🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[Middle-aged Europe]

Fair point. However with Habeck and Göring-Eckardt for the first time in the modern history of the Greens two members of the moderate (realo) wing are leading the party, until now they had a constant balance between one realo and one leftist in the party leadership.

From 2000 to 2001, Renate Künast and Fritz Kuhn served as federal party chairs of the Greens, both of which are at least at present considered members of the "Realo" wing. Künast however was originally considered a representative of the Leftist wing and transitioned to being a Realo sometime during the early 2000s. The "Realo" and "Leftist" labels are both fluid and covering a fairly wide spectrum. For instance, Habeck and Winfried Kretschmann are both considered members of the Realos, but ideologically there's still a fairly huge gap between them. I'd place Habeck at the left edge of the Realo wing, and he's probably closer to more moderate members of the Leftist wing than he's to Kretschmann.

Also especially if we look at the coalition negotiations in 2017, it is telling that  in creating a coalition between the CDU/FDP and the Greens who are (supposed to be) their complete ideological and cultural opponents, the trouble was always with the FDP while the greens were willing to jump into bed with the right quite easily.

When we're talking about the "complete ideological and cultural opponents" of the Greens during the Jamaica negotiations than I'd say these were CSU and FDP, but not so much the Merkelist CDU. The Greens and the CDU are certainly much closer on economic, fiscal or environmental issues than the Greens and the pro-market, small-government FDP. As far as I have heard (including from people which were part of these negotiations), the CDU was in fact the most willing of the three centre-right parties in making wide-ranging political concessions to the Greens. As a result, the FDP became afraid that the CDU would sell the farm and throw the Free Democrats under the bus in the process, leading to the FDP taking an increasingly agressive position during the Jamaica talks and attempting to co-opt the CSU as an ally against the Greens and to some extent the also the CDU. The CSU went in fact along with this for the longest duration of the negotiations. However, the FDP was misreading the CSU's intentions. In contrast to Lindner & Co. the CSU leadership ultimately turned out to be pragmatists who while maintining a very tough negotiating style also considered Jamaica to be a viable option. It was the moment when it started to seem like Greens and CSU could reach an governing agreement that the FDP suddenly pulled the plug on the Jamaica talks.

Overall i think that this is the Greens transitioning from a narrow "Interessenpartei", whose voters are mainly Students, the underprivileged, poor immigrants etc.. to a "Volkspartei" of 20%+ whose main voter base has now become the white upper-middle class (just look at Baden-Württenberg) while the former demographic has turned mostly to Die Linke (as exemplified by their large vote increases in west german inner-cities). Sadly as Sahra Wagenknecht said, in their pursuit for power i think they risk becoming the "Ökowohlfühlwohlstandsbürgertum" that they were founded to oppose.

The parts in bold are incorrect. You have it backwards here. The SPD and the Left are primarily the parties of the underprivileded and also the poor immigrants, while the Greens are more middle-class and to some extent one might even say "bourgeois" (although the latter aspect is  also often exaggerated by the Greens' leftist opponents IMO). Right now the Greens are trying to grow from a "8% party" into a "20% party" and as a result they're currently in a process of attempting to widen their voter base to include also the "underprivileged" SPD voters I alluded to. Voter shift from the Greens to the Left Party in West German cities can be largely attributed to the last of the die-hard 1960s/70s "New Left" anti-capitalist, pacifist, and anarchist activists switching their allegiance. But that's not same as blue-collar workers turning away from the Greens, since they never had much of a blue-collar base to begin with and are now starting to attempt to get the votes from that segment of society. In essence, the Greens are trying to become more like the SPD and in the process they have lost some voters to the Left who didn't want to vote for a SPD-ish "establishment" party.

It's quite complicated with the Greens and their "Doppelspitzen":

Chairpersons: Annalena Baerbock and Robert Habeck
Caucus leaders: Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Anton Hofreiter
"Top candidates" for the 2017 federal election: Katrin Göring-Eckardt and Cem Özdemir
Vice President of the Bundestag: Claudia Roth
Top candidates for the 2019 European election: Ska Keller (and Dutch GroenLinks politician Bas Eickhout)

It's even more complicated with the bolded part. While Keller and Eickhout are the lead candidates of the European Green Party (EGP), the lead candidates of the German Greens for the upcoming European election are Ska Keller and Sven Giegold.

Fair point. However with Habeck and Göring-Eckardt for the first time in the modern history of the Greens two members of the moderate (realo) wing are leading the party...

Chairpersons of the Greens are Robert Habeck and Annalena Baerbock (both are realos). Katrin Göring-Eckardt is the co-leader of the green fraction in the Bundestag.

^^

I noticed that someone "stole" my user name and my avatar...

[Keep Calm and ...]

I noticed that someone "stole" my user name and my avatar...

Sorry,
that was not my intention, when I'm looking for a good user name.
I think it is better that I rename myself.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I noticed that someone "stole" my user name and my avatar...

