German Elections & Politics

[Representative simossad]

Haha, Schulzmentum is absolutely unreal to me as a Dutch citizen. The guy is hated here.

Not only there, he's hated in Germany aswell. These Fake media polls can't hide it Long.

Can we please stop saying that everything we don't approve is fake? Thank you.

[Representative simossad]

So they're essentially just repurposing old Trump memes?

No, according to those who started this, this is a satire on what has happened in the US. It mocks the internet hype around Donald Trump and directly refers to him (big hands, "Hohe Energie"=high energy etc). But there are also some basic ideological prinicples attached to it, e.g. the replacement of the fanaticism about the border wall by the plan to build new bridges.

[Representative simossad]

No one has reported about the presidential election held tomorrow. That's understandable, because that procedure will be fairly boring.

The election takes place in the Federal Assembly. This institution comes together very 5 years and its only purpose is to elect the president. This year, 1260 members will come together, all 630 members of the Bundestag and another 630 members elected by the 16 state parliaments. State parties often nominate celebreties to be part of the Bundesversammlung, for example Joachim Löw, coach of the national soccer team (nominated by the Greens Baden-Württemberg), Carolin Kebekus, comedian (nominated by the Greens North Rhine-Westphalia), Martin Sonneborn, MEP of the satire party THE PARTY (nominated by the Pirate Party North Rhine-Westphalia), and Natalia Wörner, actress and partner of the Minister of Justice, Heiko Maas, (nominated by the SPD Baden-Württemberg).

These are the factions in the Bundesversammlung:



Union - 42.8%
SPD - 30.6%
Greens - 11.6%
Left - 7.8%
FDP - 2.9%
AfD - 2.8%
Pirates - 0.9%
Free Voters - 0.8%
SSW - 0.1%
BVB - 0.1%
unaffiliated - 0.1%

Parties in red are local parties, the Free Voters are a strong party in Bavaria, the SSW is the regional party of the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein, and the BVB have a few seats in the Brandenburg Landtag. The unaffiliated member is Erika Steinbach, former CDU-representative.

The candidate who is most likely to win in Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), former foreign minister. He is one of the most popular politicians in Germany and has approval ratings between 60%-70%, being the most populat German politican besides Wolfgang Schäuble. He is supported by the SPD, the Union, the FDP and by most members of the Greens, so he will easily win in the first round by a large majority. Other candidates are Christoph Butterwegge, nominated by the Left, Albrecht Glaser, nominated by the AfD, Alexander Holdt, a judge who was part in a really famous court show on German Television, nominated by the Free Voters, and the last one, Engelbert Sonneborn, father of Martin Sonneborn, nominated by the Pirate Party and THE PARTY.

Nothing spectecular. The only interesting thing to watch will be the margins, because Merkel was originally opposed to Steinmeier as president. We'll see.

[Representative simossad]

Gauland and others argue that there is no way the expulsion will be backed by the party's court of arbitration. Hence they voted against it. I personally think Höcke is a liability, but let's just once again make it clear that "monument of shame" didn't refer to the monument itself but to the acts behind it. The guy has a rather checkered past and I do think the party would be better off w/o him but ultimately this expulsion will fail because he will be able to make the case that I have just presented.

nice try.

[Representative simossad]

1. At what point do voters for the smaller parties start to feel the need to vote "strategically" to choose the chancellor. Let's say i am a Green voter but the final poll says that the CDU and SPD are deadlocked at 33% each and the Greens are at 8%. Maybe I'd consider "lending" my vote to the SPD knowing that the the SPD beats the CDU by so much as a single seat - Schulz would have a claim on being chancellor in a new grand coalition...of course some FDP voters could vote strategically for the CDU to keep Merkel - which could in turn have the unintended consequence of causing the FDP to fall below the 5% hurdle again and get no seats!

2. What would happen if the SPD beat the CDU by a handful of seats? Some say the CDU would refuse to be a junior partner to the SPD, so then what government would emerge? Could you have an SPD minority government?

Question one is not really easy to answer. On the one hand, you have voters switching parties to bigger parties, which happened in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2016. This election was propably the most polarized that year, and nearly all of the Green voters went to the SPD, which nearly lead to the dropout of the Greens. On the one hand, you have voters from large parties going to the small parties to prevent them from dropping out of the parliament. That was for example the case in 1998 when some CDU voters went with the FDP, which was seen as 4%-5% in polls just before the election and finished at 6.2%. So, there is no clear answer to your question, I think this has to do with political dynamics in Germany.

Your second answer is much easier to answer. I don't believe that there will be a minority government by the SPD. Minority governments on a state level are really rare, and they have never been the case on the federal level. Minority governments have their tradition in Skandinavian countries, but not in Germany, no. I think that if it's not going to be a leftist coalition or a "traffic light" coalition between SPD-Greens-FDP, it is going to be a grand coalition with Schulz as cancellor. The odds are pretty low that the CDU would refuse being a part of a grand coalition.

[Representative simossad]

Martin Schulz was officially nominated as candidate for chancellor and as the new party leader of the SPD. He won 605 of 605 votes cast, and thus a result of 100%. That has never happened before in the SPD. He attacked Trump by saying: "Whoever labels free reporting as fake news, whoever deals with deals with the media selectively, applies the axe on the roots of democracy."

