2012 Elections in Germany

[Middle-aged Europe]

Seems like we're gonna have early elections in Northrhine-Westphalia as well this year.

So three state elections in Germany then. NRW won't be that exicting though. As it stands now, early elections would transform the incumbent SPD/Green minority government into a SPD/Green majority government.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I already heard the half-serious joke that the NRW-FDP probably wants to get rid of Philipp Rösler as federal chairman. Hence their current suicide mission in the NRW state parliament.

[Middle-aged Europe]

YouGov poll for NRW, apparently released today (?)

SPD 33%
CDU 33%
Greens 17%
Pirates 7%
Left 5%
FDP 2%

Majority for SPD/Greens

[Middle-aged Europe]

Pretty tight schedule this year...

March 18: Presidential election (Federal convention)
March 25: Saarland state election
May 6: Schleswig-Holstein state election
May 13: Northrhine-Westphalia state election

[Middle-aged Europe]

Infratest dimap poll for Northrhine-Westphalia, conducted and released today:

SPD 38%
CDU 34%
Greens 14%
Pirates 5%
Left 4%
FDP 2%

[Middle-aged Europe]

Shipload of new polls for the March/May state elections has arrived.


Saarland (Infratest dimap, 03/15)
CDU 33%
SPD 33%
Left 16%
Pirates 6%
Greens 5%
FDP 3%

Saarland (FGW, 03/16)
CDU 34%
SPD 34%
Left 15%
Pirates 6%
Greens 5%
FDP 2%

Schleswig-Holstein (dimap, 03/16)
CDU 34%
SPD 33%
Greens 15%
Pirates 5%
SSW 4%
FDP 4%
Left 3%

Northrhine-Westphalia (FGW, 03/15)
SPD 37%
CDU 34%
Greens 13%
Pirates 6%
Left 4%
FDP 2%

[Middle-aged Europe]

Joachim Gauck 991
Beate Klarsfeld 126
Olaf Rose 3
Abstentions 108
Invalid votes 4

CDU/CSU, SPD, Greens, and FDP have exactly 1100 electors together. Along with Free Voters and SSW, who had endorsed Gauck too, its 1111.

The Left has 124 electors, the NPD 3.

[Middle-aged Europe]

A new NRW poll released today (compared to 2010 results)

...

FDP: 4% (-2,7)

Lindner surge!

Hey, even I like the guy a bit. They send their best man (that they've got left anyway).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Saarland's population is slightly smaller than Rhode Island's and CDU and SPD have agreed on a grand coalition beforehand.

So, there are only two semi-important questions to settle:
1) Who becomes the strongest party, because this decides who is going to be minister-president in the grand coalition?
2) Are Greens and Pirates going to make it?

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hope the Greens snuff it.

Jörg Schönenborn strongly implied that they probably won't.

[Middle-aged Europe]

29% of all male first-time voters voted Pirate.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Another grand coalition in Saarland?  Wow, big change there.

Why's that? This would be the first grand coalition Saarland had since 1961.

[Middle-aged Europe]

New NRW poll from Infratest-dimap

SPD 40%
CDU 32%
Greens 12%
Pirates 5%
FDP 4%
Left 3%

[Middle-aged Europe]

OMG, a woman! Well, girl.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Btw, I still find it hilarious that the first (and perhaps only) Pirate woman who would enter the state parliament in Schleswig-Holstein is former Green federal chairwoman Angelika Beer.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Official result for Saarland was just proclaimed.

CDU 35.2%
SPD 30.6%
Left 16.1%
Pirates 7.4%
Greens 5.0%
Family Party 1.7%
FDP 1.2%
NPD 1.2%

[Middle-aged Europe]

Notable Saarland figures:

- FDP beats the NPD by 267 votes and therefore manages to come in seventh instead of eighth.

- Precise result for the Greens is 5.039%.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Since their success in the Berlin state election last September, party membership of the Pirates has nearly doubled (from 12,000 to 22,000 members). Meaning they're now one third as large as the Greens or the FDP. We'll see what effect Saarland has.

[Middle-aged Europe]

From the point of view of current party chairman Philipp Rösler, it doesn't really matter whether the FDP makes it past 5% in the NRW election or not. I assume there will be calls for Christian Lindner to take over party either way.

If the FDP ends up below 5% in NRW it will attributed to Rösler's failed leadership and they will call for his resignation. If the FDP ends up above 5% it will attributed to the fact that Lindner is the only one left in party who's able to win elections and so they will call for Rösler's resignation sooner or later.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Schleswig-Holstein poll (Infratest dimap)

CDU 34%
SPD 32%
Greens 15%
Pirates 5%
SSW 4%
FDP 4%
Left 4%

[Middle-aged Europe]

I wonder whether the FDP is in full self-destruct mode now since they actively sabotaged the Schlecker bailout. How long will the CDU be willing to take this crap?

In any case, Rösler's current strategy to "save" the party seems to be: Be as unpredictable as possible.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Why don't the Greens and the Pirates merge - I can't imagine that they are all that far apart on the issues and they must both appeal to a similar segment of the population.

Yeah, sure, if you can come up with a plan how the Pirates are gonna accept a gender quota for all party positions (or how the Greens are gonna accept abolition of the quota) that doesn't result in murder, mayhem, and man-made megadeaths.

The Greens have a women's quota of 50%, the SPD has a quota of 40%, and the Pirates have none. The Greens think that the SPD's quota is unacceptedly low and not pursued rigorously enough. Figure out the rest.

Besides, what is the point of the Pirates' existence (from the Pirates' point of view), if they're gonna merge with a "mainstream" party at the earliest opportunity? If a Pirate had wanted to join the Greens he had already done so instead of joining the Pirates.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Why don't the Greens and the Pirates merge - I can't imagine that they are all that far apart on the issues and they must both appeal to a similar segment of the population.

Somewhat similar. Certainly the Pirates wouldn't have emerged if the Greens were still the 80s Greens.

Depends on how you define "80s Greens" though. If the Greens were really still the 80s Greens they would pursue a staunch anti-computer/anti-Internet stance. For instance, their somewhat neo-luddite 1987 campaign platform is pretty funny read in that respect. Therefore the Pirates would probably exist and poll at 20% right now.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yeah, from 2013 onwards we're gonna have another Grand coalition under Merkel. We already knew that.

Maybe Sigmar Gabriel would be ballsy/crazy enough to actually do a SPD/Green/Pirate coalition, but Steinmeier and Steinbrück like to play it safe. And this means coalition with the CDU.

[Middle-aged Europe]

^^

Forsa poll. Having the Greens overtake the SPD (and almost the CDU too) is not sexy enough anymore, so the emergence of the Pirates creates new opportunities for spectacular polls.

Call me when another (more serious) pollster shows that too.