2010 State Elections in Germany

[DL]

I wonder whether in that scenario, you might have have some "strategic voting" by some of that 17% Green support over to the SPD to make them the biggest party?

[Franzl]

I wonder whether in that scenario, you might have have some "strategic voting" by some of that 17% Green support over to the SPD to make them the biggest party?

Maybe, but it wouldn't be necessary. There would be enough strategic voting on the conservative side to make sure the FDP gets in....that the SPD would likely be the strongest party anyway.

[Hans-im-Glück]

http://nachrichten.t-online.de/gruenen-politiker-sepp-daxenberger-gestorben/id_42567516/index

The former chairman of the Green Party in Bavaria died last night with 48 years. He had cancer. Sepp Daxenberger was very popular in Bavaria and in the most polls he was the most popular politician of Bavaria.

RIP

[minionofmidas]

Rest in Peace.

Wow. I hadn't even heard that.

[Tender Branson]

Rest in Peace.

Wow. I hadn't even heard that.

I´ve just read it as well and also didn´t knew that he had cancer.

The even more tragic thing is that his wife also had cancer and died this Sunday.

They have 3 sons aged 12, 17 and 20.



RIP

[Tender Branson]

This would have made the Sepp happy:

Forsa, today:

30% CDU/CSU
27% SPD
20% Greens (First time ever @ 20% nationwide)
11% Left
  4% FDP
  8% Others

[Tender Branson]

Bavaria mourns adored Green party figure after double tragedy



Tributes flowed on Wednesday for the widely admired Bavarian Green party politician Sepp Daxenberger, who died of cancer during the night, just three days after his wife succumbed to the same illness.

Daxenberger, who was 48, lost his seven-year battle just hours before his wife was due to be buried.

A trained blacksmith and organic farmer, Daxenberger was chairman of the environmentalist Greens in Bavaria from 2002 to 2008 and the party’s leader in the state parliament from 2008 until June this year.

He was also mayor of his home municipality of Waging am See near the Austrian border – the first Green party mayor in Bavaria. He was so popular that he was re-elected in 2002 with a whopping 75.6 percent of the vote.

On Sunday, his 49-year-old wife Gertraud had died from breast cancer that had metastasized and spread into her lungs.

The Daxenbergers are survived by three sons aged 12, 17 and 20, as well as by Sepp Daxenberger’s mother and father aged 68 and 70.

“This is a tragedy that leaves one speechless,” said Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer.

Federal Justice Minister and chairwoman of the Free Democrats in Bavaria, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, called Daxenberger’s death “a drama hard to bear, even for outsiders.”

The Green party parliamentary co-leaders in the Bundestag, Renate Künast and Jürgen Trittin, also conveyed their shock.

“Sepp Daxenberger was a social conservative rebel who combined political radicalism, ecological consciousness, a bond with his homeland and a Christian set of values in unique ways,” they said in a statement.

He had helped forge what might have seemed impossible in conservative Bavaria: making the Greens a political force to be reckoned with, they said.

Since 2003, Daxenberger had been suffering from a plasmacytoma, cancer of the white blood cells that causes them to reproduce uncontrollably and leads to destruction of the bone marrow. His condition had deteriorated rapidly in the past few months.

He stepped down from his position in the Greens parliamentary group in June and shortly after that suffered a stroke.

But Daxenberger continued fighting his illness and managed on one occasion to attend a meeting of Greens MPs.

Towards the end, his treatment was “very painful, very exhausting, but not successful, at least not consistently,” he said during his last public appearance, at the Munich Maximilianeum, where the state parliament is housed.

http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100818-29235.html

[Democratic Hawk]

This would have made the Sepp happy:

Forsa, today:

30% CDU/CSU
27% SPD
20% Greens (First time ever @ 20% nationwide)
11% Left
  4% FDP
  8% Others

I guess that means the FDP are staring into the abyss and facing oblivion. Germans don't seem too impressed with Merkel's 'right-turn'. I saw it coming which is why this Christian Democrat would have split his vote between the CDU and SPD

[Tender Branson]

German banker under fire for 'racist' Jewish remarks

BERLIN — Top politicians attacked a senior official from Germany's central bank on Sunday after comments about Jews, the latest in a string of controversial remarks that have provoked a storm in the country.

Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the six-man board at the powerful Bundesbank, told the Welt am Sonntag weekly: "All Jews share a particular gene, Basques share particular genes, that differentiate them from others."

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who is also Germany's vice-chancellor, condemned the remarks, telling the Bild am Sonntag weekly: "Comments that promote racism or anti-Semitism do not belong in the political debate."

The country's popular defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, told the same paper: "Every provocation has its limits ... Sarrazin has clearly overstepped these limits."

Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman has also criticised Sarrazin, 65, who is promoting a new book due to appear on Monday and has been front-page news in the country with provocative remarks on race and integration.

In October, he also hit the headlines after saying that Turks were "conquering Germany in exactly the same way the Kosovars conquered Kosovo: with a higher birth rate."

"A large number of Arabs and Turks in this city (Berlin) ... have no productive function other than selling fruit and vegetables," he added.

Despite calls from all sides for him to step down, Sarrazin has steadfastly clung to his post at the Bundesbank, despite being stripped of some responsibilities in the wake of the row.

Axel Weber, the Bundesbank president, widely tipped to replace Jean-Claude Trichet as the boss of the European Central Bank next year, has criticised Sarrazin but is powerless to remove him, as he is a political appointee.

Community leaders also reacted with outrage at Sarrazin's latest remarks. The head of Germany's large Turkish community, Kenan Kolat, said he was guilty of "intellectual racism" and called for a probe into inciting racial hatred.

"Whoever tries to define Jews by their genetic make-up, even if it is meant positively, is consumed by a racial mania that Jews do not share," said Stephan Kramer, head of the Central Council for Jews in Germany.

