German Elections & Politics

[Middle-aged Europe]

Everything seems to have calmed down a bit at the moment. Merkel, Seehofer, and Gabriel have met but won't tell what they have talked about. Perhaps they have told their own forces to shut the f**k up for the moment though. Plus, the Edathy scandal is starting to get overshadowed by Ukraine in the media.

Merkel should thank Yanukovych for doing her a favour. 

[minionofmidas]

Breaking: Threshold for the Euros is unconstitutional.

[Tender Branson]

Breaking: Threshold for the Euros is unconstitutional.

Look, it's Lewis !

[Franknburger]

I may conceivably reconsider.

Please consider to reconsider

[Zanas]

So all this scandal over child porn was overshadowed by Ukraine I gather ? Nothing more worthy of mention ?

Anyway, Forsa poll :
CDU/CSU 40
SPD 22
Linke 11
Greens 10
AfD 6
FDP 4
Andere 7

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yup, pretty much.

Just for the record, they were recent calls for the resignation of Federal Criminal Police chief Jörg Ziercke und there's gonna be a Bundestag committee of inquiry on the Edathy affair. And Edathy is still at some unknown location outside of Germany.

But nobody cares right now... not the media anyway. Steinmeier is busy travelling between Kiev, Berlin, Paris, and Brussels. And Sigmar Gabriel wanted to go to Moscow this week too, I think.

[Middle-aged Europe]

FDP drops to 3% again.

CDU/CSU 42%
SPD 23%
Greens 10%
Left 10%
AfD 5%
FDP 3%

(Emnid, 03/09)

[Hans-im-Glück]

Tomorrow are Local Elections in Bavaria.

From 18:00 local time you can see the results here:

http://www.kommunalwahl2014.bayern.de/
http://www.br.de/wahl/kommunalwahl-2014-bayern-aktuell-102.html

Here you can see the live coverage at the Bavarian TV:

http://megatv.to/Live-Stream/allgemein/br3.html

The most intresting race is who will be the new Mayor of Munich. The currant Mayor Christian Ude can't run and the race is open.

[palandio]

In my eyes the Munich CSU poster campaign has been quite intelligent, attacking the SPD-Green government on crucial topics (housing etc.). Nevertheless the local CSU chapter is still not too popular. They will have difficulties to win in the run-off.

My prediction:
CSU 33.0% (from 27.7%)
SPD 32.5% (from 39.8%)
Greens 13.0% (from 13.0%)
AfD 3.5% (new)
FDP 3.0% (from 6.8%)
Left 3.0% (from 3.7%)
Free Voters 2.0% (from 1.6%)
Pirates 2.0% (new)
Pink List 1.5% (from 1.9%)
Ecological Democratic Party 1.5% (from 1.7%)
Bavaria Party 1.5% (from 1.5%)
HUT 1.5% (new)
Citizens' Initiative Foreigner Stop 1.0% (from 1.4%)
The Liberty 1.0% (new)

Mayor, first round:
Reiter, SPD 38.0%
Schmid, CSU 33.0%
Nallinger, Greens 15.0%
Waechter, AfD 3.0%
Mattar, FDP 2.0%
Wolf, Left 2.0%
Altmann, Free Voters 1.5%
Zeilnhofer-Rath, HUT 1.5%
Ruff, Eco-Dems 1.0%
Muenzinger, BP 1.0%
Richter, Foreigner Stop 1.0%
Stuerzenberger, Liberty 1.0%

Run-off:
Reiter 55.0%, Schmid 45.0%.

[Franknburger]

First results from Bavaria are in. Notable:

Nürnberger Land county: In two towns (Rothenbach/ Pegnitz and Lauf/ Pegnitz), the Green candidate for mayor received most votes. Both towns will  go into run-off; Lauf Greens vs. CSU, Rothenbach Greens & FW vs. SPD,

Schweinfurt City elects a CSU mayor (67%). As industrial town, Schweinfurt should be red, but it apparently isn't.

Passau elects an SPD mayor with 65%.

Coburg elects an SPD mayor with 51%

[palandio]

Local elections are highly influenced by local issues. Popular incumbents can win by wide margins even if they don't belong to the natural majority party. Retiring Munich mayor Christian Ude (SPD) rightfully said "The first election is the most difficult one" when commenting on the first-round result of Dieter Reiter (SPD). In my eyes the heavy SPD losses in Munich are kind of a reversal to the mean. (My predictions turned out to be not so far off, after all...)

Munich results, mayor:
Reiter, SPD 40.4%
Schmid, CSU 36.7%
Nallinger, Greens 14.7%
Mattar, FDP 1.4%
Waechter, AfD 1.2%
Wolf, Left 1.2%
Altmann, Free Voters 1.1%
Ruff, Eco-Dems 1.1%
Zeilnhofer-Rath, HUT 0.9%
Muenzinger, BP 0.5%
Stuerzenberger, Liberty 0.5%
Richter, Foreigner Stop 0.4%

Run-off between Reiter and Schmid on 30 March.


