German Elections & Politics

[DavidB.]

Two grand coalitions replace two Red-Green governments. A Red-Green government becomes a Black-Red-Green government. This was actually not that horrible of a night for Merkel.

We can't be sure BaWü will be a grand coalition of Greens+CDU.

[windjammer]

Well, I wonder what is going to happen in Sachsen anhalt. A grand coalition between die Linke and cdu lol lol?

[Yeahsayyeah]

In ST CDU-SPD-Green (Kenya) is the only coalition of some viability, but it would probably act more like a caretaker government (and for that reason it is possible we will see new elections there, soon. At least, I doubt, this would last the full term.

I can't really think of a viable minority government, either.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Besides, given the result in BaWü one could hardly say the Green surge did not last there...

But only in terms of state politics. There was no federal spillover, which was part of his point.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Two grand coalitions replace two Red-Green governments. A Red-Green government becomes a Black-Red-Green government. This was actually not that horrible of a night for Merkel.

I think that the CDU losing state elections in two historic (and federally still) CDU strongholds is pretty horrible for the CDU leader. And that the RP SPD are still winning after more than two decades now is a pretty clear indicator that it can't be assumed that things will snap back into place in BaWü in the medium term.

[RodPresident]

Red-Green should come to their senses and go for coalitions with Left to give a perspective of change to Germans.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

I mean, this looks very bad (or good, if you're inclined that way) but isn't really indicative of future elections. Remember the Pirate phenomena? Remember when people started to confidently assume the Green surge would last?

I don't agree. The Pirate phenomenon wasn't a pan-European thing, at least not nearly in the way radical right-wing phenomenon has been over the last two decades. Germany was an anomaly for the Pirate surge, yet it was an anomaly for not having a strong radical right-wing party. That has now changed. Of course that does not necessarily say anything about the future, but if you look at the rest of Western Europe, radical right-wing parties are popular basically everywhere. Germany has the exact same fertile soil for such parties to emerge and be successful, it just took the refugee crisis for AfD to really break through the "ceiling of shame" regarding Germany's past. I don't know if AfD will last, but I think the radical right, as a political force, will remain important in Germany, just as I'm not confident that the Dutch PVV will last yet I know the radical right will stay. I don't see any evidence in Europe to think otherwise.

Besides, given the result in BaWü one could hardly say the Green surge did not last there...

The thing is, I'm not a huge believer in pan-European trends - it's very tempting but it tends to lead to wankery if you rely on it too much. The CDU is an extraordinarily successful machine at hoovering the right, and the AfD has to work against the fact that a large swathe of German voters like to use state elections to experiment, and then come home in the federal election (the closure of the Balkan route will also gradually dissipate the urgency of the refugee crisis). Arguably the Pirates did fill a niche - an anti-establishment bank for voters - especially working-class males - that is now filled by AfD.

Red-Green should come to their senses and go for coalitions with Left to give a perspective of change to Germans.

The East German Greens, which descend from an anti-regime protest group, may one of the sources of friction there.

[DavidB.]

The thing is, I'm not a huge believer in pan-European trends - it's very tempting but it tends to lead to wankery if you rely on it too much.

I'm honestly not sure how to respond to this point. Everyone #analyzing European politics can see that only in a small number of countries radical right-wing parties were relevant political players in 1990, whereas the picture is wholly different in 2016, with radical right-wing parties being strong political forces almost everywhere in Western Europe. In many countries (Norway, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, Italy) they have either provided necessary outside support to governments or even been part of governments, and in other countries they have remained oppositional forces yet have nonetheless become important and defining political actors (France, UK, Flanders, Sweden, now possibly Germany). All of these parties mobilize a broadly similar electorate, have a broadly similar political agenda (studies found that the radical right-wing "party family" is more ideologically coherent than the Christian Democrats/Conservatives) on issues that broadly manifest themselves in the same way across Western Europe, and actually even have one issue that is most certainly pan-European: the EU. I am unsure what more evidence one could possibly need to be convinced that this is, in fact, a pan-European trend. I am also unsure what, exactly, would be "wankery". Not taking into account differences between countries or certain nuances might indicate a sloppy #analysis, but I don't know how it would be wankery.

The CDU is an extraordinarily successful machine at hoovering the right, and the AfD has to work against the fact that a large swathe of German voters like to use state elections to experiment, and then come home in the federal election (the closure of the Balkan route will also gradually dissipate the urgency of the refugee crisis). Arguably the Pirates did fill a niche - an anti-establishment bank for voters - especially working-class males - that is now filled by AfD.

