🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Oryxslayer]

How does 2005 compare with this election?  

There seem to be a lot of similarities - swap the position of the big two ofc - but the negotiation alignment is different. In 2005 the emergent Linke prevented either Black-Yellow or Red-Green from a majority, and both parties refused to work with it. The only realistic option within the established calculus was GroKo, so it mattered immensely who finished first.

This time the realistic options are traffic light or Jamaica. The crucial thing here is that no government except GroKo, which right now is looked at as an emergency option since both members have another option, can be formed without the FDP and Greens. It is the minor partners who are indispensable to any government. So who came marginally in first might not end up mattering, other than giving the SPD some legitimacy, if the the Greens and FDP get a better deal from the Union. It is tradition for the largest party to form government, but sometimes it does not happen. The Union won the Bremen 2019 election for example but the SPD formed R2G.

Lindner, for example, recognized their two parties position last night and proposed initial private talks between the Greens and FDP. The two parties would maximize their leverage by coming up with a common platform, then dictating it down to their potential partners. See who agreed to more and then play the SPD and Union against each other for more concessions like they are a nonaligned country during the cold war. This is unlikely to happen of course because the FDP and Greens are not truly nonaligned and have their own preferred outcome, but it would be an interesting way to approach government formation.

[Oryxslayer]

(ask any Londoner).

You mean the London that's encircled by an impenetrable Green Belt?

That's hardly a good example of libertarian politics lol

I don't think there's a single example of sufficient housing regulation and bureaucracy cutting in the EU.

We have come to live with the expectation that planning and getting a building approved takes as long or longer than actually building it. Sprinkle in some ridiculous "green" standards into the mix, and you have beautiful, expensive, turtle speed construction.

Is there really any developed country that doesn't have problems with housing affordability in its major and most desirable cities?

Does Texas count? (Other Sunbelt states with lax regulations too).

Yeah the US is actually comparatively good on this front because our dominant construction paradigm is continuous sprawl and most desirable cities can still keep going outwards. It's just that the most most desirable cities like NY, Seattle, LA and the Bay Area are hemmed in by geography and must now build up, something contrary to our cultural expectations and limited by laws out west. So those places become super unaffordable.

[Oryxslayer]

maybe a different color scheme for AfD? I know which is which but outside observers might wonder why the AfD is winning in Berlin.

The correct option is greys for union, blues for AfD, but I understand if that is undesirable because of black borders.

[Oryxslayer]

After a Green-FDP summit had been scheduled for tomorrow, the SPD is starting to get impatient now and demands meetings of all three parties this week.

What's happening in the CDU in the meantime? Dunno... it seems Laschet is busy trying to remain party chairman. Also, there's also a possible fight over the position of the CDU/CSU caucus leader in the Bundestag. Incumbent Ralph Brinkhaus wants to run again, but others have started to argue that this election should at least be postponed.

I wwas thinking about this last night, and I wonder if we could be heading for a certain scenario. FDP/Greens wait for the Union to oust Laschet and then let it be known which person(s) they would agree to as chancellor in Jamaica. The pressure then falls on the Union to concede ground or commit to the opposition. If the former, then the FDP/Greens know the Union is desperate enough to get all types of concessions from, if the latter then the FDP has a justification to present to their voters why the party will enter Traffic Light.

[Oryxslayer]

Against the expressed wishes of his party chairman Laschet (who wanted to postpone the ballot in case he needed the position himself as a backup career plan) CDU/CSU caucus leader Ralph Brinkhaus is planning the get re-elected today. This is widely interpreted as sign that nobody in the CDU gives a f**k anymore about what Laschet wants.

How’s Laschet gonna be caucus leader if he’s not in the caucus? Did that ever pan out?

Yes, he's a member of the Bundestag now.

How?

Leveling seats ofc.

[Oryxslayer]

Same question as above, but only with the responses of CDU supporters

Yes 60%
No 36%

Not surprising. If the Union actually wants a chance at Jamaica the knifes need to come out fast, and someone who fits the moment elevated to prominence.