City council:
CSU 32.6% (from 27.7%), 26 seats
SPD 30.8% (from 39.8%), 25 seats
Greens 16.6% (from 13.0%), 13 seats
FDP 3.4% (from 6.8%), 3 seats
Free Voters 2.7% (from 1.6%), 2 seats
AfD 2.5% (new), 2 seats
Ecological Democratic Party 2.5% (from 1.7%), 2 seats
Left 2.4% (from 3.7%), 2 seats
Pink List 1.9% (from 1.9%), 1 seat
HUT 1.3% (new), 1 seat
Pirates 1.2% (new), 1 seat
Bavaria Party 0.9% (from 1.5%), 1 seat
Citizens' Initiative Foreigner Stop 0.7% (from 1.4%), 1 seat
The Liberty 0.6% (new), no seat

SPD + Greens + Pink List: 39 seats, total seats: 80

[Tender Branson]

I predict Reiter to win by 52-48 in the run-off, or so.

It's also possible that the CSU-man wins this.

...

Also, considering the Red-Green-Pinkie coalition was voted out, which coalition is now likely in Munich ?

[ERvND]

Other notable results:

Nuremberg: Ulrich Maly (SPD) wins by 67% and is now expected to be the party's frontrunner in the next state elections.

Augsburg: The CSU mayor wins in the first round, despite longstanding quarrels within his city government.

Regensburg: The SPD candidate reaches 49,97%, with only 18 vtes missing to avoid a runoff.

Ingolstadt: The CSU defends its stronghold easily.

Fürth: The SPD candidate wins by 73%.

Erlangen: The long-term CSU mayor is forced into a runoff against the SPD candidate.


Despite some successes in bigger cities, the SPD loses overall, especially in rural areas, where it's now only the third or fourth power in some places.

 

[palandio]

I predict Reiter to win by 54-46.
In the case Reiter wins there are several main possibilities:
1) SPD+Greens+Pink+ÖDP, either as a formal coalition or as some kind of working agreement.
(In theory SPD+Greens+Pink+1 councilor would be enough, because the mayor is tie-breaker.)
2) SPD+CSU.
3) No coalition, minority government, changing alliances. The normal case in many smaller cities and towns.
In the case Schmid wins:
1) CSU+SPD.
2) CSU+Greens+1 councilor (again the ÖDP might come into mind, but also FDP etc.)
3) No formal coalition.

@ERvND: You're right that the SPD trend in many rural areas is still negative. The CSU has not been able to gain much from this. The winners are local outfits and smaller parties.

[Franknburger]

Here's the final result of the Bavarian local election - the voting system appears to by quite complicated, so counting took quite a while:

CSU                 39.7 (-0.3)
SPD                 20.7 (-1.9)
Greens            10.2 (+2.0)
FW                   3.9 (+3.9)*
FDP                  2.4 (-1.4)*
ÖDP                 2.1 (+0.3)
other Parties     2.2 (--)*
open party lists 3.7 (+1.2)
local groups     15.3 (-3.7)

*)  not running in all cities / counties. Linke, AfD and Pirates typically only ran in the major cities.

When local lists centred around one party are included, the result is as follows:

CSU                 39.9 (-0.4)
SPD                 20.7 (-1.9)
Greens             10.8 (+1.9)
FW                    5.1 (+5.1)
FDP                   2.7 (-1.5)*
ÖDP                  3.1 (+0.3)*

Surprisingly, the Greens have been the big winner, at the expense of the SPD. Low participation (43.5%, -4.9) is part of the story, but the Greens have gained 90,000 additional voters (plus 20%). FW were not on the ballot in 2008, Their gain is roughly corresponding to the decrease with local lists (several of which may have relabelled), plus the FDP loss.

The SPD sweeped Fürth (51.1) and Nuremberg (44.1). They came in above 30% in the cities (but not the surrounding counties) of Munich, Regensburg, Aschaffenburg and Weiden/Opf, and in the NE (Coburg/ Hof/ Wunsiedel)

The Grreen strongholds were university towns (Bamberg 18.5, Wurzburg 17.5,  Erlangen 15.8 ), Munich (16.6) and even more so the surrounding counties (Freising - MUC airport 19.4, Starnberg 17.4), the cities of Landshut (16.3) and Rosenheim (16.0), Berchtesgaden and Traunstein near Salzburg (15.5 each), and parts of the Nuremberg periphery (Schwalbach 15.9).

