🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Conservatopia]

Oh God.

If Anna Baerbock is elected Chancellor I’m going to have to go and live in a shed in the Forest of Dean for a minimum of three months to avoid UK media hot takes. Sort it out CDU bitte.

Not that there's anything wrong with that...

[Conservatopia]

Something I've always wondered is why do the FDP never seem to get any direct mandates?  Do they not target the direct seats or are they just screwed by having a relatively evenly distributed vote base like our LolDems?

[Conservatopia]

Is Tino Chrupalla perceived as the AfD leader?  I'm just interested that he is polled and Meuthen isn't.

On the point of parties seemingly getting away with corruption and scandals I think it may be because those parties (Union, Tories, Liberals) are historically natural parties of government in their countries.  Therefore it's easy to dismiss their scandals as just typical govt behaviour.  I'm conscious I'm not articulating this very well.

[Conservatopia]

I know that there would never be a Brasilien Koalition incluind the Green, the FDP and the AfD. It would be weird an environmentalist liberal fascist government.

Yes, that would be bizarre.

[Conservatopia]

Is Tino Chrupalla perceived as the AfD leader?  I'm just interested that he is polled and Meuthen isn't.

Chrupalla has been elected lead candidate for the 2021 federal elections (together with Alice Weidel).

Not that Chrupalla is a particularly interesting figure; he's the archetypical compromise candidate. So, few people would actually consider him the AfD leader. But neither Meuthen (still in Brussels) nor Wundrak (too 'liberal') or any other prominent contender had a majority to become lead candidate.

AfD's leadership has always interested me somewhat as they've never really seemed to have one obvious, well-known leader.  This makes them quite different to other rightwing populist outfits who often coalesce around one leader.  For example Lega has Salvini, RN has Le Pen, UKIP had Farage, Chega has Ventura, Fidesz has Orban, PVV has Wilders, FPO had Haider, SD has Akesson and so on.  I know in the past AfD had Lucke and Petry but they weren't as well known as Salvini or Le Pen.  I wonder if it is in order to avoid comparison with you-know-who.