🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

[urutzizu]

If this development is long term, then the Greens will probably do as Kretschmann has called for some time now, and drop the Doppelspitze, and instead have a single Spitzenkandidat lead the party.
There is only one chancellor and if they want to show that they are the main alternative to AKK, then they must also show who that alternative will be. Although greens voters are generally very issues-focused, personality still plays a huge role for many voters (Just ask the 70% of CDU voters who say Merkel is the main reason to vote for them), and you can hardly go into a Chancellor debate with two candidates.

[urutzizu]

Interesting debates going on in the SPD.
While most now agree it cant go on the way they have been going over the last years, the opponents of the current course seem to be splitting:
-The ones around Kühnert who want to leave the coalition and move to a full scale corbyn party and onto the territory of die linke see themselves vindicated
-However, and this is new, more voices including Sigmar Gabriel (Editorial in the Handelsblatt) and Thomas Oppermann, are calling in the Example of the Danish Social Democrats for a strong move to the right on immigration to win back the white working class for the SPD. Already a couple of days ago the SPD helped pass a strict deportation laws in the Bundestag. Funny considering Sarrazin was disgraced by the Party (and Gabriel) for calling for such a shift a couple of years ago.

[urutzizu]

Mathematically, you've got Red-Red-Green working there. I know, I know, but still - when is the last time we had a poll showing that?

Correct, this is very significant, but two massive notes of caution:

(1) Greens polling numbers have historically very unstable. Greens have surged to similar levels after Fokushima and tapped into massive middle class centrist support, so far that the SPD was saying that it accepted being a junior partner in a coalition with the greens, and it for a couple of weeks became almost political consensus that the greens would become the major left-wing party. Then they gradually lost it again as nuclear power went off the agenda, and in the election they ended up lower then they were before. I am not saying that it will be the same this time of course, but their support strongly correlates with how much environmental issues are on the agenda. Right now Fridays for Future etc. is hugely important, but very easily immigration/terror could become a huge political issue again, and that could turn the political landscape upside down again, especially for the greens

(2) It is very doubtful whether the greens even want green-red-red. They have, both in personell as well as in economic and foreign policy, massively moved to the centre even right. They are nothing like the swiss greens or other green parties anymore (the green liberals are more accurate). This, coupled with the focus on environmental issues, has allowed the greens to make these huge gains among the white middle class, and they are extremely hostile to any federal cooperation with the left party, who the see as a bunch of maduro/putin loving DDR-apologists. It is telling that even one of the most left-wing branches in the greens in hamburg dithered alot before going into talks for red-red-green, and even then Habeck said it would have "no reprocussions for federal politics". So yeah i dont want to be pessimistic, but i would not be surprised if the most bourgeois party in germany (next to the fdp) ends up betraying the left.

But it surely is a interesting topic^{(until you realise that a red-red-green coalition could not pass anything past the Bundesrat anyway)}, so here are two articles for anyone who cares further:
1.
2. (paywall)

[urutzizu]

Any chance the SPD, in their annoyance about vdL, try to end the GroKo?

No. Staying in the Coalition is shooting themselves in the foot. Going out would be shooting themselves in the face. In polls they are at 13%. No way they are going to run into a snap election without a leadership and these poll numbers over v.d.L.

Once the eastern State elections are over (where the SPD is on course for single digits twice), and the slowing economy and reduced tax income income kick in, which will kill the Minimum Pension proposals as well as the other SPD attempts to buy back their voters, then maybe. But poll numbers will be down further by then, making the catch-22 situation even worse for them.

[urutzizu]

So, Environment Minister Svenja Schulze (or whatever her name is) is planning on a CO₂ tax (presumably 20 €/t !!!), including a "climate premium", i.e. an upward redistribution from the poor to the rich, and from the rural areas to the urban areas. 😡
The SPD hasn't heard the shot and they don't have all pickets on the fence anymore. 🤬

Why would a carbon tax be a tax on the poor to give the money to the rich? (especially with a climate premium). I imagine most big pollutants would be large businesses and rich people?

The proposal is still in its infancy but basically this is a non-progressive tax as Hades has rightly pointed out, and i have some suspicions as to why (that i will get into later). I should add that i am not at all against a carbon tax in principle, provided it is progressive.

