Finally we can focus on the really important elections coming up in 2017. And since Germany runs the EU, a political sphere and economy that dawrfs the US, the election in September 2017 will be an even more important one as towards the west and Nato. The election is interesting for many reasons: incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel has seen a remarkable drop in approval rating and suffered many severe defeats in state elections. Before the general election in September, there will also be the election for federal president in March which most often heralded shifts in majorities and a left candidate winning presidency could be seen as the beginning of the end of Merkel. Furthermore in May we will also elections in the state of Northrine-Westfalia - the most populous state. The results from these elections, e.g. if they show losses for Merkel's CDU, could even trigger an earlier federal election The general elections themselves will be interesting cause we are witnessing tectonic shifts in the political system as it is possible that 2 parties could enter the Bundestag: FDP and AfD, while the latter is mostly driven by an anti-establishment, anti-Merkel, anti globalism, anti-muslim and anti-refugee momentum and is currently polling around 10-15%. The result of this will be that coalition-building, something you cant form a government in German politics, will become unlike more difficult. Instead of two-party coalitions, 3 or more parties will be needed to form coalitions and governments. The most likely coalitions so far a so called left-front or red-red-green "R2G" between social democrats, left and greens or "black-green" Merkel's conservatives and the greens. Last but not least the current grand coalition between social democrats and conservative could have to continue their coalition when other options are arithmetically ruled out.
Current foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier(SPD) was announced today by CDU/CSU and SPD as their candidate federal president at the federal assembly in February which basically hands him the job. This is interesting from the pov that this an humiliation for Merkel ahead of the elections while it is expected that the president of the European parliament and much more poular Martin Schulz (SPD) will step in as new foreign minister and run against Merkel in September for chancellorship. On another note, the greens have held their party convention last weekend adopting several leftist proposals to their platform enabling a left front between the three parties: social democrats, greens and left party while ruling out a coalition with Merkel's conservatives.
As I posted in the EU forum, I find Merkel to be the only adult running a major western country. My own personal politics are probably closest to the FDP (which some of my wife's German relatives find amusing) but in terms of leadership, I think Merkel wins hands down. I admit that she handled the refugee crisis badly -- I think she figured it could not be that bad and she would be able to spread them across the EU as a whole. Still I find her to be the only real sober and thoughtful leader in the major countries of the western alliance. She has taken a hit from the refugee crisis, but those votes she loses on this issue will go to the AfD not the SPD -- while an earlier generation of SPD leaders might have pushed for some immigration restrictions, I cannot imagine the current leadership doing the same. While everyone is focusing on immigration and the Euro crisis, I think the big issue is how (or whether) Germany steps up her defense spending in the light of Trump getting elected. There has been lots of contradictory statements about what Trump's policy will be regarding NATO and Europe. The Baltic States and the Poles seem to be in a bit of a panic (I had dinner with some friends, one of whom is that rare creature known as a politically liberal Pole, and he was in a panic when I said about Trump getting elected "Well, the bright side is we are not going to war with Russia now". He actually WANTS us to go to war with Russia). My prediction is that we see another grand coalition headed by Merkel. As for my predictions, keep in mind on November 8, at 4:50 PM, I posted the following:
FDP lol. yeah... lol. Well I dont know if it is fair to say she is the only reasonable choice cause given the circumstances with her being the last woman standing of world leaders of course youd want her to keep the job in this uncertain times. And she perhaps was the best candidate in the last view years and elections. But then again, times have changed and she not only seems beatable now that there is a left coalition within reach that could drive her out of office, not because she is attacked from the extreme right for her refugee policy, but because she has a, started to make mistakes and b, there are other personalites lining up who also seem reasonable but may not be as much widely known internationally. I mentioned Martin Schulz. If Sigmar Gabriel the SPD chairman runs against her she'll win hands down. But if she has to face Schulz it is a 50/50. She will also run into severe problems if there is a terror attack next year. What also is a completely new situation is that it could turn out a grand coalition will not have a so big majority anymore. In like the last 70 years there was always this possibility of last resort but with then perhaps 6 parties it could be tight and actually people dont want it anymore cause not much is getting done in those years and it strenghtens the extreme left & right.
I get the concern but what is the alternative? Does the German constitution provide for a minority government as you see sometimes in Britain? The last time a German government did not have a majority of the parliament was von Schleicher and that ended rather badly. All depends I suppose if the FDP makes the Bundestag this time.
