German state and local elections, March 26th

[Middle-aged Europe]

With the possibility of the FDP being kicked out of the governing coalition in all three states, Angela Merkel's Grand coalition could have a two-third majority in the Bundestag and the Bundesrat now.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Official results - Baden-Württemberg

CDU: 44.2% / 69 seats
SPD: 25.2% / 38 seats
Greens: 11.7% / 17 seats
FDP: 10.7% / 15 seats
WASG: 3.1% / 0 seats
Other parties: 5.1% / 0 seats

Turnout: 53.4%


The CDU, being one seat short of majority of its own, will probably continue the coalition with the FDP.




Official results - Rhineland-Palatinate

SPD: 45.6% / 53 seats
CDU: 32.8% / 38 seats
FDP: 8.0% / 10 seats
Greens: 4.6% / 0 seats
WASG: 2.5% / 0 seats
Other parties: 6.5% / 0 seats

Turnout: 58.2%


Rather unexpectedly, the SPD has won a majority of its own, which will probably kick the FDP out of the government.




No official result from Saxony-Anhalt yet. Latest projections:


ARD

CDU: 36.2% / 40 seats
Left.PDS: 24.1% / 27 seats
SPD: 21.3% / 23 seats
FDP: 6.7% / 7 seats
Greens: 3.5% / 0 seats
Other parties (incl. DVU which won about 3%): 8.2% / 0 seats

Turnout: 44.2%


ZDF

CDU: 36.0% / 37 seats
Left.PDS: 24.2% / 25 seats
SPD: 21.2% / 22 seats
FDP: 6.9% / 7 seats
Greens: 3.4% / 0 seats
Other parties: 8.3%

Turnout: 44.5%


Both ARD and ZDF are now projecting that the CDU/FDP coalition will narrowly lose its majority. Grand coalition between CDU and SPD seems imminent.



Effects on the federal level: If Saxony-Anhalt stays this way, Angela Merkel's Grand coalition will increase its majority in the Bundesrat by eight seats... 44 out of 69 seats are now from states with CDU, SPD, CDU/SPD, or SPD/CDU governments. Because the CDU in Baden-Württemberg fell short of a own majority it won't be a two-third majority in the Bundesrat though.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Official result - Saxony-Anhalt

CDU: 36.2% / 40 seats
Left.PDS: 24.1% / 26 seats
SPD: 21.4% / 24 seats
FDP: 6.7% / 7 seats
Greens: 3.6% / 0 seats
DVU: 3.0% / 0 seats
Other parties: 5.0% / 0 seats

Turnout: 44.2%

[minionofmidas]

I congratulate Saxony-Anhalt on its record turnout.

Of 45 direct seats there, the CDU won 40 btw . The Left won Magdeburg I, Halle I, and Halle IV. The SPD won Staßfurt (the only seat not won by the CDU last time round) and Hohenmölsen - Weißenfels.

In RhP, the SPD continues to poll more second votes than first votes ...
Constituency vote there was
SPD 43.3
CDU 38.6. CDU won 18 direct seats, SPD 33.
FDP 7.8
Greens 5.0

Oh, and the 6.5 other includes 1.7 REP, 1.6 FWG, 1.2 NPD, and 7 other parties.

Here in Hessen, the CDU has approximately held (exact results will be out app. thursday. On partial results so far, they've minimally gained. I don't doubt that they will have lost in the end.) The SPD has lost hard. The Greens have gained a bit here, lost a bit there. THe Left has done quite well in parts - 4.3% in Kassel rural district, 4.5% in Groß-Gerau district, 5.4% in Marburg - Biedenkopf district, 6.2% in Offenbach, 6.5% in Kassel, 6.5% in Frankfurt.
Here's the partial result for Frankfurt...
Turnout 40.4% 57.2% unchanged ballots and therefore counted, 38.5% changed and therefore not counted yet, 4.3% wholly invalid
CDU 37.6% SPD 23.0% (!) Greens 15.8% (better than last time, but it's actually the weakest result in any race since the last local elections) Left 6.5% FAG 3.5% (I'd expected they'd falter. They didn't. Good.) BFF 2.5% REP 1.6% NPD 1.4% ÖkoLinx 1.0% EL 0.4% (both these last two can be expected to profit immensely when the full result is in. Last time round, ÖkoLinx had 0.5% and EL 0.2% on unchanged ballots alone.)
Offenbach managed 31.0% turnout.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I congratulate Saxony-Anhalt on its record turnout.

