German federal election (September 18, 2005)

[ag]

With the SPD slowly rising hopefully they can take back enough from the CDU/CSU and have an SPD/Left Party/Greens coalition.

No way. SPD themselves would rather go for the grand coalition than deal with the left.  You'd see CDU/FDP/Green or SDP/Green/FDP before you see anything with the left. Though in case of CDU/CSU/FDP government being impossible I would be betting on the grand coalition (with or without FDP and Greens).

[ag]

With the SPD slowly rising hopefully they can take back enough from the CDU/CSU and have an SPD/Left Party/Greens coalition.

No way. SPD themselves would rather go for the grand coalition than deal with the left.  You'd see CDU/FDP/Green or SDP/Green/FDP before you see anything with the left. Though in case of CDU/CSU/FDP government being impossible I would be betting on the grand coalition (with or without FDP and Greens).

Without.
The question is...will it last four years?

No. But it will last llong enough either for the Left to retreat to the East, where it belongs as a regionalist party, or a major new realignment to start emerging.  For SPD to ever join with the Left would mean to sign its own death warrant - it would split up like a ripe banana, losing much of its electorate in the process.

[ag]

In the East it is a slightly different story - PDS has developed in a regional party, not simply the far leftist one, nor merely the heir to the SED of inglorious memory.

But that's not the case in the West. There are enough voters in the West for whom such a coalition would be unacceptable, and enough people would be pushed to the FDP and the Greens to weaken SPD.  However, the big drain would be in the other direction: once the alliance is sanctified and the stigma is gone, many on the SPD's left would loose inhibitions and consider voting Left.

Of course, it so happens that the SPD leadership detests Lafontaine (the feeling is mutual, of course), so the theory is not likely to be tested in practice.

[ag]

Fascinating who an election that looked like an utter defeat for the left actually looks like a very close run now. Any idea on the possiblilty on a Grüne-Links-SPD coalition?

SPD leadership would, definitely, prefer a grand coalition with CDU.  I suspect the same about the Greens. Chances of the "Left" being in government after this election are no greater than would have been the chances of NPD if they could, arithmetically, form a majority with CDU and FDP. That is, they are precisely zero.

[ag]

What seems to be final results (but for the inner Dresden vote to happen on Oct. 2):

CDU/CSU - 35.2% of the vote, 225 seats
SPD - 34.3% of the vote, 222 seats
FDP - 9.8% of the vote, 61 seats
Linke.PDS - 8.7% of the vote, 54 seats
Greens - 8.1% of the vote, 51 seats
Others - 3.9% of the vote, no seats.

Whatever you wanted to happen, hats off to Schroeder's campaign skill. To make the certain rout a less than 1% popular vote difference with CDU/CSU - the guy is a genius.

So, what will it be? Options are:

1. CDU/CSU/SPD
2. CDU/CSU/FDP/Green
3. SPD/Green/FDP
4. SPD/Green minority supported from the outside by FDP
5. SDP/Green minority supported from the outside by Linke.PDS
6. CDU/CSU/FDP minority supported from the outside by Greens
7. New election

(While numerically, of course, SPD/Green/Linke.PDS, etc. are possible, I don't believe them whatsoever likely).

[ag]

Noth that it really matters, but the second-vote winners by Land:

Schleswig-Holstein - SPD
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern - SPD
Hamburg - SPD
Niedersachsen - SPD
Bremen - SPD
Brandenburg - SPD (runner-up - Linke.PDS)
Sachsen-Anhalt - SPD (runner-up - Linke.PDS)
Berlin - SPD
Nordrhein-Westfalen - SPD
Sachsen - CDU
Hessen - SPD
Thüringen - SPD (runner-up - Linke.PDS)
Rheinland-Pfalz - CDU
Baden-Württemberg - CDU
Bayern - CSU
Saarland - SPD

In each Land the winning party is unchanged from the last election. No party (not even CSU in Bavaria) won 50% of the vote in any Land.

[ag]

Individual seats to change hands:

1. Odenwald (Hessen) (SPD > CDU)
2. Pinneberg (Schleswig - Holstein) (SPD >CDU)
3. Frankfurt am Main II (Hessen) (SPD>CDU)
4. Greiz - Altenburger Land (Thuringen) (SPD>CDU)
5. Berlin-Steglitz - Zehlendorf (Berlin) (SPD>CDU)
6. Segeberg - Stormarn-Nord (Schleswig-Holstein) (SPD>CDU)
7. Herzogtum Lauenburg - Stormarn-Süd (Schleswig-Holstein) (SPD>CDU)
8. Berlin-Treptow - Köpenick (Berlin) (SPD>Linke) - this is now Gregor Gysi's seat.
9. Offenbach (Hessen) (SPD>CDU)
10. Karlsruhe-Stadt (Baden-Wurttemberg) (SPD>CSU)
11. Rendsburg-Eckernförde (Schleswig-Holstein) (SPD>CDU)
12. Leipziger Land - Muldentalkreis (Sachsen) (SPD>CDU)
13. Kyffhäuserkreis - Sömmerda - Weimarer Land I (Thuringen) (SPD>CDU)
14. Bergstraße (Hessen) (SPD>CDU)
15. Mettmann I (NRW) (SPD>CDU)
16. Neubrandenburg - Mecklenburg-Strelitz - Uecker-Randow (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern) (SPD>CDU)
17. Heidelberg (Baden-Wurttemberg) (SPD>CDU)
18. Rhein-Sieg-Kreis I (NRW) (SPD>CDU)
19. Stuttgart I (Baden-Wurttemberg) (SPD>CDU)
20. Steinburg - Dithmarschen Süd (Schleswigh-Holstein) (SPD>CDU)
21. Neuss I (NRW) (SPD>CDU)
22. Düren (NRW) (SPD>CDU)
23. Kreuznach (Rheinland-Pfalz) (SPD>CDU)
24. Trier (Rheinland-Pfalz) (SPD>CDU)
25. Düsseldorf I (NRW) (SPD>CDU)

Total: 24 seats went from SPD to CDU and 1 seat from SPD to Linke.