So, in basic, what is proposed is revenue neutral tax, with the price for carbon increasing year by year. All revenue made by the proposal is to be redistributed again to the taxpayer through a "climate premium". This is very similar to the Carbon Tax in Canada for instance, also a revenue neutral tax, where all the revenue is redistributed through rebates.

There is however a very big difference to the model in Canada. In Canada these rebates go on a per capita basis back to the people, with everyone getting a equal sum, with extra rebates for rural and northern communities, small businesses, schools, hospitals and local governments.  
This planned tax however is very different. The "climate premium" is planned to go to those who  live "ecologically friendly", for example by buying a electric car or a well insulated house. Obviously the people who can afford such things are the urban upper middle class, while those that cannot afford to upgrade their car or house, i.e . the poorer and working classes would be taxed fully and get nothing. This is handouts for the rich. This is progressive politics for idiots.

So now one might ask: "Oh urutzizu, why in Gods name is the SPD, the party of the working class, proposing this, if this proposal is so terrible for the poorer people?"
And you would be right to ask this. Now besides the SPD being a bunch of traitors to the working class, of course, there is another reason. You see the SPD is in crisis right now, and it desperately needs to win back voters. And you know which party has profited most from the decline from the SPD? The Greens. And you know which party has one of the most wealthy, white upper middle class voting base of them all? Which Parties voters can afford and like to buy nice Electric cars and expensive Houses? Thats Right! The Greens. What a coincidence!

Remember when our hero of the Working class, Emmanuel Macron, proposed Fuel Taxes in the name of Environmentalism, that would hit the poorest most, that led the people to riot in the streets? This is exactly what is happening in Germany, except that Germans wont riot, because we are a lazy, comfortable people.

None of this wont save the SPD of course, it will just kill that corpse of a party even more, as it will lose the last crumbs of support is still has among the working classes.

[urutzizu]

Hmm, yes in Germany we dont have the traditional centrist social liberal party since 1983, so the greens have taken a lot of the white upper middle class electorate, that might vote GLP, Lib Dems, REM, or Cs (well, well..) in other countries. Their policies and personell have turned towards the centre on issues of economics because of this, but they have still retained much of their original left-wing electorate (Students, Ethnic minorities...). Despite my dislike for the Party, i must say i admire that they have been able to do this. Now this is easier since they are in opposition where they can concentrate of what unites them, environmentalism, this will become very difficult if they are in Government (especially Jamaica), when they will have to defend big tax cuts for high incomes and corporations. This could split the party, like in Switzerland.
Then again many predicted that they would split over the Nato Bombing Yugoslavia in 1999, and they supported and survived that, despite their left wing fraction being extremely pacifist.


In other news the Carbon Tax likely wont happen after Peter Altmeier (CDU), rubbished it in a interview with the Bild. Just shows the pathetic state the federal government is in, where the Government ministers trash each others projects in front of the Public, just days after they were announced. This almost feels like Britain.

[urutzizu]

Also is this just a way to open the defence ministry for AKK?

Nooooooo!!! How dare you! I hope Merkel won't read your comment.

Well apparently Merkel is an active Member on this forum, Sorry for giving her ideas
It could be a good development though: It is a completely underfunded Ministry with huge long-term issues that she will never be able to solve until 2021. It will tarnish her reputation even further and the CDU will lose the next election if she runs. Maybe they wont even nominate her as Spitzenkandidat. Will be funny either way, but the CDU will be begging for Merkel to come back.

What exactly are AKKs skills when it comes to Defense ?

None. this is about Ämtergeschacher. She is more pro-american though, critical about Nordstream 2 and wants more defense spending. But she wont have the money to do so. 

[urutzizu]

Indeed. If this were about merit then Peter Tauber or Markus Grübel would have got the job. But its not.

[urutzizu]

Meanwhile, AfD politician Uwe Junge, member of the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate and former lieutenant-colonel, called for an "insurgency of the generals" a.k.a. military coup d'état. The hashtags #AufstandderGeneräle and #Militärputsch are trending on German Twitter right now.

Thats one way to translate it i guess, but einen Aufstand machen can also mean complaining incessantly about something, not just a insurgency. I very much doubt he was actually calling for a violent Military coup, but who knows. In the latter case it is treason obviously.

[urutzizu]

Urutzizu, very intresting analysis.  Concerning Seehofer, I'm wondering about the new legal immigration law. Doesn't that represent a move to the left in that it calls for more immigration, albeit legal and regulated, its still more immigration when all is said and done.

