Merkel.

[JohnathanOHughes]

Angela Merkel, Germanys leader, may have some trouble getting reelected to her post, whats your opinion about her?

[Vega]

Is she? Her party is leading in every opinion poll by at the very least 10 points.

[Derpist]

Angela Merkel, Germanys leader, may have some trouble getting reelected to her post

Haha, no. That said, my opinion of her is not very high, to say the least.

This. She's worse than the SED-ists she toppled.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Germans are basically extremely boring and pragmatic in their general elections; and Merkel is very good at being elected (as opposed to, err, actually governing).

[Boston Bread]

I don't see any non-CDU coalition that can replace her. She's in power for as long as she wants.

[Rob Bloom]

In my opinion, Merkel is the worst chancellor Germany has had after World War II.

She deserves a lot of blame for the rise of right wing partys in Europe by imposing austerity politics that have proven economically wrong and disastrous for the people especially in the southern and western parts of Europe for six years now. Who do you think Greeks will vote for, now that Syriza has been all but forced to comply with demands of Merkel and Schäuble to slash their social security programs?

After the election of 2009 Merkel initiated a comeback of nuclear plants in Germany, only to make a full flop after the disaster in Fukushima, when she suddenly announced that nuclear power would come to an end in Germany by 2022. So she proved herself to be wrong.

She and her party denied despite better knowledge up until last year, that Germany is a country of immigration. They refused to regulate immigration by thourough legislation. The refugee crisis had been lingering for at least four years, with thousands of bodys retrieved from the Mediterranean Sea. At the beginning it might have been possible to distribute refugees around Europe. But Merkel wouldn't make this a top priority in the EU. Then all of a sudden she all but invites a million refugees into Germany. Hence the rise of AfD. Hence the closed borders we now see in Austria and Hungary.

In 2014, Merkel successfully campaigned for Jean-Claude Juncker to become President of the European Commission. A man, who as prime and finance minster of Luxemburg must have had a key part in the shaping of his country into a safe haven for tax avoiding multinational companies.

I hope she won't be reelected.  

[Filuwaúrdjan]

She's worse than the SED-ists she toppled.

I'm confused. Have you mixed her up with someone else?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

She's worse than the SED-ists she toppled.

I'm confused. Have you mixed her up with someone else?

Gerhard Schroeder, infamous SEDer.

[reciprocity]

I think it speaks volumes about the ineffectiveness of an alternative not just in Germany but in Europe as a whole to the centre-right. The centre-left is just dead and has no real opposition to the policies set forth by conservatives. As someone who has voted Labour in 2010 and 2015, I understand why people are over them.

[Derpist]

She's worse than the SED-ists she toppled.

I'm confused. Have you mixed her up with someone else?

Fine, had a very marginal role in helping topple.

[IceAgeComing]

Merkel will be chancellor of Germany for as long as she wants; the only real alternative coalition to the Grand Coalition that would lead to a change of Chancellor (SPD/Green; I doubt that we'll see any move towards working with The Left) hasn't looked like getting anywhere near close to a majority in the last ten years and I don't see how that's going to change before next year.

I wonder whether the fact that the SPD have been in government with Merkel for so long actually hurts them; they got their worst ever result in 2009 after the first Grand Coalition, and after a mild increase in 2013 they're going down again to around 20%, which is pitiful for what is supposed to be the major alternative to the CDU/CSU.  I don't follow German politics that closely so I could be totally wrong with that - Germany was traditionally a lot more averse to supporting more radical parties than other bits of Europe in the past (outside the random NPD success in the late 60s and strength of the PDS/The Left in the East, but I'd argue that doesn't count, its more a historical thing) but the rise of AfD suggests that is beginning to unwind slightly.

I do wonder what needs to happen for a change in government to happen in Germany: it surely can't happen if the SDP end up struggling to get out of the low 20s.  Maybe they could recover if the FDP could get back in parliament and be part of a coalition with the CDU, but that might be unlikely in a seven-parrt parliament (I've not done the maths on that though); a more fanciful (and very unlikely) situation is that we're seeing a more gradual version of that happened in Baden and the Greens become the majority opposition party.  Or maybe I'm overreacting, the CDU/CSU have governed for longer than that before and lost: although neither of those times had Grand Coalitions as long as we've had in the last ten years

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

This will be a really funny scenario and it could conceivably happen in an East German state: the obligitary grand coalition doesn't have enough seats for a majority, but the only other potential partners to enter the legislature are Linke and AfD. Who would they chose?

[IceAgeComing]

Aren't the eastern SPD parties a lot more likely to work with Linke than their western counterparts?  The most likely outcome would be SPD/Linke if they had a majority: if it was the right that had a majority then things get a little complex: of the two options (CDU/AfD majority or a minority Grand Coalition relying on vote-by-vote deals with one of the other parties - I doubt that you'd ever get a formal coalition involving both the CDU and Die Linke unless some emergency broke out that led to a National government or they had to stop the NPD from forming government or something odd) the first seems slightly more likely, although I could see the CDU doing everything in its power to try and arrange something else before talking to AfD...

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

For whatever reason minority governments are verboten in Germany. Never heard a good reason why.

[Derpist]

34% AFD
32% Die Linke
17% SPD
17% CDU

There we go. The delicious rainbow of total chaos.

[ag]

34% AFD
32% Die Linke
17% SPD
17% CDU

There we go. The delicious rainbow of total chaos.

The first two under this scenario would find it easy to join. For most practical purposes, from where I stand, they are the same, anyway.

[ag]

By far the most admirable prominent politician anywhere in the world right now. The only true giant on the international scene today. The others will be remembered by history as midgets of the Merkel Age.

[Famous Mortimer]

34% AFD
32% Die Linke
17% SPD
17% CDU

There we go. The delicious rainbow of total chaos.

The first two under this scenario would find it easy to join. For most practical purposes, from where I stand, they are the same, anyway.

The Left is pro-migrant and AfD is anti-migrant. The Left is left and the AfD is free market libertarian. How on earth are they the same to you?

[ag]

34% AFD
32% Die Linke
17% SPD
17% CDU

There we go. The delicious rainbow of total chaos.

The first two under this scenario would find it easy to join. For most practical purposes, from where I stand, they are the same, anyway.

The Left is pro-migrant and AfD is anti-migrant. The Left is left and the AfD is free market libertarian. How on earth are they the same to you?

Both are anti-liberal, and that is the only thing that matters.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

34% AFD
32% Die Linke
17% SPD
17% CDU

There we go. The delicious rainbow of total chaos.

The first two under this scenario would find it easy to join. For most practical purposes, from where I stand, they are the same, anyway.

The Left is pro-migrant and AfD is anti-migrant. The Left is left and the AfD is free market libertarian. How on earth are they the same to you?

Both are anti-liberal, and that is the only thing that matters.

It's not the only thing that matters to them, so I doubt they'd 'find it easy to join'.

[Cranberry]

For whatever reason minority governments are verboten in Germany. Never heard a good reason why.

Cultural reasons, most likely. People in the German-speaking parts want government by all means to be stable and have a majority behind them - any talk of minority governments and some sort of seemingly unstable or less stable government constellation seems to create images of Weimar times.

[Cranberry]

She's worse than the SED-ists she toppled.

I'm confused. Have you mixed her up with someone else?

Fine, had a very marginal role in helping topple.

I'm not sure being around in East Berlin when the wall fell can be seriously counted as "having a very marginal role in helping topple".