Oh, that first part is certainly true. I have not said AfD will doubtlessly do as well in the next Bundestag election -- I even said I do not know whether AfD will even stick around. But something has changed in German politics, and I think "anti-establishment working-class males want a protest party" does not suffice as an explanation for the AfD phenomenon. Many AfD voters do not fall in this category (oftentimes they are not even working-class). Indeed, it seems that the AfD's coalition is similar to those of other radical right-wing parties in Western Europe. I also think many former CDU voters might not "come home" in the next Bundestag election, even if AfD will not receive results similar to those of the Landtag elections that took place today.

[DavidB.]

Meanwhile, FDP ended under the threshold at 4.9% in ST. Lmao!

[Famous Mortimer]

What's the FDP like nowadays? Does it stand for anything?

[rob in cal]

   Do we have a breakdown of support by social classes in these elections?  Wonder if the AFD support is coming from working class groups, especially in SA?

[Tender Branson]

In total, far-right parties got 27% in SA, 17% in BW and 14% in RP.

That's ca. 17-18% on average in all 3 states.

It's also interesting that the AfD won more direct seats than they won in the list vote in their Sachsen-Anhalt strongholds in the South.

I wonder if this has to do with NPD posters calling to vote for the AfD direct candidate, but NPD for the party list.



In several of these Southern districts where the AfD won the direct but not the list vote, the NPD got up to 4% in the list vote. Which could have made the difference in a close race.

Direct seats



Party list



Also, it can not be argued that the low turnout in SA (61%) was responsible for the AfD result.

Looking at the results map, the AfD performed well in low-turnout as well as in high-turnout areas.

There were several areas with between 61-68% turnout, in which the AfD got 25-40% and therefore above their statewide average.

https://www.statistik.sachsen-anhalt.de/wahlen/lt16/fms/fms2111511g.html

[palandio]

   Do we have a breakdown of support by social classes in these elections?  Wonder if the AFD support is coming from working class groups, especially in SA?

According to ARD infratest dimap exit-polls the AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt got
36% among the unemployed
35% among blue-collar workers
22% among the self-employed and entrepreneurs
21% among white-collar workers
18% among the retired

http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2016-03-13-LT-DE-ST/umfrage-job.shtml
http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2016-03-13-LT-DE-BW/umfrage-job.shtml
http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2016-03-13-LT-DE-RP/umfrage-job.shtml

[Tender Branson]

Here's a pretty good, clickable map for Sachsen-Anhalt with each party down to the municipal level:

http://www3.mz-web.de/landtagswahl2016-sachsen-anhalt

Erststimme = constituency vote
Zweitstimme = party list vote

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I thought this was so, and its nice to see my memory is good: just checked and Pforzheim was the best constituency for the AfD in all of former West Germany at the last federal election.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Also, it can not be argued that the low turnout in SA (61%) was responsible for the AfD result.

Turnout in Saxony-Anhalt wasn't low. It was at its highest level since the 1998 state election... back then, the right-wing extremist DVU won 13% of the vote. Yes, there is a direct correlation in that state.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Two grand coalitions replace two Red-Green governments. A Red-Green government becomes a Black-Red-Green government. This was actually not that horrible of a night for Merkel.

I think that the CDU losing state elections in two historic (and federally still) CDU strongholds is pretty horrible for the CDU leader. And that the RP SPD are still winning after more than two decades now is a pretty clear indicator that it can't be assumed that things will snap back into place in BaWü in the medium term.

Merkel supporters within the CDU certainly spin the election results as a success for the Chancellor and even some in the media tend to agree with the assessemt.

In both Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, the leaders of the CDU became outspoken critics of Merkel's refugee policies on the campaign trail and moved signficantly to the right, while at the same time Malu Dreyer (SPD/RLP) and Winfried Kretschmann (GRN/BW) endorsed Merkel's policies.

So, the CDU's spin is now: If you distance yourself from Merkel too much, you'll lose.

[Middle-aged Europe]

  Why did the Greens collapse so bad in RP?

likely tactical voting because it was obvious the real question is whether spd or cdu leads the grand coälition

The Greens ran a pretty sh**tty campaign there and were paralyzed by internal struggles between party factions.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Governing coalitions:

Baden-Württemberg - The Greens obviously wanna continue to govern, but don't name a preference. They plan talks with both CDU and SPD/FDP. CDU state leader Guido Wolf says that he wants to try CDU/SPD/FDP, but it's unclear whether this will go anywhere. Editorials have already started to blast him for even thinking about it.