Yeah, apparently all those potential DVU protest voters stayed home. The highest turnout we ever had in a state election was in 1998 and that was also the year the DVU got almost 13% of the vote.

The Left won ... Halle IV.

That's mine btw.



Baden-Württemberg map:
http://www.election.de/specials/Wamebw06.html

Rhineland-Palatinate first vote (direct seats) map:
http://www.election.de/specials/Wamerp06e.html

Rhineland-Palatinate second vote (PR distribution) map:
http://www.election.de/specials/Wamerp06z.html

Saxony-Anhalt first vote (direct seats) map:
http://www.election.de/specials/Wamesa06e.html

Saxony-Anhalt second vote (PR distribution) map:
http://www.election.de/specials/Wamesa06z.html

[minionofmidas]

The previous lowest turnout in a state election ever was 53.8% in Thuringia two years ago...

I've had me a look at Frankfurt's 16 Ortsbeiräte... the Ist where I live has 29.9% turnout, lowest in the city, and 11.6% Left, highest in the city.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Combined result in my hometown Halle (all four districts):

CDU 31.4%
Left.PDS 25.8%
SPD 22.2%
Greens 7.0%
FDP 6.9%
DVU 2.3%

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What's DVU? Are they another one of those fringe fascist parteis?

[Middle-aged Europe]

What's DVU? Are they another one of those fringe fascist parteis?

Yep. Since 2004 they're in an electoral alliance with the NPD.

[minionofmidas]

Results for those of Hessen's 12 largest cities to be reporting full results by now...with election night's "trend" result and 2001 result for comparison. And seat distribution.

Wiesbaden (only district or non-district city to report so far!)
CDU 36.1 (-0.4) 29 seats (-1) trend 37.6
SPD 30.3 (-4.4) 25 seats (-3) trend 28.3
Greens 12.1 (+1.9) 10 seats (+2) 12.2
FDP 9.0 (-3.0) 7 seats (-3) 9.0
REP 5.0 (+0.1) 4 seats (0) 6.0
BLW 3.7 (did not run) 3 seats 3.1 - some right of center indy slate
Left 3.2 (+1.5) 3 (+1) 3.1
BüSo 0.5 (did not run) 0 0.5 - LaRouchiacs. Almost took a seat. Pretty frightening really.

Hanau
CDU 29.8 (-5.3) 18 (-3) 30.0
SPD 29.3 (-7.2) 17 (-5) 28.5
FDP 11.9 (+7.0) 7 (+4) 12.0 to be expected given Hanau's Grand Coalition's shenanigans...
BfH 9.0 (+2.3) 5 (+1) 8.0 right of center indy
Greens 8.3 (-0.9) 5 (0) 8.2
REP 6.6 (-0.4) 4 (0) 7.2
Left 5.2 (did not run) 3 6.0

Rüsselsheim (large, working class Frankfurt suburb)
SPD 42.0 (-2.2) 19 (-1) 43.2
CDU 32.9 (-0.5) 15 (0) 34.4
Greens 8.8 (+1.0) 4 (0) 7.6
Liste Rüssel 5.8 (-0. 3 (0) 4.7 Left of center indy slate. "Rüssel" translates as "trunk; proboscis"
Left 5.6 (3.0) 2 (+1) 5.1
FDP 4.8 (-0.6) 2 (0) 4.9
BLM 0.1 (did not run) "Citizens for Love and Humanity". No kidding.