[Oryxslayer]

Second vote by Gemeinde. For some reason the news websites don't show an entire national map, but some show some states and others show other states. So I tried merging them, that's why the colouring is off. White is forests and stuff.

Frankfurter Rundschau has an nice interactive map for BY, BW, SL, HE, NRW, NS, SA, BR, HA, SH:
https://www.fr.de/politik/bundestagswahl-2021-als-interaktive-karte-ergebnisse-aus-allen-11-000-gemeinden-zr-90980562.html

(Scroll down, click on "Gemeinden")

Tagesschau does it for the rest:
https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2021-09-26-BT-DE/index.shtml

Very interesting, tried going through to places I have been in Germany.  Curious why Greens so strong in big cities while SPD seems more in smaller places including some rural?  While I know Germany is different, in most English speaking country, rural tends to vote for right wing parties and that seems only true in southern parts of country, not northern rural areas.  Are Greens more culturally progressive while SPD more your traditional blue collar type party?  I know in English speaking world big reason right has gained in smaller working class communities is on cultural as opposed to economic issues while big cities tend to be very progressive and woke which turns off many other areas so curious if this dynamic is showing up in Germany or more unique to Anglosphere.

Reminder that you are comparing 26% to 25% to teens of percent. A lot of the maps is margins less than 5%, so you can't exactly judge too much without more data than just this map.

[Oryxslayer]

The first round of talks are over!

Greens and FDP will now decide in the coming days whether further preliminary meetings with either SPD or CDU are necessary (God, I hope not.. everybody knows the CDU is in shambles, just get it over with) or whether they'll enter the next phase of trilateral meetings with one of the bigger parties.

Wait, CDU is still in the run? Looking at the results, they should accept defeat and try harder next time. That said, 16 of being the ruling party is more than enough.

I find it kind of questionble 2 smaller parties essentially picking the chancellor now. That said, as long as SPD leads, I'm fine.

Yes, the CDU is officially still in the run. Some observers say that is so because Greens and FDP need the possibility of a Jamaica coalition as a bargaining chip in upcoming negotiations with the SPD.

The CDU hasn't pulled out of it yet, because the possibility of a Jamacia coalition is the sole reason why Armin Laschet is still party chairman at the moment.

Which is of course self-defeating prophecy, cause it is clear Laschet himself, or at least his image, is a roadblock to Jamaica. The Union would need to find a credible alternative to actually make it work. However knifing him will not happen if it is viewed as a concession of defeat rather than a move to improve their position, and therefore Jamaica becomes even more distant.

[Oryxslayer]

If the FDP really refuses to work together with the SPD and the Grüne really refuses to work together with the CDU/CSU, is there any possibiity of a SPD-Grüne minority government?

Minorities are unGerman. One of the four will eventually buckle to avoid new elections, and that includes the Union for GroKo v2.0. Right now it's in the SPD/Unions corner to offer large concessions to FDP/Greens respectively, but if the days start passing with no headway the pressure will flip to the minor parties to accept a deal before GroKo returns to viability. 

[Oryxslayer]

Another question is earlier some forums were talking about decline of social democracy in Europe so if SPD forms government, does that help their cause or will it be more an isolated case like Portugal and Denmark who have popular social democratic governments but hasn't necessarily helped elsewhere.  Norway just elected theirs so too early to tell while in Sweden, Finland, and Spain polls show them struggling but still competitive not wiped out like Netherlands, France, or Greece.  Only reason I ask is Germany is largest EU member state so often what happens there has impact throughout Europe.  Portugal and Denmark are small countries which few pay attention to.

If anyone was telling you Social Democracy was in declines, you were lied to. If it was a decline of social democratic parties then they are right. This has less to do with any particular party or values but rather multiple mutually reinforcing factors that have been in effect for several decades. These include: The greying/death of the traditional Labor electorate and it's lack of replacement, decline of traditional union industries in favor of technical or professional ones, the internet which has broken the strength of local social groups - like unions - in favor of national ones, changing importance of values among young/middle aged voters, and parliamentary fragmentation as more groups see reason to challenge the old guard.

