German General Elections

[karohemd]

The preliminary results are in and it looks like it's going to be a christian union/liberal coalition with the social democrats getting their worst result in history (around 23%). The Pirate Party haven't made the 5% hurdle but 2% (the biggest percentage for single party under 5%) is a very impressive result for a party that has existed for only three years and was on the register for the general elections for the first time.

Comments

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

Interesting. My main readin gon the subject is very pro-FDP (don't know the German initials). The left seems to have taken something of a pasting all over Europe, and is likely to here as well (if you can current the current Labour party "left" anyway).

Glad to see someone commenting on the general election in Europe's largest country ;-) Even by the parochial standards of out media, the level of coverage of the German election has been pretty thin (alebit that's partly because eeryone knew who was going to win thr Chancellorship).

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Well, as I'm still a German citizen, it does interest me, although I was mainly interested in how well the Pirates were doing (I have somewhat of a thing for them because they seem to be the only ones who actually know what they are talking about. Their scope is very limited but that's part of their appeal). I guess most protest votes went to them this year (and a good thing, too, because previously it was the far right parties).

FDP is right (if you mean the Liberals, Freie Demokratische Partei). They've been doing quite well in recent years (around 14% this year, up by almost 5) while they almost didn't make it into parliament 8 years ago.

The social democrats are probably as left as Labour, especially since their main left elements split two years ago and founded the Left Party with the former PDS (and got a respectable 12%) but I'm too far removed to make a proper judgment on that.

[shannachie.livejournal.com]

I was hoping we'd escape the FDP. Why anybody would vote for the party who has in its agenda all the libertarian aspects that led to this financial crisis I am not able to understand. I really don't get it.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Don't ask me, I didn't vote for them, either!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to see the SPD do quite so badly: the Left + Greens have almost overtaken them in seats. Do you think it's possible that the SPD could be completely destroyed? -- or are they now down to a solid minimum of unshakeable support?

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Hm, no, I don't think they'll go under completely.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Sure, I meant: could they be destroyed as a party that leads government? When people eventually get fed up with the CDU/CSU, will they come back to the SPD, or might they turn to the Left / Greens instead?

There's a feeling in the Labour Party here (which might just be partly a superstition) that if they go below 18% support, that will signify that they will never lead a government again: other parties will have taken too much of their territory. But of course our electoral system is very different: if a UK party had 18% of the vote, that would probably give it much less than 18% of the seats in Parliament.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Hm, I think that's a bit early to tell. I guess all they need is a big screwup by the new govt. and people will be flocking back. All my info (and not much of it) is second hand, though, so it's a bit hard to tell.