2013 Elections in Germany

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Now, if they tried to "overthrow" Merkel after she almost got an absolute majority, it would be certainly perceived as a coup d'état, with even worse media response. I am sure there'd also be assassination attempts against SPD and Green leaders; some media would even condone this.

Excessive hyperbole, much...

Status of coalition talks:

CSU doesn't want to govern with the Greens, parts of the SPD don't want to govern with the CDU. Nobody wants to do Red-Red-Green except for the Left.

Does Germany do minority government?

In theory they could, but it's never been done before on the Federal Level, only on state level. It's not like in Scandinavia where it's basicly the norm.   

[Franknburger]

This is the map on the "Yes" vote in the Hamburg referendum on re-purchase of energy grids (electricity, gas, distance heating)



Inner city (densely populated, left-leaning) for it, suburbs against. Looks like distance heating (450,000 households ~ 45% connected) decided it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Status of coalition talks:

CSU doesn't want to govern with the Greens, parts of the SPD don't want to govern with the CDU. Nobody wants to do Red-Red-Green except for the Left.

Does Germany do minority government?

The idea of a Merkel minority government has already been floated... from within the SPD of all things. Mainly because the SPD doesn't really want to enter a coalition with the CDU at the moment.

But it seems like a pretty far-fetched scenario.

[RogueBeaver]

SPD still worrying about joining a Grand.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Status of the Greens:

Party leader Clauda Roth - GONE

Party leader Cem Özdemir - STAYS

Parliamentary leader Renate Künast - GONE

Parliamentary leader/lead candidate Jürgen Trittin - GONE

Lead candidate Katrin Göring-Eckardt - wants to succeed Künast


Likely Trittin successor - Toni Hofreiter, currently chairman of the transportation committee of the Bundestag

[ZuWo]

I hope the election result will trigger a debate about the 5% threshold. In my view it is problematic that nearly 16% of the voters are not represented in the new Bundestag.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I hope the election result will trigger a debate about the 5% threshold. In my view it is problematic that nearly 16% of the voters are not represented in the new Bundestag.

Maybe there's gonna be some debate, but I think it's unlikely that anything will change.

[Zanas]

Besides, as BaconKing pointed earlier, you can have even more disenfranchised voters with a lower threshold, as has been seen in Greece last year. So a lower threshold of 4 or 3% doesn't necessarily (though it does statistically) mean less disenfranchised voters.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Quite frankly, the only way the electoral system ever changes is when the Consitutional Court orders the politicians to do so. The political elite itself isn't interested in changing the status quo.

So someone would have to file a complain against the 5% threshold and then the Court would have to rule it unconstitutional.

(That's how the 5% threshold for EU elections was lowered to a 3% threshold btw.)

[Yeahsayyeah]

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To be correct, the Constitutional Court ruled it unconstitutional and therefore abolished and the bigger parties imposed this three percen threshold which is not even signed into law by now, but could possibly be overridden by the Constitutional Court as well.

[Famous Mortimer]

There won't be a Red-Red-Green government because the SPD are stupid.

If there was a RRG coalition, the SPD would likely drop below 20% at the next federal election.

You said this even before the election though. Why would a government with Die Linke make them go below 20%? Let's assume hypothetically that SPD, Die Linke, and the Greens had won 51%.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I hope the election result will trigger a debate about the 5% threshold. In my view it is problematic that nearly 16% of the voters are not represented in the new Bundestag.

I get the impression that you would not be bleating if the two parties under the threshold were the Greens and the Left.

Of course, in theory all voters are 'represented' to some degree as Germany has territorial constituencies as well as party lists. And even if you laugh at that, quite a few of those 16% will have voted for a different party on the constituency ballot.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There won't be a Red-Red-Green government because the SPD are stupid.

If there was a RRG coalition, the SPD would likely drop below 20% at the next federal election.

You said this even before the election though. Why would a government with Die Linke make them go below 20%? Let's assume hypothetically that SPD, Die Linke, and the Greens had won 51%.

I think the concern is a repeat of what happened in Hesse after the 2008 state election. Though it's observably true that the Left has become less toxic over time and it's obvious that this will continue pretty much indefinitely and incrementally. Suspect also that it could only be tried if it was widely felt that the CDU had been defeated.

[Famous Mortimer]

It's not a glaringly obvious in this case because 1) Germany has a history of grand coalitions and 2) AfD didn't actually make it into parliament but really this is another example of the shift towards protest parties making an ideological government impossible.

It's the same thing that happened in Italy, the Czech Republic, The Netherlands, Belgium, and Greece.

Although some of those cases are worse than others, there's a clear trend of traditional right or left governments being unable to achieve majorities due to protest parties.