Bad Homburg (large, posh Frankfurt suburb)
CDU 42.2 (+3.9) 21 (-2) 43.7 council size decreased
SPD 16.9 (-2.2) 8 (-3) 16.8
Greens 11.2 (-1.2)  (-1) 11.8
FDP 10.7 (+1.9) 5 (0) 10.2
BLB 8.6 (-3.5) 4 (-3) 8.0 right of center indies
NHU 6.3 (did not run) 3 5.3 not sure what type of indies
REP 2.3 (-1.2) 1 (-1) 2.6
Left 1.8 (did not run) 1 1.5
FHW did not run (5.9) (-4) maybe these guys just renamed themselves "NHU"?

leaving the Rhein-Main area and entering Upper Hesse...
Wetzlar
SPD 39.1 (-1.6) 23 (-1) 40.5
CDU 36.0 (-0.2) 21 (0) 35.2
FWG 10.1 (+1.0) 6 (0) 8.9 the standard name for a right of center indy
Greens 8.0 (+0.9) 5 (+1) 8.9
FDP 6.8 (-0.1) 4 (0) 6.5

Marburg
SPD 33.0 (-1.1) 20 (0) 33.6
CDU 32.0 (+3.6) 19 (+2) 33.3
Greens 17.6 (+1.4) 10 (0) 17.4
Left 8.8 (+2.4) 5 (+1) 8.7 ah, college town politics...
FDP 4.9 (-0.2) 3 (0) 3.4
MBL 3.2 (-0.7) 2 (0) 2.3 right of center indy slate
APPD 0.5 (did not run) 0 0.3 the Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany
BfM did not run (5.7) (-3) another right of center indy, not sure what happened

[minionofmidas]

Complete results for the vast majority of municipalities are now in ... and for all the indy cities except Frankfurt ... but for only one district.

Darmstadt
CDU 30.1 (-4.1) 21 (-3) 30.9
SPD 29.0 (-4.5) 21 (-3) 29.6
Greens 15.5 (-0.9) 11 (-1) 14.9
FDP 6.8 (+0.3) 5 (0) 5.9
Uffbasse 6.3 (+4.2) 5 (+3) 6.8 Indy slate to the left of SPD and Greens
UWIGA 6.0 (did not run) 4 (+4) 6.2 Your typical center-right indy slate
Left 2.2 (+0.9) 2 (+1) 2.0
WASG 2.0 (did not run) 2 (+2) 1.8 Yeah, PDS and WASG ran separately here
The Women 1.0 (-0.3) 1 (0) 0.8 Hey, that is the party's name...
AUF 0.6 (0) 0 (0) 0.7 another leftwing indy slate
three more slates that didn't win anything 0.5 (did not run) 0 0.3
4 slates that didn't run any more, including two more leftish-sounding ones that held a seat each, 4.0% together in 2001

Offenbach
CDU 35.4 (+3.2) 25 (+2) 36.6
SPD 32.2 (-7.3) 23 (-5) 31.5
Greens 11.0 (+1.1) 8 (+1) 10.6
FDP 7.5 (+1.0) 5 (0) 6.1
Left 5.3 (+2.8) 4 (+2) 6.2
REP 4.0 (-1.1) 3 (-1) 5.0
FWG 2.9 (-0.5) 2 (0) 2.5
Animal Rights 1.7 (+1.2) 1 (+1) 1.5

Kassel
SPD 39.8 (+3.8) 28 (+2) 40.1
CDU 29.1 (-6.3) 21 (-4) 28.8
Grüne 15.4 (-1.4) 11 (-1) 15.6
Left 6.8 (+3.6) 5 (+3) 6.5
FDP 5.5 (+0.4) 4 (0) 5.5
FWG 1.8 (-0.3) 1 (0) 1.9 Ran as BfK 5 years ago, switched to standard name
AUF 1.7 (+0.4) 1 (0) 1.5 lefty indies (name's for "alternative independent progressive")

