before the World Cup, and the recent sequence is already longer than the previous sequences. Do you think the next election take place in 2025?

If Schröder didn't antecipate the election to 2005, there would be campaign during the World Cup in Germany in 2006.

[buritobr]

Lula wishes sucess for Olaf Scholz

"1 - Desejo sucesso ao companheiro @OlafScholz, que acaba de concluir um exitoso acordo para suceder o governo da Alemanha.
2 - Estou seguro que essa nova coalizão plural e democrática aprofundará os progressos do bem estar do povo alemão, e permitirá contribuição cada vez maior da Alemanha para uma governança mundial mais justa."
https://twitter.com/LulaOficial/status/1463613222595047427