Mind you this only applies to PR-dominated systems, majoritarian-incentivized systems like the UK can replace their greying voters with new ones through domination of the electoral space.

Many of the examples you list still fit into this trend, because the other side of the declining SocDem/Labor "old-left" parties is the rise of Greens/Equality and Human Rights-focused Liberals/Radical Intelligentsias/Citizen Populists who make up the "new-left." The Scandinavian Social-Democratic parties continue to drop in their percentage at the expense of the minor left: Nowray is going to have a Left govt because of Sp SV, and R's growth, not Ap. Denmark saw the host of minor leftists win more votes and the same number of seats as the Social Democrats. And the SPD here didn't exactly grow enormously - this is still among their worst results ever - it's just that the Greens bit off enough of Merkel's Union vote to send it spiraling down.

Now what we may have been blind to, because these governments were/are still in power, was the simultaneous decline of the old-right in favor of a similar host of new-right parties. It just takes longer cause their natural base is the old and the old-left's is not, so generational replacement takes longer. But there are many examples. LR remain in tumult and are more or less along for the Macron ride, the fall of Berlusconi's machine, whatever ends up happening in Ireland in reaction to SF now getting seen as a left party rather than a nationalist one, and now the Union.

[Oryxslayer]

I don't wanna crow about my own accomplishments, but I think it's worthy of mention that I was the only one to check the correct answer in that January 11, 2020 poll.




I will now accept my accolades‼

And I think it deserves a (dis)honorable mention that our self-proclaimed German politics pundit floated two random suggestions, both of which turned out to be painfully wrong. 🙅🏼‍♂️😒🤦🏼‍♂️

TBF you were likely answering this not based on data at the time - which suggested a Union stranglehold on the electorate challenged only by the Greens - but more on your gut. And I'm not sure if that proves you have more foresight or are just a committed SPD partisan - not a bad thing but just a recognition of  perspectives.

[Oryxslayer]

Does the junior party of the coalition have a big bargaining power to set its agenda?
I believe this is a possibility because if the coalition breaks, the party which has bigger loss is the party of the chancellor.

That depends entirely on circumstance, but it has so far appeared that the FDP can demand the most as the weakest link.

[Oryxslayer]

The Berlin Constitutional Court began hearings today about the election fiasco last year (missing ballot papers, long lines, closed polling stations, etc.).

It looks likely that we may get a complete re-do of the Berlin House of Representatives, the 12 district assemblies, and also the Bundestag is possible:

According to a preliminary assessment, the Berlin Constitutional Court considers a complete repetition of the election to the Berlin House of Representatives to be necessary. This was stated by court president Ludgera Selting on Wednesday at the start of the oral hearing. There were a large number of electoral errors in the preparation and conduct of the election.

According to a preliminary assessment, these were relevant to the mandate – according to the court, they had an impact on the composition of Parliament and the distribution of mandates. A constitutional state can only be brought about by a complete re-election.

The oral hearing on Wednesday is considered an important step in the political and legal processing of the omissions on September 26, 2021. A decision is not expected on Wednesday, but is theoretically possible. According to the law, the judges have three months after the hearing to reach a verdict.

According to the court, 1,066 out of 2,256 polling stations for the House of Representatives elections were still open after 6 p.m., a total of 350 hours. Polling stations were closed for a total of 83 hours due to missing ballot papers.

According to the court, thousands of voters in the House of Representatives were unable to cast their votes, cast them effectively, were not unaffected or under reasonable conditions. Not all voting errors were documented. The electoral errors therefore affect all 78 constituencies of the House of Representatives. Confidence in democracy would be permanently and severely damaged if these are not corrected.

However, the current parliament may continue to work until a new one is elected. The previous decisions are still valid. The final judgment of the Constitutional Court must be made no later than three months after the hearing. The election must take place 90 days later. That would probably be in the spring of 2023.