Sorry,
that was not my intention, when I'm looking for a good user name.
I think it is better that I rename myself.

No need to apologize, I just happened to notice it.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Milo Yiannopoulos is apparently too controversial.... for the AfD!


The AfD is planning to hold an "alternative media" conference in the Reichstag and so far they only had bad luck with that.

Originally, they had invited Steve Bannon as guest speaker, but Bannon turned them down (perhaps because the AfD had rejected his "Movement" organization last year??: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/08/11/german-far-right-rebuffs-steve-bannons-effort-forge-europe-wide/).

As a replacement, some in the AfD wanted to invite Yiannopoulos, but this created a backlash within their own ranks, culminating in them cancelling the invitation:

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/aerger-wegen-blogger-treffen-afd-abgeordnete-muessen-ultrarechten-stargast-ausladen/24328840.html

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

[windjammer]

Why is Afd rising again?

[President Johnson]

Why is Afd rising again?

It's not rising after all, more within their range I guess. If anything, the campaign finance scandal as been out of the news for some time. I just don't get why it doesn't sink them. It's like Trump, they have a stable base of supporters who would never abandon them.

[Middle-aged Europe]

And the Wahl-o-mat is BACK... sort of.

Someone programmed an open source-based clone who supposedly gives the same answers as the real thing:

www.wahlom.at

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

And the Wahl-o-mat is BACK... sort of.

Someone programmed an open source-based clone who supposedly gives the same answers as the real thing:

www.wahlom.at

Sorry, neither Firefox nor my virus scanner let me enter that site. 😂

[Middle-aged Europe]

And the Wahl-o-mat is BACK... sort of.

Someone programmed an open source-based clone who supposedly gives the same answers as the real thing:

www.wahlom.at

Sorry, neither Firefox nor my virus scanner let me enter that site. 😂

Mine does... apparently the guy who programmed this site is/was (?) the chair of the Left Party youth organization in Hamburg.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

And the Wahl-o-mat is BACK... sort of.

Someone programmed an open source-based clone who supposedly gives the same answers as the real thing:

www.wahlom.at

Sorry, neither Firefox nor my virus scanner let me enter that site. 😂

Mine does... apparently the guy who programmed this site is/was (?) the chair of the Left Party youth organization in Hamburg.

The original Wahl-O-Mat is back on the net!

[Middle-aged Europe]

Sucks for the Lefty clone guy.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

EU poll:



Keep in mind that there is no threshold set for the election to the EU Parliament.
The parties that each sent one member to Strasbourg in 2014 were:
Free Voters (1.5%), Pirates (1.4%), Animal Protection Party (1.2%), NPD (1.0%), Family (0.7%), ÖDP (0.6%), Die PARTEI (0,6%).

[Middle-aged Europe]

Last time, "other" parties won 9% of the vote.

Recently, I got the impression that a lot of voters are considering to cast a protest vote for a minor party. There's certainly no lack of them with 40 parties on the ballot. Parties popular among leftists include Die PARTEI, Democracy in Europe (DiEM25's list with Yanis Varoufakis as their German lead candidate), Volt Europa, and the Animal Protection Party. The Pirate Party, who was once upon time every anti-establishment left-liberal's darling, doesn't even remotely receive smiliar hype. But they too could win a single seat in the EP again.

[Yeahsayyeah]

I think, people will get confused by the three Animal protection parties competing. Not all of them are left-wing. ;-)

[RedPrometheus]

Bremen is apparently close between CDU and SPD.

[RedPrometheus]

I just saw an 4 pm exit poll and tonight might be even worse for the CDU/CSU than for the SPD. And the Greens can put the champagne on ice.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I think, people will get confused by the three Animal protection parties competing. Not all of them are left-wing. ;-)

There are four animal welfare parties:

• Tierschutzpartei
• Tierschutzallianz
• PARTEI FÜR DIE TIERE
• TIERSCHUTZ hier!

[RedPrometheus]

The 5 pm exit polls now show a much much closer race.

[jaichind]

The 5 pm exit polls now show a much much closer race.

This is a leaked version of the exit poll which I assume will not come out until 6pm ?

[RedPrometheus]

I have my sources

[SunSt0rm]

The 5 pm exit polls now show a much much closer race.

Between Greens and SPD?

[windjammer]

The 5 pm exit polls now show a much much closer race.

Share them please!

[RedPrometheus]

The 5 pm exit polls now show a much much closer race.

Share them please!

That's illegal unfortunately. Let's just say that the polls apparently overestimated one grand coalition party and there is a close race for second. But you'll only have to wait 30 more minutes anyway

[RedPrometheus]

The 5 pm exit polls now show a much much closer race.

Share them please!

That's illegal unfortunately. Let's just say that the polls apparently overestimated one grand coalition party and there is a close race for second. But you'll only have to wait 30 more minutes anyway

And I am in a much better mood now than 2 hours ago