The "Fachkräfteeinwanderungsgesetz", a nice german word , i.e. the Law intended to allow more qualified Immigrants to enter legally, was brought in at the same time as the changes to the deportation law. Basically Seehofer wanted the stricter deportation law and the SPD reluctantly agreed as long as they got the law for legal Immigration.
The idea of increasing legal immigration is not a clear cut left/right issue in Germany:
For more legal immigration:
Greens
FDP  
SPD
CDU

Sceptical of more legal immigration:
AFD
Linke
CSU

Interesting, right? The divide is not along left-right. No, the more liberal, affluent and globalist the supporters of the party are, the more supportive of legal immigration it is. Greens and FDP, who completely opposite to each other on illegal migration, were even pushing for a Canadian-style points system and no German language requirement to immigrate. On the other hand, Linke, which is for the most part very supportive of irregular/illegal migration, was very opposed to more legal migration. Overall the law itself was far from what many liberals and many in Business hoped for. It does allow for immigrants with a qualification to come to Germany temporarily even without a job offer and it abolishes the requirement for Businesses to show that no German could be employed instead. However it imposes strict German language and visa requirements, instead of a points system, before coming, so the amount of people coming will be limited, and english speaking countries like Canada/Australia/UK/US will continue to remain more attractive.
However the important part about it, is that it is a change in paradigm: from unskilled immigration from african/middle eastern countries to skilled immigration from South, East Asia. It is to a certain extent a tacit acknowledgement that the former has been plagued by integration, criminality and terrorism problems and that German immigration policy up to now has been a failure. In that it is a victory for the right.

Of course, most on the right would prefer less legal and less illegal migration. That is unrealistic however, as ethnic Germans are one of the white ethnicities with one of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Our public pension and health system (already in crisis) depends on young people, and if Germans dont procreate more then immigration becomes inevitable.      

[urutzizu]

seems more like the Social Democratic Parties are victims of their own success - the social democratic policies they pushed for more or less have survived in the policies of other parties. After all, it's not like any of the other parties are pushing for the abolition of public healthcare or co-determination in the workplace.

I would tend to agree...but in Germany this does not really apply. The current surging party of the left is the Greens, who happily carried through all the Agenda 2010 neoliberal reforms while in Government with the SPD. If this were really a rebellion against Leftists doing neoliberal politics, then the Left party should be surging? They arent, quite the contrary. Why is the AFD so successful among working-class voters despite their even more hardline neoliberal position? Why did the SPD retain their Vote with Schröder in 2005 even after having pushed through Agenda 2010, and why did the SPD only really tank while in Grand Coalition, where they actually did get quite leftist policies through, such as the minimum wage, and rent control?

I agree with the "Blair screwed Labour narrative" in the UK, but here in Germany it does not really add up.

[urutzizu]

That's not what CrabCake meant at all. By "their own success" he meant enabling millions of working class people and their children to become middle class and thus radically transforming their own classical voter base. Not during the last 30 years, but more like during the last 70 years.

But then her Assertion makes little sense. During the same time as Social Democracy has been in decline, i.e. since the 1990s, the German (like the American) Middle Class has shrunk. Similarly those in Germany with the lowest incomes have increased since the mid-90s from some 17% of the Population to 22%, yet Social Democratic fortunes have not. Of course there has been a change in the traditional "working class", such as a change from low-paid manufacturing to low-paid service jobs, but that is not down to "social democrats success". If anything Social Democrats tried to slow down this inevitable trend of globalization, such as through helping industries in Germany, that would have been closed long ago if it were only for their profitability and preventing the full-scale change to a service based economy like in the UK.

- Even after 2005 the SPD was co-responsible for politics like raising the pension age to 67 and raising the VAT.
- About twice the minimum wage (before taxes) is still an average wage at best. So how would the minimum wage affect most voters directly?
- Rent control doesn't help you when you have difficulties to find a house or appartment in the first place. Plus it can easily be painted as ineffective or even counterproductive.
- I might ad the recently introduced early retirement scemes at 63. They are for a small privileged group of mostly men who started earning money at a very early age and then were lucky enough to be employed all the time, probably at a stable medium-to-large well-paying company.

