🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To add to palandio's musings, you also need to be careful about weaving grand narratives around recent political developments that can easily be ascribed to other factors (chronically poor leadership, junior membership of an unpopular government, the emergence - for the time being - of an honestly pretty similar party policy-wise as a challenger to the government). Particularly when, and this is a grand narrative but an objectively correct one, party loyalty in the old sense has declined drastically in nearly all established democracies.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/derJamesJackson/status/1406917993351856130

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I suppose it would be the outcome demanded by the Banter Timeline.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The thing about Laschet is that he really is a much more typical CDU politician than Merkel (right down, yes, to the fact that he's an obvious clown and oaf), and while Merkel's popularity was (is) undeniable, the idea that the CDU is a significantly more popular brand than the other parties was always a little untested even if it was often assumed.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Even if the election ends up as a comparative disappointment for the Greens considering some periods of earlier polling, it will still certainly be their best ever federal election and they will still have a decent shot at doubling their vote share from last time round. Not really circumstances in which recrimination would be particularly appropriate...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Very funny that the first poll to show this would be a Forsa. Anyway, that's another poll with Die Linke only just about hovering about the threshold.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

They would need to win three direct mandates to be exempted.  They currently have five, four in Berlin and one in Leipzig, and the four in Berlin were won fairly comfortably last time.

Yes. The issue is that if they really were to drop under 5% (which still doesn't look likely!) they will have lost a huge chunk of their support from 2017 and there's little chance that this would not also show up in direct vote preferences in those or any other set of constituencies. It would be, at best, dicey.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why is Laschet even a candidate?

Because the very factors that make him unpalatable to the wider electorate - the man is CDU establishment to his fingertips and comes across as an actual caricature of a CDU politician - were positives to the people who picked him. One of the boys, you know?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

That would be even more personally humiliating than presiding over an electoral fiasco. Amongst other issues.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I wonder if it might be partly that since Merkel was herself from the East (Mecklenberg-Vorpommern) she had some residual "favourite daughter" appeal in the former DDR and that now that she is gone and repalced by Laschet - a lot of the CDU votes that were just personal votes for Merkel in the east are suddenly up for grabs.

She grew up in northern Brandenburg, but her political base for the past three decades has been in Pomerania, yes. There's not much doubt that she is much more appealing to many voters in the East than a typical CDU establishment politician, who are quite culturally alien to most Easterners.* Her particular sort of conservatism - which does not extend much further than her own take on what we might as well call Prussianism (i.e. the belief that it is the principle duty of both the politician and the citizen to serve the state) - is also much more appealing there. It didn't really show much in the first election she led the CDU into, but then that election ended up being rather more about the then incumbent, whose own appeal to those same voters was famously strong.

_{*It isn't just the Catholicism, though that's an issue. It's also that general air of, to make a literary allusion, heavy good-fellowship.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Would be careful with any constituency projections at the moment, particularly given that we'll be seeing a lot of constituency MdB's elected with less than 30% of the vote and maybe - maybe! - one or two with less than 20%. There are a handful of places where that's actually possible...

I'm not informed enough about what is actually true or not, or what should get the most weigh, so it would be great if the the Germany experts could confirm/refute/discuss:

• 1. Saxony was an independent kingdom that was involved in a lot of wars, and this led to an insular and rebellious culture in the state. During the days of the German empire, there was a lot of resentment towards Prussia. This can still be seen today in the "we don't want Berlin telling us what to do" attitude.

This is correct, though that kind of sentiment doesn't automatically result in right-wing political dominance, and certainly didn't in Saxony's past: it was the SPD's greatest stronghold before 1914 and while (unusually) the relative strength of the political left declined there during the Weimar Republic, most of it remained good territory for the SPD and the KPD was very strong in places as well. Of course Saxony was a very different place then: one of the most industrialised and economically important parts of Germany. It lost this role, permanently, with the post-war partition of the country. Note that Saxony now has a smaller population than it did in 1900.

• 2. During the Weimar period, the political left and right were constantly one-upping each other in extremism. While the SPD and KPD formed a government in 1923, they were promptly overthrown by a radicalized right-of-centre, and thereafter the SPD formed a weak coalition government with the DDP and DVP.

The place did have unusually bitter politics at the time, even for the time, but I don't think that has any bearing on contemporary matters.

• 3. The lack of Catholics and respective political Catholicism meant that there was no moderating force like Zentrum, which sought political compromise and stability. The strongest parties were the KPD, SPD, and later NSDAP, with the liberals and Zentrum marginalized for the most part (relates to #2).
  

That's also true - Saxony did have a strong liberal tradition of course, but those votes largely headed in the same direction as elsewhere by the 1930s... except for the Sorbs who were probably the most reliable DVP voters in all of Germany by the end - but, again, I don't see what it has to do with the present.

• 4. Saxony had both a large industrial base and also a large rural population. The conflict between the urban left and the conservative bourgeoisie was particularly nasty and heated (see #2 and #3).
  

