2012 Elections in Germany

[minionofmidas]

The last graph is entertaining.

[minionofmidas]

It is presumed something ugly happened behind the scenes here.
Also, I suppose Merkel is frightened and angry not only because of BRW but because of France and Greece as well. (I would love to claim she's "coming apart at the seams", but that would be wishful thinking.)

[minionofmidas]

So when wil a credible and actually left-wing party emerge in Germany ?...

I don't think left voters can complain about a lack of choice in Germany ... you have the SPD, the Greens and Die Linke, which cover the entire range of the left political spectrum (from the realistic center-left to the extreme left).

And the Pirates. Though note that lack of choice was not what the complaint was about. The issue is entirely with the quality of the choices.

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That's just wrong. It's understandable that people might think so, but it's wrong. Unless PvdV and such are considered "serious" and "democratic", and even then it's exceedingly iffy - the CDU esp. locally has the populist but by self-assessment respectable right pretty well covered, much better than the CDA or than the French right used to have. Better than the Tories in most parts, too, though things vary quite a bit between parts of Britain on that account.
 And where occasionally it doesn't, you get some local party led by a CDU or FDP renegade, either with no intention towards regional (let alone national) politics, or with at least one glorious fail attempt under his belt already.

[minionofmidas]

That party is effectively dead. Though not quite - partly because (though the REPs are themselves too disreputable to fill that gap) the NPD is that far-out.
The REPs were of course founded with the intention of being such a party, back in the 80s. Hence the name and all. Didn't help that the man who founded it was thrown out of the CSU and his state tv job because of his too obvious WaffenSS nostalgia...

[minionofmidas]

The message would have to be phrased as broadly "right now we're paying money to destroy Greece; let's pay money to actually, you know, help them instead".

[minionofmidas]

(Before anyone asks... yes, the former SED guy is the "moderate" one of the candidates. As it is in fact often the case with the Left Party.)

Of course it is.

Exactly as with the 80s Greens, though for only partially identical reasons.

[minionofmidas]

I'm all for a Katja Kipping - Sahra Wagenknecht team for cochairs.

[minionofmidas]

I don't think Oskar Lafontaine is more useful than the Linkspartei. And that's what Sahra is otherwise pursuing.

[minionofmidas]

That Bielefeld constituency must be a nice gerry to unite all the most "urbane" parts of the city-that-doesn't-exist. While of course Cologne actually comes out a bit of an anti-Green gerry.

[minionofmidas]

Katja Kipping easily beats some unknown from Hamburg for the first chairmanship position. The woman she'd originally co-announced with had previously withdrawn from the race. Showdown between Bartsch and some unknown Lafo standin from BaWü (Bernd Riexinger) expected for the second slot, tho' there may be more candidates.

[minionofmidas]

Actually, Dora Heyenn is not that unknown in the Left party. She's Chairwoman of the Left Party in the Hamburg parliament.

Unknown to anyone but Hamburgers and Left Party insiders.

Just like Riexinger then (who won, fairly narrowly.)

[minionofmidas]

Remember that the SPD held that constituency in 94, 98 and 02 as well.

[minionofmidas]

That poll is actually a month old.

[minionofmidas]

In case someone still cares about the BaWü elections of 2011... the American legal tradition equivalent of the newest development would probably be "Stefan Mappus indicted" for his role in the EnBW purchase.

[minionofmidas]

So, as expected by all who can and did read (read the 2008 court verdict and the new election law, that is), a number which does not include many government politicians or any political journalists, Angela Merkel's election law is even more unconstitutional than the old one.

The court did its utmost to save her face - it did not octroy a new election law of its own making (though it said it would do so if there's no new law by spring 03) and it did not rule Überhangmandate unconstitutional per se - but because the journos understand nothing of the matter and did not expect the verdict, they are failing to notice that. Unanimous verdict btw.

[minionofmidas]

It's not my fault English didn't borrow quite all latino-franco-internationalese terms in existence, Jim.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oktroyieren

[minionofmidas]

Do you have a link to the supreme court decision(s)?