Aside from the SPD and CDU/CSU Linke got 3 direct seats and the Greens kept their single Berlin seat.

  

[ag]

Finally, if the 'big' coalition should develop, woud the Greens and the Link-PDS amalgamate?
 

From what I understand there is a serious mutual distaste between the Greens and the Linke (especially at the leadership level). There is also a very serious divergence in both the core ideology and style, as well as in the nature of their electorate. The current leadership of the Greens is, actually, very sane. They might not have done spectacularly, but they had a very solid result (I think it is the third-best result in their history), loosing only 4 seats from the last-time spectacular performance.  So, there does not seem to be a leadership change in offing, nor any need for some desperate actions. I don't see why the Greens would be tempted to have anything to do with the Linke.

[ag]

Merkel was a weak candidate.

Merkel was a weak candidate, Stoiber was a weak candidate. Who is the strong candidate?  Should they get Kohl out of the retirement? Well, he also was a bad candidate, at least the last time, wasn't he?

There was nothing intrinsically bad about Merkel. Schroeder made her appear a bad candidate.  Is he brutal in campaign? Sure.  But that's part of the job description.  Like him, or hate him, he knows how to campaign. If I were Merkel, I wouldn't want to have another election too soon (if there is a new election, I would think, Schroeder would stay on to fight).

[ag]

The Green and Linke electorates seem to be more different between themselves than the CDU and SPD electorates.  You might dislike both, but they are not at all similar, nor they are natural allies, nor have they ever been.  For Linke to be acceptable for the Green leadership, it would have to ditch much of its Eastern inheritance and, most definitely, the person of Oscar Lafontaine.  In other words, they'd have to ditch 3/4 of their electorate.  Ideologically, the anti-immigrant, environment-indifferent union- and old-commie-based Linke is anathema to the Greens.  Honestly, a CDU/SPD merger seems likelier - or, at least, less ideologically incongruent.

Again, they might seem equal nutties to you - but they are very, very different nutties.

As for your forecast - unlikely. 40+10 for CDU/CSU/FDP seems to be an overshoot, given these results. FDP is at its ceiling - and much of its electorate came from CDU, and it won't happen again.  If CDU/CSU/FDP were to get 50, it would be more like 43/7. The rest would depend on what happens in the rematch: given what Schroeder did to Merkel over the campaign, an immediate rematch against him would not be advisable for her.

I don't really think the SPD/Green with outside Linke is very likely (it is definitely a very bad option):  I would think Schroeder would prefer a very quick rematch. So, even if it happens he would try to avoid compromising with the Linke to generate a rapid crisis.

A caretaker CDU/CSU/FDP government would only have couple of months to do anything (unless it manages to get Green or Linke support), so the country will stay in the same campaign mode that worked so well for Schroeder.  It would be unpredictable, of course, but I would give Schroeder an advantage.

[ag]

I hope so, because I utterly despise Merkel. What a vile woman.

God, why? She is a very decent person, and would have been a great Chancellor. She is a lousy public politician though - at least, in comparison with Schroeder

[ag]

Supports Bush foreign policy. Seeing German troops end up in Iraq would be a nightmare.

The number of times over the last months she said she would not do it under any circumstances is, probably, greater than the number of times you said "thank you" in your life. Nor would she have any incentives to do it - unless she enjoys public political suicide. Nor would she be supported in it either by CSU or by FDP if she wanted to do it.  The most she'd do is to make a few supportive speaches during a visit to the US.

[ag]

I had a lookaround for the NPD. They topped 5% in 8 constituencies, all in Saxony:
Sächsische Schweiz - Weißeritz 7.1%
Kamenz - Hoyerswerda - Großenhain 6.5%
Bautzen - Weißwasser 6.3%
Annaberg - Aue-Schwarzenberg 6.3%
Freiberg - Mittleres Erzgebirge 6.1%
Görlitz - Löbau-Zittau - Niesky 6.0%
Döbeln - Mittweida - Meißen II 5.8%
Delitzsch - Torgau-Oschatz - Riesa 5.2%

Sounds like the usual suspects.

Interesting; what are all those areas like? Seeing as the NPD are the most blatently Neo Nazi far-right party in the E.U it'd be interesting to see what the areas they do well in are like

Interestingly, NPD did quite strong around Bautzen, and in Brandenburg their best result is in Lausitz.  These are the last outposts of Germany's ownly surviving "native" ethnic minority: the Luzica Sorbs (a Slavic group).  Most likely, there is no causal link: these are just remote and poor Eastern German districts (the remoteness is also one reason for the Sorbian survival there), but still interesting.

[ag]

I am not a German or German-based, but I believe the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, is a major Bavarian paper (in fact, I would guess, the major Bavarian paper).  Should be reliable, especially on CSU.