A minority govt is possible but unlikely and hasnt happened on the federal level so far. A minority govt is unsecure state of govt and if Germans voters hate sth then it is uncertainty. Furthermore do most people hold an expectation towards politicians for them to get their shit together and make compromises no matter the election results and majorities. This is how we voted now do your job! Do else and it will cost dearly. So I see 3 possibilites: left coalition if possible, black-green if possible, grand coalition if possible, new elections. FDP can be a game changer but really doesnt have to due to the electoral system. It could be possible that Merkel's party lose many direct mandates due to a split vote between CDU, FDP and AfD so that FDP might win seats but only within the right bloc. It could also happen that both blocs estimately have the same % but one bloc gains a majority via overhangseats. This also plays into the scenario: currently Bundestag has about 30 overhang seats but in the new one it could have like 150 cause the changed the system they are allocated.
NEW: WikiLeaks drops trove of docs on probe into Germany's cooperation with NSA https://t.co/IQgTtjiqVb pic.twitter.com/bKlcy2iYUe— The Hill (@thehill) December 1, 2016 804673959170080769 is not a valid tweet id Seems that the Russians and Wikileaks have a new woman in their life now that Hillary is gone.
That isnt really newsworthy. It's been known all along. BND has been the willing tool right from the start. The problem Angie had in the Snowden crisis was yanks spying on German citizens and institutions and because of everyone knowing the worked together closely people asked questions like did she know about it and if yes why didnt she do something about it and if no why didnt she know? This also isnt a scandal like it would drive people away from voting for her like it with crooked Hillary cause the electorate is a different zoon politikon. The scandal in the last few days was a enquiry comittee on Snowden having to decide if they invite him to Germany to ask questions and the atlanticists in Merkel's party wont to prevent it from ever happening. But yes, the bad guys are out there. Breitbart will start in German also just in time for the elections at least Ive heard so
And we also dont use voting machines. But we do have (personalized) proportional representation. So there's little attack surface for Russian hackers
Keep in mind though that there is NO evidence that the Russians hacked American voting machines or counting centers (though I personally want to go back to paper ballots for that reason).
Putin has two pro Russian parties he can almost openly support though: AfD and Linke. Both are pro Russian and staunchly anti-american. They could easily end up with 25% all together. Thats what I think is the likeliest scenario: create a constant unsecure crisis mode where when we happen to not have terrorist attacks Putin's propaganda will drop more compromising info about Merkel and co. But I dont see the political mainstream ever losing out to the Putin-friendly forces - like in France with FN and Le Pen. It's more like poking the biggest EU member with a stick.
The good news is that I doubt Die Linke or AfD can work together. Of course that was the problem after the 1932 election in that the two main anti-Weimer parties had a majority of seats, even though they could not enter into coalition together. The Union cannot join with the AfD. While the SPD and Linke have joined in coalition in Brandenburg, I doubt they will do it on a federal level. Which leaves a Jamaica coalition (assuming the FDP gets seats this time) or another Grand Coalition. As for the Russian hacking, it is not anything we (the US at least) have not done with elections -- helping friendly politicians with money and consultants and helping friendly media get information about rivals we do not like. Let's not be naïve about this. What we should be angry about is that it seems to be so easy for the Russians (and I think if someone digs deep enough, it will be the Russians) to hack our systems.
SPD and Linke can work very well together. In Berlin they just started what they call a model for the federal level: R2G red-red-green. In Thuringia the Linke even are the biggest party of the coalition holding the minister president seat. The greens also went through a heavy left turn just recently. But with 40% all together for this left block they are far away from a majority. They probably could drive Merkel out under normal circumstances: without security threats and refugee crisis. But people want less refugees and islamization so they wont double down on Merkel's policies and the leftist parties surely cant overturn Merkel on the right. So in a way they almost cant win. They can only hope they remain as strong as now and that Merkel's CDU loses so much that her own party will kick her out after elections. If you ask me they will revolt if her party loses 10% or so or even if she just ends up closer to 30 than 40%. They are in fact already revolting on the party platform/program level. AfD polling in Saxony with 25% - a CDU stronghold since the fall of the wall- is a clear indicator. You can always tell if CDU has like 36% in polls like now they end up with 32% and that I think wont even Angie can survive. Also: it is one thing to help political friends but another if you want to destabilize a whole country not to say continent if you support both fringes and radical forces who more or less even each other out.
I think a "big" coalition is the most likely outcome again. I wouldn't be surprised if supporting the Steinmeier nomination for president is already part of the deal so the SPD goes along with it again without to much of a fuss later in the year. If Merkel gets about 35% of the vote I don't see a big problem for her. She started out with 35% as well. Getting that as a result in a "crysis election" after being in power for 12 years isn't to shabby I think. Also I don't think the CDU would do better with a different candidate. The lack of viable options in the two big parties is ridiculous really. If I think about the top politicians I wouldn't want any one of those in charge of the country. The one exception being Steinmeier, coincidentally the politician with the highest favourability rating of all German politicians for quite some time. I really wonder why the SPD is taking him out of the picture by pushing him for president instead of chancellor. Who the hell likes Gabriel? Unsympathetic like Hillary for sure. On the other hand they aren't going to win this election no matter what. So having him as the president might be the best case scenario for the party anyway. I'm actually looking forward to having a politically versed person in that position again. The last few presidents where pretty much forgettable. I still wonder how many votes the AFD will actually get. Germans tend to do their "protest voting" in local elections rather than the nation wide ones, I think more people will go for stability in this times rather then upset, but I could be wrong. I find it hard to sense the national mood of late.