Well you may criticize the policies of the Grand coalitions of being not left-wing enough, but the SPD has in the Grand Coalitions from 2005 presided over decreases in inequality and still the SPD only really went down after 2005.
(Citation here) Inequality went up massively between 2000-2005, only to go down again from 2005-2009 (first Grand Coalition), went up again until 2014 (CDU-FDP) and since has gone down again (2., 3. Grand Coalition). It can hardly be argued that Government economic policy, especially that of the CDU, did not shift leftwards during the Grand coalitions with the SPD.

- The AfD is profitting from a climate of de-solidarization established over the last 15-20 years. Why show solidarity to outsiders if the welfare state shows much less solidarity towards you than in the past when push comes to shove?

Oh come on. The idea that Working class voters would be suddenly totally fine with mass immigration, if only they got higher welfare benefits, is naive at best and highly condescending at worst. I suggest you actually ask some working-class AFD voters. Ignoring the opposition to the cultural impact of immigration has led the left into the abyss.

[urutzizu]

Have to agree to disagree on most of that, paladino, but you do make one very correct point: most do indeed not "care" about many of the alleged accomplishments of the SPD in Government.
To me it seems the classic problem of the smaller coalition partner, similar to Cameron-Clegg: the Voters credit Merkel with the economic successes, and those that agree with the direction of Government will simply vote for Merkel. Merkel is the status-quo option. Those that dont, have no reason to vote for a party in Government. Every Compromise that the SPD makes is seen as a humiliation, solidifys their position as a "Umfallerpartei". The Compromises of Merkel are seen as Statesmanship.  

That said, in other news Olaf Scholz will run with Klara Geywitz, Landtag Member for Brandenburg. She was one of the instrumental negotiators for Grand Coalition agreement. So the message of Scholz-Geywitz is very clear: Vote for us to continue the Grand Coalition and stay on the current path. The left-wingers opposing them will argue for a change.
This could be the dividing line. Will there be any reason for the leftists like Comrade Kevin to stay in the SPD if Scholz wins? I personally dont see any (I am heavily biased, of course). His win would cement the centrist control in the SPD.

[urutzizu]

Not much interesting going on here. The Government will have a little more fiscal room then previously thought, as it looks like Germany might just dodge a recession again: after shrinking in the second quarter, it looks like the German economy will just flatline in the third with 0% growth, as opposed to the previously projected decline of 0.3%. This means that a desperately needed stimulus is off the table for now, so the SPD is continuing to push the Basic Minimum Pension - but the Coalition remains deadlocked. A decision was supposed to be made on Monday- it has been pushed back again.

Otherwise Die Linke will elect new Bundestag fraction leaders. Unlike say a Chief Whip in the UK, these are fairly important positions - second only the the party chairmen/woman.

The Race for the male leader is not particularly interesting - Dietmar Bartsch will easily be reelected. He is a very inoffensive guy - and when I say that I mean it - he is very boring and not particularly charismatic - but nobody really dislikes him either, so he is safe. He is from the moderate wing of the Party.

On the female side however, things are shaping up to be quite interesting: previously the sole candidate was Caren Lay - the vice chairwoman. She is neither on the radical, nor on the reformist wing. Now Amira Mohamed Ali, a MdB of Egyptian descent has also entered the race. She is on the far-left of the Party.


Website des Bundestags

One the face of it none of this is terribly significant - but between the lines it is a testament to the internal crisis within Die Linke. The former holder of the fraction co-leadership was Sahra Wagenknecht, the most controversial name in the party, until she resigned due to "health reasons". To most however, she was bullied out of the party.

The problem in the party for long now has been this: There is a grassroots membership that is very, very leftwing on Immigration and Multiculturalism - the Antifa people and the Linksjugend Solid especially- and many working class voters, especially in the East who feel very, very differently about that. At the same time however, they also rely on voters from two other constituencies - Students and Working Class Migrants - who again feel differently about it. Its the famous Quadratur des Kreises.

Sahra Wagenknecht, who was also the main Spitzenkandidatin in the 2017 elections (jointly with Bartsch so.. de facto her alone ) tried to turn the Linke on Migration to a more restrictive position - in the TV Debates even openly repudiating the Party manifesto which stated "Open Borders" and "No deportations".
Since then however she faced the onslaught from the Party Leaders, Kipping especially, and resigned. Amira Mohamed Ali is very blunt about that she will not allow another Wagenknecht:

In times of blatant racism and antisemitism it is of utmost importance to show on which side we are really on

- Announcing her Candidature

A thinly veiled swipe at the supposedly "Querfront" Ideology of Wagenknecht. Also of course - her background - as a Arab Woman to stand for what was once the party of the east.