In his farewell speech, Gabriel indirectly endorsed Emanuel Macron for president in France by saying: "Imagine how we can change Europe if Martin Schulz becomes chancellor of Germany and Emanuel Macron becomes president of France!" Even though Hamon does not really have a chance in this race, Gabriel endorsed an independent candidate over the nominee of the SPD's sister party, which is notable IMO.

[Representative simossad]

HÖHE ENERGIE

[Representative simossad]

Big Schulz veeeeeeeeeeery strong candidate! Veeeeeeery strong! The German Hillary!

It's a wonderful morning in Germany, lots of sun, still a bit cold beacuse of the wind, but the summer is clearly loading.

Yesterday, once again, I was proven damn right. Not a big surprise, but enough to write a few sentences.

As you all know the litte Saarland voted yesterday. Normally not that important, but always interesting.

There are these takeaways:

1. SPD/Schulz: The big Loser of yesterday. There's no "Schulz effect" or euphoria for the Capo outside of German media headquarters, there's simply an interest of getting rid of Merkel. This guy has nothing to show. Neither is he a good rhetorician, neither has he Charisma nor a program. Simply hot air, big mouth and a radical plan to destroy and dissolve Germany to be part of a big "United Nations of Europe". The more the people learn about him, the fewer fall for his and the medias Propaganda. He's the German Hillary Clinton. Veeeeeeeery popular in polls, veeeeery weak at the Ballot box.

2. CDU: Big win, not question. I stopped being angry about voters who always fall for their conservative election campaign after and before governing like Liberals. People liked Madame Prime Minister and therefore the party got a boost. Once more it shows that German state and local elections are more about people and likability than politics.

3. Greens: Big joy yesterday. This radical left-wing anti-German crap is disappering every day a bit more. Very good! At least Schulz has something I can thank him for :-D

4. FDP: Well... I wouldn't bet that they will easily enter Bundestag again. They will get a boost from NRW and Schleswig-Holstein because of their most prominent politicians being Leaders there, but they still suck and without having any reasonable plan or utility they will have a hard time in a lot of states.

5. AfD: The Saar AfD is a totally chaotic group having had several scandals and infights over the last couple of years. They got a poor showing and they absoluetly deserved it. Unity is important, I hope Petry learns from it and the Saar AfD starts to become ONE party and takes the role as the secon-biggest Opposition Party in parliament.
Nevertheless it is promising that even when the national party is nearly doing nothing to help (very few Money ressources and menpower to help in the election campaign) and with a bit strange and questionable candidates on the Ballot and with an election campaign only speaking about CDU vs. Red-Red-(Green), there are enough voters everywhere in the country to easily enter parliament. With FDP and Greens failing, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

6. Left: Oscar we still love you - but there are every time fewer people who still remember the 80s and 90s.

All in all: Thanks to the AfD there's no red-red majority. Secretly, the CDU will be very pleased with the result and this fact.

That's perhabs the worst election analysis I have ever read in my entire life.

[Representative simossad]

That's perhabs the worst election analysis I have ever read in my entire life.

You may not like it, but it's all true and you know it ;-)

But I can imagine that you mostly read "analysis" from the German left-wing media propaganda networks, so you're reading crap every day and election. No wonder you're shocked when reading reality. Sorry, not sorry.

If we're talking about the German public GEZ-paid media (pay for the propaganda or get jailed in the "most free Germany of all time"), yesterday I saw an Analysis of the ARD/ZDF talk Show guests in 2017:

CDU/CSU 29 appearances
SPD 24
Greens 12
FDP 8
Linke 8
AfD 1

Great Democracy we're having. But of course, the German media is totally non-bias - let's get outraged about RT Propaganda! ;-)

Thank you for indirectly supporting my argument.

[Representative simossad]

I see, again too much reality and arguments for the average media victim ;-)

Yeah, you really seem the "Lügenpresse" sort.  In which case, maybe we should start a "Klartext89 forum ban" countdown...

Well, seems that you're really powerful and succesful ;-)

Nevertheless once again nice to see the fascist left in action - and of course failing.

Where did you learn these phrases - Junge Freiheit or compact magazine?

[Representative simossad]

Remember February, when Schulz was set to be the next chancellor?

The campaigns haven't really started yet.

[Representative simossad]

Alice Weidel and Alexander Gauland will lead the AfD as the top two into the general election in september. While Frauke Petry remains chairwoman of the AfD and the leading candidate of the AfD Saxony, Weidel and Gauland will be the national faces of the the party.

Weidel (38) is said to be a representative of the libertarian faction of the party. She is known for fundamental critic against the Euro and the European Union, and she supported the expulsion of Björn Höcke. Gauland (76) is an extreme nationalist and a supporter of Höcke. He was involved in a scandal when he said in 2016 that no one would like to live next to Jerome Boateng (famous black German soccer player). He also stated that Germany needs a strong border policy and that Germany needs to "endure these horrible pictures" and that it "must not get blackmailed by the eyes of refugee children". Gaulands daughter is a protestand priest who called the remarks of her father "disgusting". She herself gives shelter to a man from Eritrea in her parsonage. It's clear that Gauland is not a huge sympathy factor.

[Representative simossad]

New YouGov NRW poll:



Time for Hannelore Kraft to chill, after that outlier-ish looking ARD poll.

That poll was really strange. The majority of polls sees the CDU below 30 percent in NRW.

[Representative simossad]

Totally out of the loop here. Haven't looked at the polling for several months and just noticed that the SPD has jumped about 10% over the past two months or so. Can anyone give me a brief explanation of why that is?

Martin Schulz.