2012 Elections in Germany

[Antonio the Sixth]

The saddest thing is that the FDP will almost certainly get in...

[Antonio the Sixth]

God, the German party system is really broken.

[Antonio the Sixth]

True, but they were punished in the 2009 for the grand coalition, and I doubt their voters are in it for another one. 

Yeah, you're right. Just noting that the German consensus between center-left and center-right is pretty close together in the grand scheme of things. Compare Democrats-Republicans...or Torys-Labour.

I guess the fact that the CDU isn't nearly as insane as the Republicans helps a lot. The SPD, on the other hand, is only barely to the left of Democrats.

[Antonio the Sixth]

The attitude on display here contributed greatly to the total corruption of Italian politics in the DC era. Just saying.

Could you elaborate for those who don't know Italian politics?

Italy used full-PR without threshold from 1946 to 1994. Obviously no party had an absolute majority, but the two strongest parties were christian democrats (DC) and communists (PCI). Basically all the smaller parties gathered around DC in an unideological "grand coalition" (even the Socialists joined in the 1960s), leaving communists and neofascists as the only real opposition. This lasted for almost 50 years, until all those parties suddenly collapsed in the early 1990s following corruption investigations.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Sadly, I'm willing to bet that the FDP will eventually make it.