Not that the Wagenknecht-bashing and going full open borders has been a particularly fruitful strategy. Despite the demise of the SPD and constant Grand Coalition - a situation that should be a heavenly gift for the Party - the Linke have been stagnating at a consistent 7-9% in the polls and getting beaten up badly in every state election in its eastern heartlands - except crucially Thuringa - where there is a very moderate Left Premier with a correspondingly moderate immigration policy.

The election will be on Nov. 12, but the real reckoning for the Party will come in 2021. Difficult decisions ahead, about what party the Left want to be. But in that, they are just a microcosm of the traditional European left.

[urutzizu]

Who tf are of 12% of West Germans and 8% of East Germans who say that "free speech" was better under the East German Regime?

Anyway AKK must be finished at this point. No way in their right mind would the CDU nominate her.

[urutzizu]

The Chairman of the Law Committee (Rechtsausschuss) of the Bundestag, Stefan Brandner has been ousted by members of all other parties except for the AfD itsself. It's the first time in Bundestag history this happened, following a number of very controversial statements the guy made. Of course, the pathetic AfD clowns are playing the victim now.

What kind of comments?

He has quite a history of saying terrible things, but the last straw was when, after the attack on the Synagogue in Halle, he shared a post saying that politicans should not be "scrounging around" Synagogues and Mosques, because the "Victims were germans" * He eventually apologised. That was followed by a tweet railing against the Bundesverdienskreuz (the German equivalent of the Presidential Medal of Freedom) for singer Udo Lindenberg, who is critical of the AFD, in which Brandner stated that the medal was “Judaslohn” — a biblical reference to the “blood money” Judas Iscariot received for betraying Jesus.

*The Terrorist botched the attack and was not able to kill anyone in the Synagogue. But it was of course a far-right attack aimed at killing Jews (and Muslims in the Kebab shop) and the Tweet was basically denying that. The not-thinly vailed Implication of the Tweet also being that Muslims or Jews were not Germans. Its a bit hard to explain without speaking German, but it was just a completely disgusting and undignified thing to say in all aspects.

This will of course not harm the AFD in any significant way, and they will still retain the Chairmanship of the Rechtsauschuss as long as they nominate someone else, that is acceptable to the other parties. Though perhaps they wont noninate because continuing the Farce that they are being "persecuted" helps them, and its not like they care much about doing constructive work in the Bundestag committees anyway.

[urutzizu]

This got less attention than it probably should have, for obvious reasons, and perhaps that actually was the intention, but Jörg Meuthen (co-leader) has proposed that the ultranationalist wing of the AFD around Höcke and the "conservative" wing split off into a separate parties and reasoned it like this:

Everyone knows that the [höcke-] wing and its key exponents cost us massively votes in the bourgeois electorate, and I also think that the neoliberal views of the bourgeois-conservative part of the AfD stop us from reaching even better results [among the working-class].

Which he is probably right about in my opinion. But it did not go down well at all within the AFD at all. Support from Georg Pazderski (Fraction leader in Berlin), but otherwise very negative. Unlikely to go anywhere, but does show that the AFD leadership seem to realise that they have hit a ceiling of sorts.

Polling in Germany has gone like everywhere in Europe at the moment. Government parties (especially CDU) up big time, Opposition down (but the AFD especially).

[urutzizu]

Laschet looks damaged even further after this big outbreak at Tönnies in Gütersloh and having to reimpose lockdown there. (or at least that's what it looks like from here. Maybe it is seen differently in nrw, someone from there can tell us?) and it seems like that's making many Conservatives, including Söder himself, reconsider their options. He had been previously unequivocally ruling out a bid for Chancellor, now there is a subtle, but nonetheless noticable shift away from the that.
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/analyse-soeders-nein-zur-kanzlerkandidatur-klingt-jetzt-anders,S2vN19B

Of course there is a very good chance he just baiting or keeping all doors open, and does not seriously intend to run. Just the principle of having a Bavarian run is something many people both in the CDU and CSU are very nervous about since FJS and Stoiber, leaving aside the inpracticalities about having to sever the link between Chancellor candidate and CDU chairman (the latter of which Söder cannot run for of course), and the fact that his massive popularity in the rest of Germany is only really built on his Covid response - something that is unlikely to be a issue of relevance in September 2021 - with positions on other issues like crosses in classrooms and whatever that don't really fly that well. But it still shows that many people in the CDU are becoming seriously uncomfortable with Laschet, with questions about his appeal, but moreso his judgement.

