🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[Former President tack50]

So, from the Bremen results, it seems these coalitions are possible:

CDU+SPD (please kill the SPD already if the go with this!)
SPD+Grüne+Linke
SPD+Grüne+FDP
CDU+Grüne+FDP

Which one would be the most likely?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

So, from the Bremen results, it seems these coalitions are possible:

CDU+SPD (please kill the SPD already if the go with this!)
SPD+Grüne+Linke
SPD+Grüne+FDP
CDU+Grüne+FDP

Which one would be the most likely?

At the beginning of this week I would have said "absolute tossup".
Now that I watched several man-on-the-street interviewing and after Sieling's "Schröder moment" during an interview in the in the aftermath of the election I'm inclined to predict a Jamaica coalition.
Keep in mind that former Mayor Böhrnsen resigned immediately after the 2015 state election because his SPD "only" received 32.8%...

[freek]

Take a look at the Greens' utterly anticlimactic result in Bremerhaven. 😂😂😂

It seems that someone made an typo when entering the Greens score for the Bremerhaven diagram. It should not be 1.7% but 16.6%.

http://www.wahlen-bremen.de/Wahlen/2019_05_26/04012000/html5/Buergerschaft_Bremen_22_Gemeinde_Stadt_Bremerhaven.html

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Take a look at the Greens' utterly anticlimactic result in Bremerhaven. 😂😂😂

It seems that someone made an typo when entering the Greens score for the Bremerhaven diagram. It should not be 1.7% but 16.6%.

http://www.wahlen-bremen.de/Wahlen/2019_05_26/04012000/html5/Buergerschaft_Bremen_22_Gemeinde_Stadt_Bremerhaven.html

Yeah, you're probably right. It's obviously a comma fault; they seem to have shifted the comma leftward.

[Coffein00]

Not really suprising, but in Bremen the Green leadership wants to start coalition talk with SPD and Left. A majority of the Green base and their members (especially in Bremen) were in favour of this all the time. Now a party convention needs to approve this and then they can start to negotiate.
This vote on the convention will be a no-brainer, if a Jamaica coalition would have been spproved there, too, is debatable. So this could have played a role in the decision of the party-leadership, too.

Source: https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2019-06/bremen-gruenen-vorstand-fuer-koalitionsverhandlungen-mit-linker-und-spd

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Source: tax-funded state TV broadcaster RBB

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

One thing that happens very seldom should be noted about the 2014 Brandenburg state election:

All of you probably know that there is a 5% threshold that a party has to pass in order to enter the Bundestag or a Landtag. (There is an exception in Schleswig-Holstein, where the party of the Danish minority, the SSW, is exempt from the threshold.)
On the federal level, however, a party can avoid the 5% hurdle by winning three direct seats via the first vote. That law is called Grundmandatsklausel ("basic mandate clause") and enabled the PDS (the predecessor of the Left) in 1994 to enter the Bundestag as a parlamenatry group.

Some states also offer such a rule: In Berlin, Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein, a party needs to win one direct seat; in Saxony two direct mandates are necessary to avoid the 5% threshold.
Christoph Schulze, a former SPD member, won the constituency Teltow-Fläming III south of Berlin for the BVB/FW (that's what the Free Voters are called in Brandenburg). Hence the Free Voters entered the Landtag with three members despite having only received 2.7% of the second vote. In the meantime Schulze has left the party after severe factionalism.

[President Johnson]

Source: tax-funded state TV broadcaster RBB

This result would be an absolute disaster and confirm that Germans are sick and tired of the grand coalition.

[Former President tack50]

One thing that happens very seldom should be noted about the 2014 Brandenburg state election:

All of you probably know that there is a 5% threshold that a party has to pass in order to enter the Bundestag or a Landtag. (There is an exception in Schleswig-Holstein, where the party of the Danish minority, the SSW, is exempt from the threshold.)
On the federal level, however, a party can avoid the 5% hurdle by winning three direct seats via the first vote. That law is called Grundmandatsklausel ("basic mandate clause") and enabled the PDS (the predecessor of the Left) in 1994 to enter the Bundestag as a parlamenatry group.

Some states also offer such a rule: In Berlin, Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein, a party needs to win one direct seat; in Saxony two direct mandates are necessary to avoid the 5% threshold.
Christoph Schulze, a former SPD member, won the constituency Teltow-Fläming III south of Berlin for the BVB/FW (that's what the Free Voters are called in Brandenburg). Hence the Free Voters entered the Landtag with three members despite having only received 2.7% of the second vote. In the meantime Schulze has left the party after severe factionalism.

Could Schulze be elected as an independent in that constituency? Or does no one really care for independent candidates in Germany?

[Yeahsayyeah]

Could Schulze be elected as an independent in that constituency?

AFAIK, he will not stand again.