FW came in strongly in the periphery of medium-scale car-manufacturing cities, most notably Neuburg-Schrobenhausen (near Ingolstadt, 33.4), Landshut county (26.7) and Regensburg county (25.1).

The CSU, finally, swept the countryside. They achieved close to or more than 50% in and around Schweinfurt, Rosenheim and Straubing, around Augsburg, and along the Inn.

Maps
http://www.br-online.de/kommunalwahl/
(click on "Parteistärke" on the  right-hand menu for individual party maps).

[Tender Branson]

Dieter Reiter (SPD) is winning the Munich mayoral run-off today with almost 60-40 vs. the CSU-guy.

[Enno von Loewenstern]

Munich:

Dieter Reiter (SPD) won with 56,7%. The SPD lost 12 percent compared to 2008 where Christian Ude got 66,8%. The CSU recovered but is still far away from gaining the office of mayor.

[palandio]

The SPD has gained the mayor position in Regensburg and Erlangen.

On the other hand SPD candidates had bad luck in the counties of Dachau (49.8%), Traunstein (49%), Schwandorf (49%) and Hof (48%).

For the first time there will be two Green Landräte in Miltenberg (Lower Franconia) and Miesbach (Upper Bavaria). Miesbach has become known in the last weeks for the CSU Landrat Jakob Kreidel who was involved in several scandals including a birthday party for 100 thousand €, paid for by the local Sparkasse (municipal bank). Otherwise the county of Miesbach is known for its traditional costumes, mountains, rural conservatism and the Valley of the Rich (Tegernsee valley). To me personally the Green win in Miesbach came as a surprise.

[Enno von Loewenstern]

In the overall balance of the two rounds of voting in 77 counties and cities changed in 17 cases, the party affiliation. While the CSU loses seven incumbents, they added ten wins and will in future be 62 county councilors and mayor in Bavaria. The SPD lost six items and receive three new ones, so that there will soon be 18 Social Democratic officials. From ÖDP, Free Voters and other groups of voters supported candidates officiate future in 15 cities and counties. The Greens represent a district administrator.

[palandio]

Overall these elections should make all major parties think about certain issues:

CSU:
- Lost even more mayor posts in the cities and becomes an increasingly less urban party.
- Their proportional vote share for the Kreistage was even lower than their record low in 2008.
- Despite Munich being a toss-up in every federal and regional election with CSU candidates winning almost all constituencies, their local Munich chapter remain an incompetent bunch of losers unable to gain from problems like the heated housing market.

SPD:
- Their proportional vote share fell by 2% and is now even lower than their record low in 2008.
- In many parts of rural Bavaria they are now only one of several minor parties like the Greens, Free Voters, Eco-Dems and unaffiliated voter groups.
- SPD candidates for the mayor or Landrat positions are still able to win (or almost win) in places like Dingolfing-Landau, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, but not because they are SPD candidates, it all depends on local factors and personal popularity.

Greens:
- What do Green local politicians have that their federal elite lacks?

[Enno von Loewenstern]

Forsa

42 % CDU/CSU   
23 % SPD
10 % Left      
9 % Greens   
6 % AfD
----
4 % FDP      
6 % Others


INSA

41,0 % CDU/CSU   
24,5 % SPD   
11,0 % Greens
9,0 % Left   
5,0 % AfD
-----
3,0 % FDP   
2,0 % Pirates
4,5 % Others


Saxony state election 31 August 2014

First dimap, second INSA

CDU 45, 43
Left 17, 22
SPD 15, 15
AfD 6, 7
Greens 6, 5
-----
FDP 4, 2
NPD 4, 1
Others 3, 5

[Enno von Loewenstern]

infratest dimap
         
41 % CDU/CSU   
26 % SPD   
10 % Greens      
9 % Left       
5 % AfD
----
4 % FDP   
5 % Others



Former East Germany

35 % CDU   
22 % SPD
22  % Left      
6 % AfD   
6 % Greens
-----
2 % FDP   
7 % Others

Former West Germany

42 % CDU/CSU   
27 % SPD   
11 % Greens   
5 % AfD   
5 % Left   
5 % FDP
-----
5 % Others

[Enno von Loewenstern]

Emnid

CDU/CSU 41 %    
SPD 24 %    
Greens 10 %    
Left 10 %    
AfD 6 %
-----
FDP 3 %    
Others 6 %

[Enno von Loewenstern]

facebook likes of the main german parties

96.332 AfD
89.502 Pirates
77.611 CDU
69.680 SPD
60.303 Left
48.105 Greens
27.291 FDP
21.524 CSU

[Enno von Loewenstern]

INSA

41,0% CDU/CSU    
24,0% SPD    
10,0% Greens    
10,0% Left    
6,0% AfD
------
4,0% FDP
2,0% Pirates       
3,0% Others