This is seriously starting to be a real problem and it's only going to get worse. Something needs to be done. A switch to a presidential system would be the most obvious fix but that's probably too radical.

[ZuWo]

I hope the election result will trigger a debate about the 5% threshold. In my view it is problematic that nearly 16% of the voters are not represented in the new Bundestag.

I get the impression that you would not be bleating if the two parties under the threshold were the Greens and the Left.

I don't care if it's a right-wing or left-wing party which is the victim of the 5% threshold. I'm not German so it doesn't directly affect me whether Germany is governed by a left-wing or a right-wing coalition anyway. I just think that a threshold of 5% is too high and prevents too many parties from entering the Bundestag.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

To be honest I think a greater toleration of minority governments is probably the solution, or at least something that we can all pretend is a solution.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyways, party list map time. Two sets of three I think - Right (CDU, FDP, AfD) and Left (SPD, DL, Greens). Time to fiddle with making keys...

[ERvND]

As a SPD supporter, and from a purely strategic point of view, I'd prefer a black-green coalition.

A new grand coalition, as has been explained many times, would probably lead to the final end of the SPD as a major party.

A CDU minority government, tolerated by the SPD, has some appeal. But the risk is far too high that Merkel induces new elections after a period of time, almost inevitably leading to a real absolute majority or at least a new black-yellow coalition.

Black-green, on the other hand, can benefit the SPD. I think that almost one third of their voters, and also some members, would immediately switch to the SPD. In the long run, Merkel would destroy the Greens as she did with SPD and FDP, and a big number of their supporters would come back to the SPD. Caveat: If the Greens go the FDP's way, they'd fall out of many state parliaments, bringing the red-green coalitions there to an end (not many states have the potential for a SPD-only government, as in Hamburg). Maybe they'd even fall under 5% in the 2017 federal elections, voiding every chance for a new red-green government. But still, of all options, I think this one is the best. 

[minionofmidas]

Point taken about the CDU moving towards the SPD in alot of policies.  One question I have is had the SPD been in government the last four years, say in a red-green coalition, what would they have done differently than the outgoing coalition?

There would be a universal minimum wage of 8.50 EUR an hour industry-specific but legally binding minimum wages in every industry, efforts would have been made to switch healthcare to a single-payer system instead of the "mixed" system we have now and the top income tax rate would have been increased.

Also, there would be no Betreuungsgeld (child care subsidy) and more money would have been put into renewable energies.

That's basically it, I think.

The Energiewende concept would have been less blatantly tailored to saving the big providers' market shares and government subsidies despite taking their nuclear power plants away.
Also, we'd probably still have the Praxisgebühr (one of the best things this government did, and something we can thank the FDP for).

[Beezer]

There won't be a Red-Red-Green government because the SPD are stupid.

If there was a RRG coalition, the SPD would likely drop below 20% at the next federal election.

You said this even before the election though. Why would a government with Die Linke make them go below 20%? Let's assume hypothetically that SPD, Die Linke, and the Greens had won 51%.

Because they went into the election promising they weren't going to enter a coalition with them. + it would probably end in tears, since large chunks of the Left really are in no position to govern at the federal level.

[minionofmidas]

Let me make sure I'm understanding you guys right when you talk about how the CDU has changed.

Are you saying:

The CDU used to be a socially conservative party that embraced the mixed economy.

Under Merkel it's a socially liberal party that wants to implement mild liberal reforms to the economy?

The CDU does what it always has done best, which is preserve the status quo.

[minionofmidas]

Forgive me if this answer has already been explained, but how come there won't be a SPD/Green/The Left coalition? I know that the SPD has ruled it out, but why?

Die Linke are toxic. Associated with the GDR, etc.

The big thing would be the foreign policy (NATO, Afghanistan etc) stances.

[minionofmidas]

And on another note, is there a good English-language source anywhere for German state elections since 1949? Wikipedia has good articles on ones since 2000, but I can find only very little from before then.

You mean, descriptions of campaigns etc?

I doubt you'll find a good German-language source.

[minionofmidas]

Status of coalition talks:

CSU doesn't want to govern with the Greens, parts of the SPD don't want to govern with the CDU. Nobody wants to do Red-Red-Green except for the Left.

They don't really want to govern either, they're just scoring cheap points that work on some on the left wings of the SPD and Green votership.

[minionofmidas]

I hope the election result will trigger a debate about the 5% threshold. In my view it is problematic that nearly 16% of the voters are not represented in the new Bundestag.

I get the impression that you would not be bleating if the two parties under the threshold were the Greens and the Left.

He is nonetheless quite right, though. (The territorial constituencies are a joke.)