With much of the countryside being industrial itself - textiles, largely. This is an important part of Saxony's political history: the industrialised countryside became good territory for the SPD before 1914 (despite a lack of significant trade union activity) but as the industry struggled during the Weimar years there was a very sharp rightwards swing and areas such as the Erzgebirge and the Vogtland became amongst the strongest for the Nazis in the country. Of course the KPD actually did very well in some of these villages as well. At the same time, though, Leipzig and surrounds remained SPD strongholds, as did the industrial suburbs of Dresden.

• 5. Refugees from Silesia could also play a role here after being expelled in WWII. Breslau, like Dresden, was also a very pro-Nazi city and it doesn't seem like a stretch to believe that people carried national conservative views and bitterness over the loss of their homeland with them westwards.
  

Breslau had a lot of Social Democrats as well, important to note. And many refugees from Silesia settled in the Federal Republic. But if things like that were a significant factor these days then the most right-wing state in Germany would be Schleswig-Holstein, which is where most of the surving populations of East Prussia and Further Pomerania (both well to the right of Silesia, especially the latter) ended up.

• 6. the GDR sought to associate fascism with imperialism and capitalism, and disassociated socialism with anything that happend before 1945, and so never went through the process of working through the past with open debate like what happened in West Germany. This obviously is not exclusive to Saxony so it's not too helpful in explaining why Saxony is so extreme compared to the other Eastern states, but it is one part of the puzzle.
  

This is important, and see the other posts about television reception etc. Things like that can matter a surprising amount.

• 7. One author posits that there has been a strong anti-democratic tradition in Saxony dating back over a century, which relates to #1, #2, #4, #5, and I guess #3 as well?
  

That applies to the entire country.

• 8. After reunification, the right-of-centre parties always had at least 54% in every election combined (centre-right to far-right). The state CDU chapter, however, never sought to introduce a culture of public remembrance and historical reflection, like what the rest of the CDU in the country actively cultivates. The state CDU also quietly embraced right-wing currents and showed little concern about them over the past 30 years. Unfortunately for them now, about half of their past voters are now embracing the right-wing/far-right.
  

Post-Wende dominance by a series of CDU strongmen is clearly an important factor, much as the former (and about to be current again?) strength of the SPD in Brandenburg was shaped by popular SPD prime ministers, yes.

• 9. Saxony also is unusual in the East for its strong network of "free comradeship" organizations (basically brotherhoods and civic organizations), which primarily tend to be a West German thing and are nothing special in the West. But in the East, the GDR suppressed most non-communist organizations, but Saxony escaped this. So one political scientist argues this is both a symptom and a cause of Saxon insularity (self-reinforcing cycle), and this magnifies far-right views
  

There was a lot of friction between the DDR regime and people in Saxony over various issues relating to that kind of thing. But one local organisation in Saxony that the DDR did crush completely (much more effectively than the Nazis) was the SPD and its wider social milieu.

• 10. Apparently the state level NPD also intentionally tried to cultivate an image of being "normal" and not a bunch of skinheads wearing army boots. The NPD had three very strong election results at the state level in 2004 (9.2%!!!), 2009 (6%), and 2014 (4.95%).
  

Though very alarming results for that sort of party at the time were not restricted to Saxony. But, yes, there's an established extreme Right vote in the state that the far Right has found easy enough to pinch.

• 11. an interesting quote regarding Dresden, translated from German:
  
  

  "Dresden is the city of culture with the largest horizon", there's something to this saying, isn't it? In other words, there is too much self-centeredness here. The city is politically conservative. It's different in Leipzig. Leipzig is a city of trade, of trade fairs, already comparatively cosmopolitan in GDR times and surprisingly multicultural even today for Eastern standards. That shapes the climate. Right-wing populist, right-wing extremist and national-conservative positions are more effective in Dresden than in Leipzig. The Pegida movement also began as a Dresden phenomenon."

Dresden has voted consistently to the right of Leipzig since 1990 (and did so back in the 20s and 30s as well!), but is far from being the centre of gravity for the AfD.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Of course to most in the SPD, it is the western (and largely left) wing of Die Linke who are the most objectionable as they're a bunch of SPLITTERS.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Eh. After a certain point it will be like people in Ireland who do not like Fine Gael referring to the party as 'the blueshirts'.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Eh. After a certain point it will be like people in Ireland who do not like Fine Gael referring to the party as 'the blueshirts'.

This particular name is reserved for the AfD, though. Well, historically it was the FDJ, maybe I can start helping reconnotate it. On the other hand, an increasing amount of people is referring to the AfD as "Die Blaunen" (the "blue-browns") and as AgD (Alternative gegen Deutschland/ Alliance against Germany).

Ah, no, it isn't about the colour. One of the parties that merged to form Fine Gael was the Blueshirts, Ireland's cartoonishly incompetent interwar fascist movement. Is Fine Gael today a fascist party? Absolutely not, but it's still a fun jibe for people who dislike the party.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Armin Laschet's speech at the CSU convention was better than expected, according to pundits.