Rhineland-Palatinate - Malu Dreyer wants to do SPD/FDP/Greens, but I guess that's up to the FDP. If they decline, it's gonna be SPD/CDU.

Saxony-Anhalt - It's gonna be CDU/SPD/Greens or bust.

[palandio]

Nice spaghetti diagrams on voter migrations:

http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2016-03/waehlerwanderung-landtagswahlen-parteien-cdu-afd-nichtwaehler

"Andere Parteien" = "Other parties"
"Erstwähler" = "First-time voters"
"Verstorbene" = "Deceased"
"Zugezogene" = "Moved in"
"Fortgezogene" = "Moved out"
"Nichtwähler" = "Non-voters".

Regarding Pforzheim: After WW2 Pforzheim saw a rapid expansion with a thriving export industry, specialized on jewelry, resulting also in a high influx of "guest workers". 46.6% of the population of Pforzheim have a "migrational background", which is the second-highest number among German cities. Since the 80s the jewelry industry has almost completely been resettled to Asia, resulting in the number of jobs declining from ca. 65.000 to ca. 50.000. Pforzheim today has an unemployment that is not high by national standards, but high by Baden-Württemberg standards. Also the economic decline has lead to a high share of affordable housing, exactly at the time when millions of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe moved to Germany. Estimates on their percentage are mostly between 15% and 20%. (They also are counted among the 46.6% having "migrational background".) In recent years Pforzheim (as well as parts of Mannheim, interestingly) have also seen immigration of ethnic minorities from Bulgaria and Romania.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Having grown up in Saxony-Anhalt myself and also having witnessed the DVU's success back in 1998, I'm afraid there's not much behind most AfD voters' line of reasoning than: "Meh, foreigners. What are they doing here? This is Germany! I'm sick and tired of everything, I'm gonna vote AfD."

[Tender Branson]

  Why did the Greens collapse so bad in RP?

likely tactical voting because it was obvious the real question is whether spd or cdu leads the grand coälition

The Greens ran a pretty sh**tty campaign there and were paralyzed by internal struggles between party factions.

There are more reasons than that:

* The 2011 elections pushed the Greens unnaturally high because they were held right after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe
* Loan voting for SPD's Gov. Dreyer in her fight with Klöckner
* Some former centrist Greens from the Fukushima-wave election staying home because of the Greens overly pro-refugee positions
* No strong frontrunner like Kretschmann in BW

[Middle-aged Europe]

* The 2011 elections pushed the Greens unnaturally high because they were held right after the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe

Of course. Same is true for Saxony-Anhalt.

* Loan voting for SPD's Gov. Dreyer in her fight with Klöckner

Well, it also may have helped that the SPD looked like they've got their sh**t together... in contrast to the RLP Greens. People vote for parties who have their house in order.

* Some former centrist Greens from the Fukushima-wave election staying home because of the Greens overly pro-refugee positions

I don't see any indication for this. Almost any Green voter is pro-refugee... And second, it didn't hurt the Greens in Baden-Württemberg and Saxony-Anhalt.

(Sure, the Greens lost votes in Saxony-Anhalt... but aside from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern it's the state where the Greens are traditionally the weakest. Passing the 5% threshold two times in a row there can be considered an accomplisment. And while Winfried Kretschmann is certainly on the more conservative end of the Green spectrum, "conservative" in this case basically means that Kretschmann is supporting Angel Merkel on the refugee issue.)

* No strong frontrunner like Kretschmann in BW

Well, obviously. In addition, the Greens did have a "Doppelspitze" of two lead candidates. That limits the possibilities for a personalized campaign. And again, those two lead candidates were fighting each other during the campaign.

[palandio]

RP is by far the Greens' structurally weakest land in Western Germany (with the exception of Saarland), as you can see from many federal elections. Their core vote there is ca. 5%, the rest comes and goes (yesterday: goes). BW is on the other side of the spectrum (with the exception of the city-states Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Baden-Württemberg: The SPD has ruled out a coalition with CDU/FDP. Greens will now hold talks with both SPD/FDP and CDU.

Rhineland-Palatinate: The SPD will talk with FDP/Greens. No talks with CDU planned (yet?).

Saxony-Anhalt: The CDU will talk with SPD/Greens.