Waldeck-Frankenberg district
SPD 36.0 (-3.0) 26 (-1) 37.5
CDU 35.1 (+0.9) 25 (+1) 35.6
FWG 11.6 (+0.7) 8 (0) 9.9
FDP 7.3 (+0.7) 5 (0) 6.8
Greens 6.0 (+0.5) 4 (0) 5.7
REP 2.3 (-1.5) 2 (-1) 2.7
Left 1.7 (did not run) 1 (+1) 1.8

city of Gießen
CDU 36.0 (-2.6) 21 (-2) 37.0
SPD 33.2 (-0.2) 20 (0) 32.5
Greens 12.8 (+3.1) 8 (+2) 13.9
Left 5.9 (+2.1) 4 (+2) 6.0
FDP 5.7 (+0.3) 3 (0) 5.7
FW 3.8 (-3.6) 2 (-2) 3.0
BLG 2.4 (+1.3) 1 (0) 1.9
ABG 0.1 (did not run) 0 0.0
one slate at 0.5 / 0 in 2001 did not run again

city of Fulda ... black as spades, as usual
CDU 58.6 (-3.3) 35 (-1) 57.8
SPD 20.2 (-2.8) 12 (-2) 20.9
Greens 8.4 (+1.4) 5 (+1) 7.9
FDP 4.9 (+2.3) 3 (+1) 4.9
CWE 3.3 (+0.7) 2 (+1) 3.4 Christian Voter Unit :D
Left 2.6 (did not run) 1 3.0
REP 2.0 (-0.9) 1 (-1) 2.1

Mostly I'm just looking at these in order to guess what the final Frankfurt result might look like...

and while I was typing...
Hersfeld-Rotenburg district, where there be cannibals.
SPD 48.1 (-2.6) 29 (-2) 47.5
CDU 37.2 (+1.8) 23 (+2) 38.4
FWG 4.5 (+0.1) 3 (0) 4.3
FDP 3.0 (-0.2) 2 (0) 2.9
Greens 2.9 (-1.1) 2 (0) 2.8
Left 1.9 (did not run) 1 1.9
Independents 1.4 (did not run) 1 1.2 hey, that's what the slate is called
Free German 1.0 (did not run) 0 0.9 ditto
REP (2.8 / 2 in 2001) did not run again.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What are all these cities like?

[minionofmidas]

Ah, comment.

Hmmm. Rüsselsheim is easiest. Home of Opel (which has long been a wholly-owned General Motors subsidiary.)
Bad Homburg is just a rich commuter suburb, with a rich spa town in the center of it.
Offenbach, ah but you know that, formerly very working class, leatherworking industry of which there are still some remnants. Still largely a working class suburb of Frankfurt, but don't tell them I said so.
Hanau, lots of chemical industry, astonishingly dull cultural life.
Wiesbaden, the capital of Hessen. Mostly a rich civil servants town - and (amazingly for a place that large) it doesn't even have a uni. Some industrial areas towards the city's south.
Darmstadt, another former capital city with some of that spirit still alive...big university...suburbs to the west of the city (Griesheim, Weiterstadt et al) are quite working-class, far more so than the city itself.
Wetzlar, formerly the center of the long-defunct Hessian iron mining and foundry industry. Mining in the area came to an end in 1983 (after 3000 years...)
Gießen, weird mix of old but not very large uni, industry, and shockingly ugly postwar architecture.
Fulda, not poor, extremely catholic.
Kassel, I don't know Kassel that well but it's got a rich West and a poor East. Used to be a Social Democrat stronghold until some corruption scandals and a total meltdown 15 years ago...they seem to be back now.
Marburg is of course the ultimate college town. Quite beautiful, too. Surprised the American and Japanese bus tours haven't discovered it yet.

Oh, and together these are the 11 cities in Hessen with 50K to 300K inhabitants.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Interesting. Thanks

Hmmm. Rüsselsheim is easiest. Home of Opel (which has long been a wholly-owned General Motors subsidiary.)

Ah; is it more Dagenham than Longbridge? (ignoring the terminal decline of car manufacturing in both of those places) Or not like either?

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The suburb bit or the working class bit?

And why are there cannibals in Hersfeld-Rotenburg?

[minionofmidas]

Interesting. Thanks

Hmmm. Rüsselsheim is easiest. Home of Opel (which has long been a wholly-owned General Motors subsidiary.)