Per discussions in my SPD local chat groups, they say it is "very likely" that a redo election will happen for the entire state of Berlin, at all levels, including the Bundestag (!). We have already been invited to three meetings over the next week. And since it is a redo, there will be no new candidates, but rather everything should be exactly the same as September 2021.

I'm not sure how much people realize it, but this rightful action may unintentionally open a whole can of worms. Basically, the electoral situation today =/= last year: Green, Union, and AfD up; SPD and FDP down; Linke the same but its perception, structural foundation, and viability are all now in question and the party could spectacularly collapse at any moment. So what if Linke fails to win one of its two Berlin seats? Because if one accepts that the do-over is the true legitimate results, then Linke failing to win three seats overall leads to them losing access to their PR slate and 36 overall seats. Which is a whole other mess created because the correct course of action could upset what was a delicate situation.  

Edit: Clarko saw the exact same possibility at the same time

[Oryxslayer]

Sad, it seems like the 2021 election was pretty much a fluke. Why would voters want CDU back in power after they neglected many urgent needed problems?

Because the SPD - partially because of their actions, partially because of their inactions, and partially because of their poor communication - are getting blame from both those angry with Germany's Ukraine policy (too far to some & not doing enough to others) and those angry with the price increases that have accompanied Russia's war.

[Oryxslayer]

The Bundestag approved the Election Review Committee for a rerun of the federal election in 431 Berlin districts - subject to a ruling by the Constitutional Court.

Furthermore, parliament passed a bill that lowers the minimum voting age for EU elections from 18 to 16, against the opposition of CDU, CSU and AfD.

So we are in the situation where if the rerun and subsequent substitution - cause that's what it kinda is, substituting new results in the bad areas alongside the good ones from last time - cause Linke to lose a seat then everything changes. Now since the reelection is limited, and voters will probably know Linke's precarious position and opt not to disrupt it, things for them are unlikely to drastically change. But the possibility is there.

[Oryxslayer]

Whelp, any chance the federal election is expanded after the ruling now on the state contest? Probably zilch right?

[Oryxslayer]

Say you had a federal election with this sort of result. What is the most likely coalition?

Coalitions that are at least feasible:
CDU-SPD - 46% in this poll, in the area where they may just about reach a majority. Very narrow majority if so and it really could kill the SPD this time.
CDU-SPD-Green - Comfortable majority, probably spells trouble for at least one participant.
CDU-SPD-FDP - Reasonably comfortable majority, but would be bad for SPD and potentially the FDP.
CDU-Green-FDP - Narrow majority, the only option if the SPD were determined to go into opposition but would likely see the Greens pummelled (and the AFD the only right wing alternative…).

Nothing else is feasible, the AFD strength makes it difficult for some of the above to have a majority (nevermind the old 1 major + 1 minor party coalition) while Die Linke falling out would make it a bit easier (and it’s not like any left majority that could even theoretically be included in is anywhere near a majority).

Additionally, there's also the possibility of Linke falling out of the Bundestag at least in terms of Proportional leveling seats. Because lets be honest, Linke fell under last time, have so far failed to grow despite the supposedly favorable environment, and if anything are getting closer to fragmenting infighting then growth. If this were to occur I think the very likely result would be a Grand Coalition majority, no matter if the polling stays the same as the past 6 months or if it were to narrow during a campaign between the big two.

[Oryxslayer]

Are we really back to hyperventilating about German federal polls outside of the runup to an election? Haven't people learned by now?

Unless a snap somehow occurs against everyones better judgement, single polls in the middle of a governments term have little value. The more relevant things are that the Union are approaching the one year anniversary of having large leads over SPD/Greens, and we are now over a year of Linke polling between 4 and 5%.

[Oryxslayer]

Why would CDU and AFD loose voters to BSW?! And not SPD, Grune and Linke?!

In short, Wagenknecht is known for her anti-immigration, anti-"woke" stances, while being economically left-wing. This has put her at odds with many LINKE members, which is why she left.

