2010 State Elections in Germany

[Middle-aged Europe]

That may be part of, mind you there have been several times in US history where the party that controlled congress was different than that of the president and historically there was far more bipartisan cooperation than today.

Of course, the difference is that none of the political leaders in the U.S. ever chose to have a split control of presidency and congress. It was a situation forced upon by circumstances.

In the Saarland, the Green Party made a conscious decision to form a government with the CDU and the FDP instead of joining the SPD and the Left Party.

[mileslunn]

That may be part of, mind you there have been several times in US history where the party that controlled congress was different than that of the president and historically there was far more bipartisan cooperation than today.

Of course, the difference is that none of the political leaders in the U.S. ever chose to have a split control of presidency and congress. It was a situation forced upon by circumstances.

In the Saarland, the Green Party made a conscious decision to form a government with the CDU and the FDP instead of joining the SPD and the Left Party.

True, but also I am sure any of the parties would ideally prefer a outright majority and if not at least a CDU-FDP coalition or a SPD-Green coalition, one's of different ideologies only happen when neither of those combos are possible.

[Hans-im-Glück]

2 new federal polls:

Forsa (10.02.2010)

CDU/CSU     34 %
SPD             22 %
Greens        17 % 
FDP               8 %
Left             11 %
Others          8 %

Right     42 %
Left       50 %

Emnid (10.02.2010)

CDU/CSU     36 %
SPD             25 %
Greens        14 %
FDP               9 %
Left             11 %
Others          5 %

Right     45 %
Left       50 %

The Greens are still in a all-time-high in the polls. The SPD is still in the low twenties. The bad work of the government has consequences, but mainly for the FDP.

[Hash]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

[Franzl]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

If I were polled right now, I would also have to answer "disapprove".

The government has appeared largely incompetent on a variety of things.....but maybe one of the things that sunk them was their stupid tax cut program that a vast majority of the population opposed because we can't afford it.

Add to that the growing hatred of the FDP.

[Hans-im-Glück]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

In short words. They do nothing. The FDP made great promise, but they do not so much. Their ministers look like trainees. In the CDU everybody says something different. The CSU don't know what they wants. "Afghanistan" is the ever more unpopular. The government debt is at record levels, the cities are broke and the CDU and FDP argue over tax relief.

And there is more.....

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Impressive fall for the FDP there.

[Verily]

Impressive fall for the FDP there.

Well, yeah. The FDP is the sort of party that's only popular when it doesn't have to govern.

[Tender Branson]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

If I were polled right now, I would also have to answer "disapprove".

The government has appeared largely incompetent on a variety of things.....but maybe one of the things that sunk them was their stupid tax cut program that a vast majority of the population opposed because we can't afford it.

Add to that the growing hatred of the FDP.

Plus: If I remember it correctly, the CDU/CSU/FDP government also passed a tax-incentive bill for hotel owners recently, but then it was reported that the FDP received a million € donation from a hotel boss just a few hours earlier ...

[minionofmidas]

Indeed. The common joke is "I always knew the FDP was for hire, but I'd have never guessed their that cheap."

[KuntaKinte]

The FDP hasn't changed a bit. They are still the buyable, corrupted, bigoted upper class lobbyists that they have been at least since the 1980s.

Many people fell for them for the first time in 2009 because they were fed up with the Grand Coalition, the FDP had been out of government for 11 years and Westerwelle had the ability to paint the FDP as the common mans party. Now they realize what they have done and leave the party in droves.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Westerwelle's recent rants about Hartz IV won't help the FDP either.

[Tender Branson]

New Forsa poll:

CDU/CSU:         35% (+1%)
SPD:                 22%  (-1%)
Greens:            17% (+6%)
Left:                 12%    (nc)
FDP:                   7%  (-8%)
Others:              7% (+2%)

Opposition:      51%
Government:    42%

[Tender Branson]

What`s behind the FDP`s slide: Germans do not want their taxes to be lowered and the welfare state being attacked ...

German Foreign Minister Under Pressure over Domestic Rants

Germany's pro-business FDP has struggled to adapt to life in government since it returned to power in 2009 after 11 years in opposition. Now FDP leader Guido Westerwelle is trying to reverse a decline in opinion polls with inflammatory rhetoric about the welfare state. Commentators say the FDP is in a crisis, and that Westerwelle's outbursts aren't helping.

Germany's pro-business Free Democrat Party (FDP), the junior coalition partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right government, isn't having a good start to 2010. Its opinion poll ratings are sliding ahead of an important regional election in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in May, it probably won't be able to deliver its main election pledge of cutting taxes in 2011, and its leader, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, is being criticized for making inflammatory comments about welfare benefits.

