🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Drama at the Saar, again.

Not trying to become to tenderesque by always posting about my home state, but if there is something going that might affect federal politics, I'd go for it.

Nah, that’s actually relevant unlike Austriaposting was.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Haven't the German Greens moderated so much that they are actually to the right of the SPD in economic policy these days? Then again I guess the SPD has sold out quite a bit too.

The SPD's platform has moved considerably leftwards in recent years on economic issues. They are basically saying, "This is what we would like to do, but the Union is blocking us". Party leadership tries to make a distinction between the SPD's action in the grand coalition and the SPD's platform - the heart and soul of the party.

Though given how they are polling, maybe not totally successfully?

Oh, of course not, as expected.

Seems like the junior party of the coalition (and I’m not talking CSU as a partner of the CDU here) always gets screwed, no matter what country.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Another day, another two great polls. SPD massive surge now confirmed by multiple pollsters. Just a reminder: Laschet is 2-3% away from third place. Lmao.

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1432678139143073795
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1432695140280328199

Ugh, I hate how the Coalition is in blue and AfD is in black on these charts.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

The maps just posted by Clarko are really nice, thank you. One could discuss about the potential breadth of this year's SPD strength, but in all honesty most of all they seem to be goading one into a conversation about "What's the matter with Saxony?".

I'm obviously a dumb foreigner, and don't have much of use to add to Clarko's excellent post. But one thing I would say, is that something that gets brought up fairly often is the "valley of the clueless". As in, the  chunk of Saxony centred on Dresden where you couldn't pick up the West German broadcaster during the DDR days. The idea being, well, what the name says. The Eastern side of Saxony is generally stronger for the AfD these days, which might seem to be a testament to that to some degree. The same applies to some degree in Vorpommern, which is somewhat stronger for the AfD than Mecklenburg is.

I could also be talking out of my ass here, but from German friends and various cultural references, I also get the impression that there is a certain perception where Saxony is kind of East Germany, but turned up to 11. As in, it's the largest of the Neue Länder, but also has a very distinct local accent (probably the most easily identifiable after Bavarian); and I always get a feeling that all the clichés about Ossis apply even more so in Saxony. Various documentaries and comedy programmes and the like, when the subject is the East, always seem to wind up in Saxony; or to have a character speaking with an exaggerated Saxon accent as the representative "East German". Also you have Pegida being formed in Dresden as mentioned, but also the protests in Chemnitz, which probably has an even worse reputation for racism.

Just as a side note that might possibly be relevant, the infamous “cardboard car,” the Trabant, was produced in Saxony. (Technically it wasn’t cardboard and was in fact cotton scraps and dye residues melted together to form the East German attempt at fiberglass)

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Final Result:



Seats: SPD 206, CDU 151, Grüne 118, FDP 92, AfD 83, CSU 45, Linke 39, SSW 1
Total: 735, Majority: 368

Traffic Light: 416
Jamaica: 406
R2G: 363, short by 5

Constituency Map:

Which one did SSW win? Or is theirs from the proportional part because they’re an ethnic interest party? I think I vaguely remember hearing something about them being exempt from the 5% or 3 constituencies rule?

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

...and because the rule has always been (at the very least) to map all parties with seats:

No offense to your other (great) maps, but this is the content I come to Altas for.