Ah; is it more Dagenham than Longbridge? (ignoring the terminal decline of car manufacturing in both of those places) Or not like either?

Never been to either... :/ What's Dagenham like? What's Longbridge like?

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The suburb bit or the working class bit? [/quote]the suburb of Frankfurt bit, of course.

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Never heard of Armin Meiwes, the Rotenburg Cannibal ?

[minionofmidas]

And (apart from 9 more districts) there's a 99% count of Frankfurt out - though info on moves within the parties are still missing.

CDU 36.0  34 seats (-2) 37.6
SPD 24.1 22 seats (-6) 23.0
Greens 15.3 14 seats (+1) 15.8
Left 6.6 6 seats (+4) 6.5
FDP 6.5 6 seats (+2) 6.5
FAG 3.8 4 seats (0) 3.5
BFF 2.8 3 seats (+2) 2.5
REP 1.5 1 seat (-2) 1.6
NPD 1.2 1 seat (+1) 1.4
ÖkoLinx 1.2 1 seat (0) 1.0
EL 1.0 1 seat (0) 0.4

Yeah, looking over the figures of altered ballots for the different Ortsbeiräte, I'd felt that the Greens would lose on the final figure.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

What's Dagenham like?

Working class London suburb waaay out East (was once in Essex and many locals still regard it as being such), lot's and lot's of council housing, used to have a big Ford factory but they closed it a few years ago (although some stuff is still made there IIRC). BNP have become active in the area, but haven't done nearly as well as in neighbouring Barking (Labour is better organised in Dagenham than Barking) and haven't had any councillers elected from there so far.
Generally a very safe Labour area though (constituency has been Labour since it's creation in 1945).

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Working class suburb at the southernmost point of Birmingham, economy traditionally based around the (former) Rover plant at Longbridge, but has since diversified (not had much choice in that o/c).
It's what is sometimes described as an "affluent working class" area and is usually Labour at local level (although the odd Tory wins now and again, this is Birmingham after all) and is strongly Labour nationally. Forms the emotional core of the Birmingham Northfield constituency (Labour from creation until 1979, then Tory until a by-election in the early '80's, Labour until they lost it again in 1983, Labour again in 1992 and from then onwards. Is now a safe seat again).

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So it's like Smethwick and Birmingham?

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Yes, but the media here never said quite where he was from.

[minionofmidas]

Neither really; remember that it's an independent city and that until 1945 it was actually in a different state than Frankfurt, by which time carmaking at Rüsselsheim already had a 30-year history. In fact, along the Main river there's two more municipalities between Frankfurt and Rüsselsheim, Kelsterbach and Raunheim, both also working class suburbs, with even higher immigrant proportions than Frankfurt and Rüsselsheim, with their economy heavily dependent on the airport these days (though Raunheim also has Opel workers). Technically Frankfurt and Rüsselsheim do border each other to the south of these places - that is to say, Rüsselsheim City Forest borders the airport.
As to estates and such...I'm not sure. The inner areas are old-growth, privately built. Then there's company-built housing (not necessarily still owned by Opel - I'd actually have to look into that. The Hoechst-built estates in Zeilsheim and Unterliederbach have not been company-owned for decades though, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same was true here.)
Parts of Raunheim and Kelsterbach look ... what's the opposite of "gentrified"? You know, they look as if they were built with much more middleclass people in mind than inhabit them now.
The whole Groß-Gerau district area has quite a leftist feel, of both the populist and "liberal" variants (the coolest in that respect is actually Mörfelden, south of the airport)... part of it used to be Communist strongholds during the Weimar Republic, as was Offenbach.
From 1925 to the onset of the Depression, and again for a short stint in 1931, Offenbach continuously had the highest unemployment of all German cities btw...in 1932, well over half the cities' population were living on the dole.