Cause they know another grand coaliton will propel AfD over 20% and likely over SPD. Around 35% the area is grey yes. But as Ive said before, the party basis is already dictating her the terms of her policies. The basis have been losing election and seats in the states for years. They are waiting to just jump at the opportunity. Not the top, not her sycophants in Berlin of course. That is why they send her into this election with the hope for damage control and then throw her on the dustbin of history. Jens Spahn is in ascendency already. That is correct. That is correct too. That is why I dont think they will go into another grand coalition. A lot will depend on the mobilization. Weve had demobilising election campaigns for the last 15 years so a lot will depend on who will turn out and who not, and who will vote for whom so the result is a tossup. Merkel and SPD will likely underperform and other overperform. And then it depends on how the campaign went, if there were attacks, if the polarization continues, if there is an effect ala people dont tell in surveys but they secretly vote AFD, others turning up because they fear a strong AfD etc. It's the first real interesting election since 1998
They're getting votes from the same clientele: white(German), male, working class, "globalism-losers", labor union members, normally lefties but with a stronger authoritarian weltanschauung. But really at the moment AfD is getting votes from all other parties in the spectrum and that is like unheard of. E.g. Linke and Greens are from the same leftern flesh as SPD. If Gabriel decides to run for SPD we might as well see SPD drop below 20% cause he's like a male Hillary.
Election date is likely Sunday, September 24th Party top candidates we know so far CDU: Angela Merkel (incumbent chancellor) CSU: to be determined in February 2017 SPD: to be determined in January 2017 Die Linke: Sahra Wagenknecht(co-chair of parliamentary group) & Dietmar Bartsch (co-chair of parliamentary group) Grüne/ B'90: Cem Özdemir (party co-chair) & Katrin Göring-Eckardt (chairwoman of the parliamentary group) FDP: Christian Lindner (party chairman) AfD: to be determined in April 2017
Why was this moved from the elections section? ok. Germany’s supreme court decides not to ban the neo-Nazi party http://www.economist.com/news/europ...ly-nasty-not-strong-enough-be-able-fulfil-its ok, what confuses me about the verdict is that what if the NPD gets big enough to get say 20-25% of the vote? will then the German SC look at banning them again. I assume the NPD and the AfD don't really get along, even if they have similar objectives.
They looked at their vote shares in the last 40 years also in the states and they never made it past a 2nd term in state parliaments and not into Bundestag since like the 60ies. Even if they did they dont have any opportunity to build alliences with others cause everyone opposes them and as long as they dont hold more than 50% in Bundestag, Bundesrat, Federal Assembly and 16 state parliaments they are far away from doing away with the democratic system. They are probably around 3-4% so the court thinks they are so neglectable that they do qualify for the "want to" part but "wont ever be able to". But they delivered another weapon in saying they are anti-democratic (by court decision) so -in Germany party are financed by the state- they can lose that little state funding which will basically bankrupt them. NPD are ethno-racist national-socialists. AfD are national-liberals, comparable to US republicans. First want more state, latter want less.
This is a development from since 2015. Normally yes, they would have a choint top candidate who then becomes chancellor. We also had 2 times where this would be a CSU candidate 1980 and 2002. But it also has happened that CSU would agree on their own election program if they have policy proposals that arent included in CDUs. It is a bit of an ambiguity here, cause CSU does this from time to time to justify their existence. If they want to negotiate after the election they need something to negotiate about, otherwise they become useless. One example is the so called toll they brought into the current government. Since the war CDU and CSU had this silent agreement famously known as "right to the union there must be only the wall" meaning both have always been playing this game where CDU plays a more moderate conservative, CSU a more strict conservative/rightwing part. This seems to be over. Now since Merkel opened the floodgates CSU fear they could lose their absolute majority in Bavaria and that there could develop a party right to both: AfD. So basically the last 1 1/2 year CSU have spent attacking Merkel over her refugee policy. It all boils down to a so called maximum limit of to be accepted refugees per year of 200.000. Merkel says it is unconstitional and cant be enforced, CSU say we need it to stop AfD and if we dont get it we wont be part of your next government. The plan was to meet in Febrary in some peace conference and declare to agree on mostly everything but the chancellor candidate and the refugee topic - but then the attack in Berlin happened so CSU are even more keen to keep AfD down so that everything is in a limbo right now.