"I am not a racist," Sarrazin himself insisted in his interview with the Welt am Sonntag.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jORDNqmY0sYCPjqBiKNv5-UfvvCQ

[minionofmidas]

Verdict in Schleswig-Holstein expected tomorrow, certainly during the coming week.

Observers expect the Court to order new elections within a year (based on what the judges have hinted).

[minionofmidas]

Verdict in Schleswig-Holstein expected tomorrow, certainly during the coming week.

Observers expect the Court to order new elections within a year (based on what the judges have hinted).

New elections within two years. Lolsen.

New election law within eight months though. Judges have dropped some strong hints at what they want... reduction of no. of direct seats to half the house maximum (currently 40 out of 69, and yeah that was basically the root of the entire problem), less variation in district size (although that didn't cause the problem at all, lol. Quite high variation currently, though), preferrably no more D'Hondt, and preferrably return to the single vote. Although I can tell you right now parliament's going to ignore that latter suggestion.

[minionofmidas]

Forsa polling Berlin (city vote intentions)

Greens 27
SPD 26
CDU 17
Left 16
FDP 4
other 10

So close to a majority to the left of the SPD...

[Middle-aged Europe]

Forsa polling Berlin (city vote intentions)

Greens 27
SPD 26
CDU 17
Left 16
FDP 4
other 10

So close to a majority to the left of the SPD...

So, Greens/CDU, SPD/CDU, or Grand coalition?

[Tender Branson]

New polls for the Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein state elections:

Forsa - BW:

37%   (-7)  CDU
24% (+12) Greens
24%   (-1)  SPD
  6%   (-5)  FDP
  4%  (+1)  Left
  5%   (nc)  Others

Majority for SPD-Greens.

Infratest dimap - SH:

32%  (+7)   SPD
32%   (nc)   CDU
19%  (+7)   Greens
  5%  (-10)  FDP
  4%   (nc)   SSW
  4%   (-2)   Left
  4%   (-2)   Others

Majority for SPD-Greens.

[DL]

at this rate by the time the next national election happens in Germany the only state left in the whole country with a CDU/CSU government will be Bavaria!

[Tender Branson]

4 new polls today.

First, the federal ones:

Forsa:

31% CDU/CSU
25% SPD
21% Greens
10% Left
  5% FDP
  8% Others

Emnid:

31% CDU/CSU
28% SPD
19% Greens
11% Left
  6% FDP
  5% Others

And now the state polls:

Baden-Württemberg (Infratest dimap):

35%   (-9)    CDU
27%  (+15)  Greens (!!!!!)
21%   (-4)    SPD
  5%   (+2)   Left
  5%   (-6)    FDP
  7%   (+2)   Others

Berlin (Infratest dimap):

28%  (+15)  Greens (!!!!!)
24%   (-7)    SPD
22%   (+1)   CDU
16%   (nc)    Left
  4%   (-4)    FDP
  6%   (-5)    Others

Majority for SPD-Greens in both states.

[minionofmidas]

You mean Greens-SPD.

[Tender Branson]

You mean Greens-SPD.

Yepp ...

I still have slight problems adjusting to the "new reality".

[minionofmidas]

You mean Greens-SPD.

Yepp ...

I still have slight problems adjusting to the "new reality".

It's not reality so long as it isn't supported by any actual election results.

[Tender Branson]

It seems like the Stuttgart 21 project is helping the Greens in Baden-Württemberg ?

[minionofmidas]

May be.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Stuttgart 21 and the federal government's "new"* direction on nuclear power, I suppose. Let's the Greens shoot through the roof.

*  (let's say recently officialized instead of new)

[DL]

Does anyone have an explanation for why the Greens are suddenly doing so well not just in national polls but also in some of these state polls in Germany? What exactly differentiates the policies of the Greens from those of the SPD in Berlin or in Baden-Wurttemberg? I remember when the Greens first came on the scene in the 80s they were a leftwing alternative to the SPD and wanted a nuclear freeze and an end to nuclear power etc...

[Tender Branson]

Does anyone have an explanation for why the Greens are suddenly doing so well not just in national polls but also in some of these state polls in Germany? What exactly differentiates the policies of the Greens from those of the SPD in Berlin or in Baden-Wurttemberg? I remember when the Greens first came on the scene in the 80s they were a leftwing alternative to the SPD and wanted a nuclear freeze and an end to nuclear power etc...

The national Greens are gaining because of the Sarrazin controversy within the SPD, as well as the recent decision by the CDU-CSU-FDP government to lengthen the running time of nuclear power plants in the country by 8 to 12 years and to get rid of the "Nuclear Exit Plan" of the SPD-Green government in the early years of the decade. People oppose this plans, as they oppose the cronyism of the right-wing government to capitalist energy companies.

The local Greens in BW and Schleswig Holstein are also benefitting from local unpopular projects like Stuttgart 21, where they want to build an underground railway station - with exploding costs. There were already mass protests with 30.000 people in Stuttgart a couple weeks ago.

In Schleswig Holstein, there`s also a CDU-FDP government I guess and they also suck. Couple that with an electoral law, that was ruled invalid by the state courts, because it gave CDU-FDP a majority even though SPD/Greens/Left/SSW had a majority of the votes cast on Election day and then this also helps the Greens.

Maybe Lewis and Old Europe know more about it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Greens in Baden-Württemberg also tend to be pretty "conservative" (well, at least pretty centrist), which helps in a largely conservative state.

Berlin: SPD and Left have been governing for nine years now, while the Greens as a opposition party are a fresh alternative to the worn-out state government. And I guess the Greens are a better alternative than the CDU, because nobody in Berlin takes the CDU serious anymore.