[minionofmidas]

Just three districts (Wetterau, Marburg-Biedenkopf and Bergstraße) still missing - and the official result from Frankfurt. What's taking so long about that one percent of ballots? Maybe they're counting Ortsbeiräte now and will release the official data together...
The last municipality result has just come in by the way, from lovely Büdingen in the Vogelsberg foothills. (Well Old Büdingen is lovely...looks sorta Tuscan really; I wonder how many of the 16K registered voters actually live there. Probably not much more than 20% I'd reckon...) And it's one of the biggest swings of the day actually when you ignore special circumstances like at Usingen, where the CDU ignored the filing deadline 5 years ago - in a place where it had a majority in 1997!
Here's Büdingen:
CDU 31.1 (-8.7)
SPD 30.7 (-10.3)
Greens 6.1 (-0.4)
NPD 1.8 (+1.
FWG 30.4 (+17.7)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Hesse local election map:

http://www.election.de/specials/Wamehe06.html

[minionofmidas]

Hesse local election map:

http://www.election.de/specials/Wamehe06.html

Totally out of of date. (All the brown places are the ones that only declared today.)
We have a final result btw -

statewide, districts and the 5 cities: (three councils were made smaller, hence total seat reduction by 26)
parties
CDU 38.5 (+0.4) 739 (0)
SPD 34.7 (-3. 678 (-77)
Greens 9.2 (+0.1) 175 (-1)
FDP 5.8 (+0.6) 29 (-23)
PDS 1.0 (+0.6) 20 (+13)
NPD 0.4 (+0.2) 6 (+2)
WASG 0.2 (+0.2) 5 (+5)
DKP 0.1 (did not run anywhere) 1 (+1)
Animal Rights 0.0 (-0.1) 1 (0)
Women 0.0 (0) 1 (0)

at least technically non-party slates 8.6 (+2.5) 165 (+48)
of these
affiliated  to the statewide FWG's federation 5.2 102
joint lists of PDS and WASG, often with some local groups thrown in for good measure 2.1 36 what#s worse, such lists also existed last time around (tho' without WASG)
other 1.3 27

for a total de-facto Left performance of 3.3 (+?) 61 (+?)



And here's a list of Frankfurt candidates bounced into the council by the voters, followed by those bounced out:
CDU-
in
Bernadette Weyland list position: 38 final position: 18
Nina Teufel von Hallerstein : 41 : 19
Karl-Leo Schneeweis: 52: 32
Walter Seubert: 37: 34
out
Thomas Rätzle list position: 29
Bernhard Mertens: 32
Robert Lange: 33
Hildegard Berkert: 33
I gotta admit, Schneeweis is the only one among these that I've heard of (6th Ortsbeirat CDU leader)

SPD
in
Rita Streb-Hesse: 40: 10 former Bundestag member, council member before that, obviously elected on name recognition alone
Michael Paris: 51: 12 same except change "Bundestag" to "Landtag". I actually gave him 3 votes
Silke Seitz: 25: 19
Gregorios Zarcadas: 26: 20 so he conserved his council seat, then
Bernhard Ochs: 29: 22 former council member, former SPD 4th Ortsbeirat leader, didn't run for anything 5 years ago, and an altogether very nice guy whom I've known for 20 years, and thence of course voted for
out
Günter Dürr: 14 Man, I'm glad about that. Arrogant old right idiot and Green-hater. His identical twin Hans Busch also lost a good number of spots, though he got in.
Gert Wagner: 17
Jürgen Hupe: 19 Probably fell a victim of the 1st Ortsbeirat's (which he once led) extreme swing away from the SPD - to the left, mind
Jan Klingelhöfer: 21
Tarkan Akman: 22 Both youth organization candidates. I thought of voting for Akman on the strength of his ponytail and Turkish ancestry alone, but in the end I didn't. I felt that 12 votes for Social Democrats was plenty already...

Greens:
in Martina Feldmayer: 15: 13 was on the previous council, too.
out Wulfila Walter: 14. That's a man's name though it don't look it. Youth organization candidate - Frankfurt uni student union leader a couple years back, btw.

FDP
in Hannelore Otto: 9: 5
out Yanki Pürsün: 4. Seems the idea of a Turkish Free Democrat didn't go down too well with their supporters...