2012
2008

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Several, all of them considered inacceptable by the CDU and often also by the SPD (well, at least the SPD have a clear idea of what their preferred solution is, and while clearly constitutional it's not particularly practicable). You see, the easiest solutions would impact on how the big parties are used to doing intra-party business... and any constitutional solution would make an outcome like the last one (24 overhang mandates for the CDU and CSU, none for anybody else) impossible... and the CDU rather likes that advantage.

[minionofmidas]

But it appears that the court didn't like overhang seats, and chose to parse "general", "direct", "equal", "secret", and "whole people" in an activist way.

Nyes - they didn't start doing that just now. "Equal" has been interpreted as requiring a proportional form of election since the 50s - in decisions okaying the occasional existence of one or two overhang mandates. The mid-90s decision upholding overhang mandates for the time being despite their sudden increase in numbers, but making it impossible to fill vacancies in them also played a major part in the doctrine's evolution.

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At least in part, yeah.

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I haven't the slightest clue as to why the switch. With this many seats and a 5% threshold, the likelihood that the change actually has an effect here is virtually nil (discrepancies occur almost exclusively in relation to a party's - or state list's - first seat, which is not an issue with the first distribution and for the major parties that may win overhang seats not for the second distrubution by Länder either), and in both 2005 and 2009 Hare-Niemeyer and Ste Lague lead to identical outcomes.

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No idea.

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Yeah - it has for a while now been established case law that 5% is the maximum allowed height for a threshold, btw. There was an issue with the new election law, if it didn't include the illogical second distribution (§ 6 Abs. 2a) it would effectively raise the threshold in the smallest states to over 5% (not to mention: there would be no point voting for the FDP in Bremen or the Saar Greens anymore because if they don't win a seat, your vote would effectively now count towards all other parties in Bremen rather than the FDP in other states, as previously.) The court says that would have been okay, but it's not hard to see why the FDP didn't think so and forced the inclusion of § 6 Abs. 2a - the 5% threshold is after all still calculated including Bremen and the Saar.

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The list votes of voters who cast their constituency vote for candidates running for parties that failed the threshold, but won direct election, as happened in two East Berlin constituencies in 2002. They are treated (for reasons unknown...) not as overhang mandates in the seat distribution but rather like elected Independents, so reducing the total number of seats to be distributed to other parties. However, the list votes of voters voting for victorious Independents are disregarded (some SC decision from the 50s IIRC...) while in this case here they are not. Some people in the CDU made a shibboleth of the issue because once you disregard these votes the CDU and CSU together received more votes than the SPD in 2002... though there is no effect on seat distribution, they'd still have won the exact same number of seats. The new election law changed it so such votes would be disregarded. The SC just upheld what they said back in 2002 as well: either approach is constitutionally fine, there is no issue here.

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Because it's a sh!tty beta program that would never have been released if Google didn't have such a dominant market position.

"The divisor is to be set so that the total number of seats distributed to the state lists is identical to the number of seats to be distributed" would be my attempt.

[minionofmidas]

We don't have a German General Discussion thread, so I'll just mention it here.

Georg Leber has passed at the ripe old age of 91.
The English wiki stub is alas wholly uninformative.

[minionofmidas]

It's more or less just a party tradition nowadays. Ten years ago when the quota came under attack from the party leadership, it was very much a token of the party still being different from the mainstream parties, and therefore overwhelmingly upheld by the convention delegates. Since then it's sacrosanct.
On Green party lists, first place is reserved for women unless only men stand, lower-down places are reserved for women unless only men stand or the place immediately above was won by a woman.
In practice, at least for state and federal elections that means odd places are for women and even places for men.

[minionofmidas]

Pirate Bubble has popped to an extent.

[minionofmidas]

Breaking News: Peer Steinbrück will be the SPD's candidate for chancellor.

*goes into Obi-wan Kenobi mode* NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!  Well, at least this will finish him off, hopefully. 

Hmmm? This was the middle one of three options based on political leanings and the best one based on electability. Just be glad they're not going with Steinmeier again.

[minionofmidas]

Just be glad they're not going with Steinmeier again.

Are you suggesting that walking, talking sleeping pills do not make good candidates?

This is an insult to the honor of the pharmaceutical industry.

[minionofmidas]

Also, Kurt Beck has announced his retirement. On the same day.

This will bring the number of female state pm's up to four. Malu Dreyer is the Anointed.

[minionofmidas]

An abbreviation of Marie Luise.