[urutzizu]

There is a controversy as Helge Braun (CDU), Chief Cabinet Secretary and head of the Federal Government Pandemic Response calls for a obligatory vaccine pass system, similar to Greece, France, Italy etc, so only the vaccinated can enter Restaurants, Cinema, Stadiums etc. when cases rise. This is stricter than France, where a negative test (49€) is also enough. Armin Laschet says he is against. About 25% of Adults look likely to be at least sceptical about taking the Vaccine, so it is an important voting constituency although with diverse ideological leanings. However if cases rise sharply before the election (looks very possible) there will be a lot of pressure from the 75% to implement such a system as opposed to closures.

From politico: https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-vaccine-pass-france-protests-germany/

[urutzizu]

Wahl-o-mat:
https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/bundestagswahl2021/app/main_app.html

I tried it also with Google translate, which works fine.

Just for clarification in Question 13 BAföG means Student grants/loans for Students who need financial assistance (which currently about 1/4 of all Students get). Question 32 deals with the recognition of Islamic Associations (such as the Ahmadiyya or DITIB) as religious organizations under public law, as Churches are currently. There is no direct equivalent to this in the US, but this would among other things give them the right to levy church tax etc. Question 33 asks whether you think that Emissions pricing should rise more steeply than planned (translate didn't like this one by me).

My Result:
SPD 66%
CDU:56%
Greens:55%
Linke:54%
FDP:48%
AFD:45%

[urutzizu]

Third and final Triell was today. Here is a stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9-CA_BmhKA
Non-geoblocked, but without subtitles.

[urutzizu]

Nobody else want to talk about the triell? Anyways, my take: Laschet a bit better than the last two, but not going to be enough to break through. Scholz as always, just what he needed to, and Baerbock with in my opinion a strong, combative performance, but attacking the person who isn't her threat.

Overall mostly a green-on-black fight, lots of agreement between Scholz and Baerbock. Baerbocks problem at this stage is that she is marginalized by Scholz, and her performance tonight won't help her with that. Additionally in terms of her speech she was (likely inadvertently) shifting in terms of her vocabulary to "Green government participation" as opposed to stressing that she wants to become Chancellor. Despite that, what I though was a strong perfromance. And I say this as someone who neither particularly likes her personally, nor plans to vote green, but this is the third debate in a row, where she can be the one who did her homework best, polls show people will find her "sympathetic etc., but Scholz will always come off as highest on "competent" and win the debate. Frankly, I find it a bit hard to deny that there is at least a tiny bit of sexism involved here.

Anyway, barring anything very unexpected in the final week, this should be it. Lindner and Habeck on Anne Will on the analysis right afterwards were strong, though not sure how many people watch that, and Lindner was getting a bit very overexcited about Hydrogen for my taste. Esken was uninspiring and Bouffier was completely off the rails.

And lots of foreign journos are mad because the biggest EU country has again nothing about foreign policy lol. Sorry guys but no time to talk about "the rise of China and the desperately necessary defense of our values or our continent in the 21st century", can you make do with speed limits on the autobahn?

[urutzizu]

I am surprised to learn that CDU voters go to the polls in the morning. The election takes place on Sunday. I though CDU voters go to the church in the morning.

Yes, they get up early and then they go right after Church is the traditional explaination. In 2005 for instance the CDU knew things were very bad when the leaked exits at midday had them under 40%.

Anyway, that is if this isn't just what Aiwanger is pulling out of his behind to get more votes. I mean I think should treat this as we would with any "leaked information" a noted-antivaxxer spread on their social media without any sources whatsoever.

[urutzizu]

Economic Competence of the FDP according to the exit polls. FDP looking really good if thats true.

[urutzizu]

Yes, but it is fairly hard to see R2G happening with a very narrow majority (under ca. 15 Seats). Especially because of the risk during the election for Chancellor (secret), and Linke MdB jumping off when voting on Parliamentary Mandates for foreign military operations.