2011 State Elections in Germany

[greenforest32]

Does the CDU/CSU/FDP coalition still have a majority in Germany's upper chamber as of August 2011?

[greenforest32]

Does the CDU/CSU/FDP coalition still have a majority in Germany's upper chamber as of August 2011?

No, they've lost their majority in the Bundesrat with the election in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in May 2010. From that on they at least had to win over the Greens, who were in coalition with CDU in Hamburg (in March 2011 SPD won an outright majority there) and with CDU and FDP in the state of Saarland (that three-party-government still exists).

And since the Coalition lost both Hamburg and Baden-Württemberg to the Red-Green camp in March, the SPD now is in the position - theoretically - to obstruct all law which has to go through the Bundesrat.

Wow. So it looks like the SPD/Greens are on track to win the 2013 elections? Any reason why Germany is moving left recently compared to itself from 2005 or all the other countries in Europe lately?

[greenforest32]

What's the order of left-right of the German political parties? Are the Greens more leftwing than the SPD and is the FDP more left-wing than the CDU?

I've always had this view that it was something like (most left to most right) of: The Left, Greens, SPD, FDP, CDU.

[greenforest32]

What's the order of left-right of the German political parties? Are the Greens more leftwing than the SPD and is the FDP more left-wing than the CDU?

I've always had this view that it was something like (most left to most right) of: The Left, Greens, SPD, FDP, CDU.

It's not really as simple as left-right. Depends what issues you're talking about, don't you think? And of course it's variable from state to state.

Yes that's true I should have specified left-right economic plane and the up/down authoritarian/libertarian plane.

What's the order of left-right of the German political parties? Are the Greens more leftwing than the SPD and is the FDP more left-wing than the CDU?

I've always had this view that it was something like (most left to most right) of: The Left, Greens, SPD, FDP, CDU.

Economically, SPD and Greens are virtually identical in their stances. It's just that the Greens and their voters care less about economics than the SPD and therefore set different priorities (Ecology/Civil liberties > Economy/Social justice). And the SPD's environmental positions happen to be relatively similar to the Green ones, just not as hardcore.

The most interesting issue in Germany is probably the whole area of civil liberties/public safety, because it doesn't fit the traditional right/left spectrum. Here, it's more Greens/FDP/Left vs. CDU/SPD (therefore the Grand coalition is also the dream constellation for any law-and-order-type politician in CDU and SPD... finally no annoying do-gooders who are preventing that the gloves are coming off).


German parties on a strictly economic right-to-left spectrum:
- FDP
- CDU/CSU
- Greens*
- SPD
- The Left

* Since they care less about economic issues, they're probably more likely to compromise in this area than the SPD. So they're technically "more conservative", I suppose.


German parties on a strictly non-economic authoritarian-to-libertarian spectrum:
- CDU/CSU
- SPD
- FDP
- Greens
- The Left*

* At least officially according to their party platform. Since they're also still very fond of Fidel Castro, a lot of members of the party are probably more authoritarian than CDU/CSU in reality.


This roughly puts the parties in the following quadrants:

CDU/CSU: Authoritarian Right

FDP: Libertarian Right

SPD: Authoritarian Left

Greens: Libertarian Left

The Left: Authoritarian/Libertarian (?) Left

Thanks for the informative post! Looks like I'd be voting Green if I was in Germany as I'm in the libertarian left quadrant but I don't really like how they would compromise more on economic issues than the SPD as you mentioned but I don't like the The Left/SPD's authoritarian slant.

Things are never perfect

[greenforest32]

I wish the US had a multi-party system and Wahlomats for every election.

[greenforest32]

First ARD projection:



Seats:

48 - SPD
39 - CDU
29 - Greens
19 - Left
14 - Pirates

Geez doesn't that add up to like ~70% of the vote for the left-wing parties? That makes Berlin the least conservative German state right?

City-states are awesome...

[greenforest32]

Your informative posts really make this forum great Branson

[greenforest32]

What's the voting % threshold for entering the Berlin parliament? 5%?