The general view among media commentators and political pundits is that Merkel's new center-right government has botched its first 100 days in office, with constant in-fighting and mixed messages, and that the FDP is largely to blame. One of its pet policies, a cut in value added tax for hotel stays, followed a large donation from a rich hotel owner which exposed the party to accusations that it was just in government to serve its own clientele of well-off business people.

Now Westerwelle, who was preoccupied in the last few months with working his way into the job of Foreign Minister, has returned to the fray of domestic politics in an attempt to boost the party's poll ratings. To do so, he has launched a debate on the welfare state following a court ruling last week mandating that benefits for the long-term unemployed be reviewed.

'Late Roman Decadence'

Westerwelle said calls for an increase in the so-called Hartz IV benefits paid to people unemployed for over 12 months smacked of socialism. "Those who promise the people effortless prosperity encourage late Roman decadence," he wrote in a a guest commentary for conservative newspaper Die Welt last week. "Everyone just talks about benefit recipients but the people who pay for everything hardly get noticed."

People who work, Westerwelle said in a radio interview on Sunday, were increasingly becoming the "idiots of the nation." He said Germany needed a "completely new start for its welfare state" to ensure that people who work get more than people who don't work. "Anything else is socialism," he added.

The opposition center-left Social Democrats and Greens predictably voiced outrage at his remarks, but even Merkel distanced herself from them, with a spokeswoman saying the Chancellor wouldn't have chosen those words. And support from within the FDP was less than effusive.

Yet Westerwelle remained defiant, telling mass circulation Bild in an interview published on Monday: "Everyone has their own style. I want to shape things and that's why I want to tell the public the truth."

Several media commentators say the FDP needs to get its act together.

Center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:

"We really don't need a 'fresh start for the welfare state' just because Guido Westerwelle is in a panic once again. His blabbering about decadence and socialism primarily stems from the fact that Westerwelle, contrary to his nature and contrary to political expedience, was virtually silent on domestic politics in the first weeks of the new government. He was preoccupied with proving to himself and the world that he's up to the job of foreign minister."

"Partly because the reputation of the center-right coalition is almost in tatters, Westerwelle has now returned to domestic politics with guns blazing in his role as governing opposition leader."

"It's true that that there's a debate about how high the basic level of welfare should be. But showering opponents and coalition partners with hostile and sometimes base rhetoric isn't political, it's just polemic. All this shouting wouldn't be so bad if the government was doing a good job in the background. But even parts of the FDP, let alone the CDU, now acknowledge that the botched-up tax cut for hotel stays is an example of how not to govern. That has become a symbol for 100 wasted days."

"The FDP lacks the desire to achieve a common goal in government -- that is evident from the fact that almost no one in the FDP thinks and speaks on behalf of the government, instead they just represent the FDP in government."

Left-wing Die Tageszeitung writes:

"It's clear now that the FDP won't deliver its main promise -- tax cuts. Given the weak economy and collapsing budgets, tax cuts would be completely nonsensical. It would be madness for the conservatives to allow it. So the FDP's crisis comes as no surprise. It was foreseeable that the FDP would disappoint its clientele. It is a kind of overvalued stock that was preprogrammed to slump once investors got a close look at its accounts."

"The astonishing thing isn't this crisis, but how awkardly and hysterically Westerwelle and Co have responded to it. The FDP leader remains on the offensive even after Merkel's public rebuke for his populist remarks on Hartz IV recipients. And there's no one in the FDP who could adopt a different tone or focus attention on a new issue. There's no room in the FDP for an autonomous leadership alongside Westerwelle. That was always clear. But now the party is paying the price for it."

Conservative Die Welt writes:

"It is high time for a debate on the future of the welfare state. Westerwelle isn't talking about a radical dismantling but about more efficiency. Any type of work must make economic sense in this country. This debate should be held without any frothing at the mouth, but also without taboos. The economics and finance experts mustn't let social politicians take sole command in the upcoming Hartz reform."

Center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:

"Those people who want to increase everything, be it social benefits or the minimum wage, will have more questions to asnswer than people who insist that work must be rewarded and no one should be allowed to settle into social dependency. The aim of the Hartz reform must surely be to get as many people as possible back to work, and at adequate rates of pay."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,677930,00.html

[Franzl]

The thing is...Westerwelle isn't entirely wrong....but he really needs to present himself better.

[Vepres]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

In short words. They do nothing. The FDP made great promise, but they do not so much. Their ministers look like trainees. In the CDU everybody says something different. The CSU don't know what they wants. "Afghanistan" is the ever more unpopular. The government debt is at record levels, the cities are broke and the CDU and FDP argue over tax relief.

And there is more.....

Gee, reminds me of one majority party in the western hemisphere.