They would, I suspect, have said this unless his trousers had fallen down mid-speech.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Never expected this race to become so interesting in the closing weeks. That said, I'm still afraid a ton of CDU voters holding their noses and vote for the party in the last second, denying SPD the victory are polls are indicating. That said, the stability confirms SPD momentum is real.

One of the reasons for the general sense of blind panic in the CDU is that even if they were modestly ahead, they would not be best placed to lead a government and would still suffer a huge loss of MdBs. Serious speculation about Scholz as Chancellor started before polling showed the SPD pulling ahead.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

When British people first take an interest in German politics they tend to assume that the FDP are rather like the Liberal Democrats. When they learn a little more then tend to believe that this is nonsense, that they have little in common. When they actually understand things they know that their initial assumptions were surprisingly close to the mark.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's been a wild ride, considering that they were the party of Nazi sympathizers in the early days of the republic.

Bit more complicated than that, in fairness. They were an odd mixture of genuine liberals associated especially (though not exclusively) with the former DDP and Protestant right-wingers many of whom had views on the whole 1933-45 period that were a little dodgy. The bulk of the latter decamped, bit by bit, to the CDU in the 50s.* But this reminds me... one of these days I really should do some proper maps of the '49 election.

_{*Of course there was then the very strange business, decades later, of an attempt by similar people to take over the party again. People say that German politics is boring, but any country in which a scandal-plagued former Deputy PM kills himself by jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute does not have boring politics.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Indeed, we should nonetheless not disregard that the FDP was in its early days the only major party (and with major, I mean with a relatively stable voter base and some long-term relevance) to openly oppose denazification, which of course attracted many Nazi sympethizers-- but still, we should not act as if there were no Nazi sympethizers in other parties (The CDU elected one as chancellor in the 1960s).

Well that was the curious thing: on the one hand opposition to the denazification programme was clearly the 'correct' principled liberal stance, and on the other it made the party an appealing option to people at the softer end of the dodgy views on the previous... era... spectrum. And many of the later - well, some of the older ones at least - had even voted for at least the DVP once upon a time. Had that particular coalition held then I suspect they might have developed into a German version of the VVD or Venstre* rather than the actually much more typical liberal party they became.

_{*Or... er... well... looks nervously to the south.}

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wasn't the FDP historically seen as the "sister party" to the FPO in Austria? The FPO has always been the repository of ex-Nazis

Until the 1980s the FPÖ was an odd mixture of liberals, 'reformed' former Nazis, and assorted other small groupings of cranks. It basically functioned as an umbrella organisation that gave people not associated with the two big monopoly parties (as they were at the time) a small degree of access to the political system and the social benefits that were directly tied to it at the time. It polled about 5% of the vote in election after election. An attempt to turn it into a normal liberal party aligned with the SPÖ backfired catastrophically, resulting in Haider (who had been the leader of the party's youth wing) taking it over and turning into the far right monster that we know and do not love.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I would be careful about reading much into very small shifts in any direction until and unless it can be seen to be an established pattern.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Die Linke has 3 seats in Berlin almost safe...

Well, they were safe. Trouble is, if they were to lose close to half of their list support from last time (which is what dropping below the threshold would entail) there's little chance that this wouldn't be at least partially reflected in constituency vote performance, and there's no reason at all to assume that things would magically be more solid in the constituencies that they hold. Marzhan-Hellersdorf was won with a vote share of 34% last time and Lichtenberg with one of 35%: lop, say, a third off that and the seats are potentially at risk. Of course they've never lost either, but things can change. Gysi's 40% gives him a little more wriggle-room, at least so long as his personal vote holds. Most likely they're all right either way (if perhaps a little more uncomfortably than is dignified), but...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

When looking at the results of the 2017 elections, it can be noted that the modest gains Die Linke made nationwide (9.1 %, +0.5) were all caused by improving the result in the West overall (7.4 %, +1.8), while their vote share in the East plummeted strongly (17.8 %, -4.9). Most of Die Linke's losses right now can be attributed to the party falling back to 2013/2005 (5.6, 4.9 % respectively) level in the West, while the party's vote share in the East that had always saved them before might not be enough to offset a potential debacle.

Yes, but the few polls we've had of Eastern states this time have mostly shown some pretty sharp drops. And of course, in the end, they have the same structural problem in the East that other postcommunist parties have had and it's possible that the direction of travel will end up being as relentless. Again, I suspect that (one way or the other) it works out for them this time, but I do wonder just a little.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Ahem. There is a rule here about not breaking laws, even when they seem to be quite silly. Behave children, behave

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Reminds me of 2005 when a ruling party that has been around for a while (in that case SPD)  and was expected to be soundly beaten comes back and beat the pre-election polls into a virtual tie its main opponent.

I mean, no, because the CDU-CSU were miles ahead in the polls for nearly all the campaign and were still consistently very comfortably ahead - well above the MoE - right until the very end.