Also just the hot new thing in the press, so she of course will poll best now. And I think a good chunk of new supporters like this always pull a good number of the nonresponders, which pushes down the established parties simply because there is a wider pool of responding voters.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1718206391809126701?t=r0NgJmQjL0g6f8lxUh...

https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1718188106141106514?t=KrQNgBvCTGQ6ATDsbA...

I like this poll cause we can see how voters changed in the presence of BSW. The only party we can really say she pulls voters from right now, at the theoretical apex of voter attention to her candidacy,  is AfD. The rest seemingly come from the non-respondents, people who who either are not serviced by the current parties,  or are following their idealism to the party not yet tied to recognizable actions and positions.

[Oryxslayer]

Do you know how these 500 precincts voted last time around?

Given the German way, it was unlikely to throw the whole thing out. But it always struck me as unusual that people would be treated differently and allowed to vote again whereas their neighbors would not.

Anyway:

2021 State Election:



2023 State Election:



2021 Federal Election (you'll have to hover over each polling location on this version of the map to see it's boundaries):



All older Federal Elections from 2013 to reunification

Given the state of polling, and the areas up, it'll probably have a larger emphasis on SPD -> Union transfers compared to other national trends.

[Oryxslayer]

Result page:

https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BU2024/AFSPRAES/btw/index.html

Disappointing that this lacks a tracker on its own separate from the 2021 votes in those areas not effected by the the re-vote. At least I can't spot it with results now coming in.

[Oryxslayer]

Doesn’t seem like there’s been that much of a shift compared to 2021?

Big if true. I actually expected SPD to tank badly.

Yeah this looks completely different from the polls. Odd.

Those are the results from the federal website which includes the ~75% of polls from 2021. Legally, that is the correct way to count things. You subtract the redo polling sites and re-enter them as the new votes come. The new votes get pasted into the old results.

However, as I expressed above, this way may be the correct way legally, but is the incorrect way analytically. The analytical way is to look at only the re-vote polls, which thankfully it appear some places are doing. Unsurprisingly, we see the movement from federal polls in that sample, just with the Greens not really changing cause the Ringbahn is their loyal stronghold. This has already led to one direct mandate flipping from SPD to Greens, because the Union is pulling the SPD below the Green total, and perhaps a second as well. If the full city was allowed to re-vote, I would not be suprised if it looked like the 2023 City elections.

Doesn’t seem like there’s been that much of a shift compared to 2021?
https://twitter.com/europeelects/status/1756754692183326883?s=46&t=o2RmfeV6y...

Big if true. I actually expected SPD to tank badly.

Almost certainly not true, or a misrepresentation of some notional intermediate results (i.e. what remains when you subtract the 2021 results of the re-voting precincts from the total result in 2021).

DER SPIEGEL reports (with 79% of the re-voting precincts counted):
Greens 28.2% (+1.0)
SPD 14.7% (-7.7)
CDU 19.8% (+6.0)
Left 12.9% (+1.0)
FDP 3.3% (-5.7)
AfD 12.9% (+5.8 ).

Seems closer to reality. But let's see.

At 85% it's apparently:

Greens 27.9% (+0.7)
SPD 14.8% (-7.6)
CDU 20.2% (+6.4)
Left 12.7% (+0.8 )
FDP 3.3% (-5.7)
AfD 12.7% (+5.6 ).

[Oryxslayer]

With only 6 polling sites yet to report, aka over 99% counted, the party vote stands at:

Greens 27.7% (+0.5)
CDU 20.6% (+6.9)
SPD 14.6% (-7.8 )
Linke 12.6% (+0.7)
AfD 12.6% (+5.6)
FDP 3.3% (-5.8 )
Others 8.6% (-0.1)

The swing between the  Union and SPD is roughly in line with current polling. The rest though I think can't really be interpreted much from. For some this is because we are only looking at a small sample of Berlin only. This is especially the case for the Greens, who have some of their most solid and concentrated voter constituencies up. For others it is because we lack any place for potential BSW voters to concentrate their choice.