[Franzl]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

In short words. They do nothing. The FDP made great promise, but they do not so much. Their ministers look like trainees. In the CDU everybody says something different. The CSU don't know what they wants. "Afghanistan" is the ever more unpopular. The government debt is at record levels, the cities are broke and the CDU and FDP argue over tax relief.

And there is more.....

Gee, reminds me of one majority party in the western hemisphere.

Yeah but there's no excuse over here....as they have a majority....and there's no filibuster to get around or veto to override for anything.

[Vepres]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

In short words. They do nothing. The FDP made great promise, but they do not so much. Their ministers look like trainees. In the CDU everybody says something different. The CSU don't know what they wants. "Afghanistan" is the ever more unpopular. The government debt is at record levels, the cities are broke and the CDU and FDP argue over tax relief.

And there is more.....

Gee, reminds me of one majority party in the western hemisphere.

Yeah but there's no excuse over here....as they have a majority....and there's no filibuster to get around or veto to override for anything.

Oh, I know. So what, are they just incompetent or afraid to make tough votes or what?

[Franzl]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

In short words. They do nothing. The FDP made great promise, but they do not so much. Their ministers look like trainees. In the CDU everybody says something different. The CSU don't know what they wants. "Afghanistan" is the ever more unpopular. The government debt is at record levels, the cities are broke and the CDU and FDP argue over tax relief.

And there is more.....

Gee, reminds me of one majority party in the western hemisphere.

Yeah but there's no excuse over here....as they have a majority....and there's no filibuster to get around or veto to override for anything.

Oh, I know. So what, are they just incompetent or afraid to make tough votes or what?

Basically, they're too busy fighting themselves (the coalition partners) that they've stopped caring about much else.

[Vepres]

What unpopular things did the CDU-FDP do since the election that has hurt them in polls?

In short words. They do nothing. The FDP made great promise, but they do not so much. Their ministers look like trainees. In the CDU everybody says something different. The CSU don't know what they wants. "Afghanistan" is the ever more unpopular. The government debt is at record levels, the cities are broke and the CDU and FDP argue over tax relief.

And there is more.....

Gee, reminds me of one majority party in the western hemisphere.

Yeah but there's no excuse over here....as they have a majority....and there's no filibuster to get around or veto to override for anything.

Oh, I know. So what, are they just incompetent or afraid to make tough votes or what?

Basically, they're too busy fighting themselves (the coalition partners) that they've stopped caring about much else.

Uncanny similarities

[Middle-aged Europe]

For eleven years, CDU/CSU and FDP worked for the common goal of winning a majority again. But this was more of a self-serving goal, because they never had paid much thought on what they're going to do with a governing majority once they've achieved it. After the 2009 victory, it turned out that they don't have that much in common, apparently. They like to govern together in theory, but not in practice.

There was an analysis by a political scientist on SPIEGEL Online yesterday, which blamed it on the FDP being one of the most ideological and least pragmatic political party nowadays (and therefore it clashes with the more pragmatic CDU). While SPD and Greens got rid of their supposed "free market bad, socialism good" doctrine during their time in government (1998-2005/2009), the FDP as a opposition party sticked to the premise that the free market can't ever fail and tax cuts are a priori good and desirable no matter the circumstances... even after the recent financial crisis. Another commentary even went so so far to compare the FDP to the U.S. Republican Party. Basically, they've become the GOP minus the bible-thumping.

[Franzl]

To be honest, the American GOP seems slightly more competent than the FDP at present.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Anyway, certain people in the CDU have started to courting the Greens now, for example by  becoming more critical of nuclear power (Norbert Röttgen, I'm looking at you). This is mostly done with eyes on NRW, but maybe there are also some hopes to turn into a back-up option for the federal level.

[Franzl]

Anyway, certain people in the CDU have started to courting the Greens now, for example by  becoming more critical of nuclear power (Norbert Röttgen, I'm looking at you). This is mostly done with eyes on NRW, but maybe there are also some hopes to turn into a back-up option for the federal level.

I think there's a reasonable chance that CDU-Greens form a coalition in NRW. A coalition with Linke seems unlikely considering the hatred between the SPD and them in NRW.

[DL]

How do the rank and file in the Green party react to their party propping up the CDU in places like Hamburg and Saar and potentially in NRW?? The Green party was initially created as a leftwing splinter from the SPD and my impression is that a lot of people who vote Green in Germany are doing so to push the SPD in a certain direction in government and not to help bring in a rightwing government that wants to slash and burn social programs but will wink at the Greens by banning non-energy efficient light bulbs etc...

BTW: what happens to the Bundesrat votes from a state if the Greens are part of the ruling coalition? Do those votes then get neutralized and it in effect takes away the CDU/FDP 2/3 majority there that they need to pass a lot things?