[Tintrlvr]

One thing that happens very seldom should be noted about the 2014 Brandenburg state election:

All of you probably know that there is a 5% threshold that a party has to pass in order to enter the Bundestag or a Landtag. (There is an exception in Schleswig-Holstein, where the party of the Danish minority, the SSW, is exempt from the threshold.)
On the federal level, however, a party can avoid the 5% hurdle by winning three direct seats via the first vote. That law is called Grundmandatsklausel ("basic mandate clause") and enabled the PDS (the predecessor of the Left) in 1994 to enter the Bundestag as a parlamenatry group.

Some states also offer such a rule: In Berlin, Brandenburg and Schleswig-Holstein, a party needs to win one direct seat; in Saxony two direct mandates are necessary to avoid the 5% threshold.
Christoph Schulze, a former SPD member, won the constituency Teltow-Fläming III south of Berlin for the BVB/FW (that's what the Free Voters are called in Brandenburg). Hence the Free Voters entered the Landtag with three members despite having only received 2.7% of the second vote. In the meantime Schulze has left the party after severe factionalism.

Out of curiosity, who draws the lines for German constituencies? For not really mattering that much, these constituencies look oddly gerrymandered into strips and other bizarre shapes.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Out of curiosity, who draws the lines for German constituencies? For not really mattering that much, these constituencies look oddly gerrymandered into strips and other bizarre shapes.

The states' interior ministers are responsible of redistricting the constituencies, both for stat elections and federal elections.

The district lines look indeed a bit North-Carolin'ish due to the high population density of the suburbs around Berlin, whereas the rest of Brandenburg is very sparsely populated:

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Could Schulze be elected as an independent in that constituency?

AFAIK, he will not stand again.

I wonder if the two most famous Brandenburgers, Günther Jauch and Wolfgang Joop - the latter even has his own zipcode -, would have a realistic chance of winning a constituency as independents.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I just read on Wikipedia that the representatives from the City of Bremen elected to the statewide Bürgerschaft also constitute the city council called Stadtbürgerschaft. (The City of Bremerhaven elects its separate Stadtverordnetenversammlung with its own members.)
Thus, there are even three kinds of personal unions: Mayor ↔ Senate President / departments ↔ Senate / Stadtbürgerschaft Bremische ↔ Bürgerschaft

The most controversial thing would occur if someone from Bremerhaven becomes Mayor of the Hanseatic City of Bremen. Weird.

I have just discovered another problem (and already solved it. Kinda.):
The delegation sent from the City of Bremen to the state legislature ("Bremische Bürgerschaft") and the Bremen city council ("Stadtbürgerschaft") can nevertheless slightly vary in their constitution. Is anyone intelligent enough to figure out how this is possible?

[pilskonzept]

I just read on Wikipedia that the representatives from the City of Bremen elected to the statewide Bürgerschaft also constitute the city council called Stadtbürgerschaft. (The City of Bremerhaven elects its separate Stadtverordnetenversammlung with its own members.)
Thus, there are even three kinds of personal unions: Mayor ↔ Senate President / departments ↔ Senate / Stadtbürgerschaft Bremische ↔ Bürgerschaft

The most controversial thing would occur if someone from Bremerhaven becomes Mayor of the Hanseatic City of Bremen. Weird.

I have just discovered another problem (and already solved it. Kinda.):
The delegation sent from the City of Bremen to the state legislature ("Bremische Bürgerschaft") and the Bremen city council ("Stadtbürgerschaft") can nevertheless slightly vary in their constitution. Is anyone intelligent enough to figure out how this is possible?

EU citizens may vote for the city council but not for the state legislature. Given that the state election is the much more prominent one, how many of them turn out?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

I just read on Wikipedia that the representatives from the City of Bremen elected to the statewide Bürgerschaft also constitute the city council called Stadtbürgerschaft. (The City of Bremerhaven elects its separate Stadtverordnetenversammlung with its own members.)
Thus, there are even three kinds of personal unions: Mayor ↔ Senate President / departments ↔ Senate / Stadtbürgerschaft Bremische ↔ Bürgerschaft

The most controversial thing would occur if someone from Bremerhaven becomes Mayor of the Hanseatic City of Bremen. Weird.

I have just discovered another problem (and already solved it. Kinda.):
The delegation sent from the City of Bremen to the state legislature ("Bremische Bürgerschaft") and the Bremen city council ("Stadtbürgerschaft") can nevertheless slightly vary in their constitution. Is anyone intelligent enough to figure out how this is possible?

EU citizens may vote for the city council but not for the state legislature. Given that the state election is the much more prominent one, how many of them turn out?

I don't even know how the administration handles that problem. EU citizens ought to be handed out different ballots than Bremen's citizens, oughtn't they?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

EU citizens may vote for the city council but not for the state legislature. Given that the state election is the much more prominent one, how many of them turn out?

Since they could also elect the Ortsbeiräte and since the European elections, where they could also participate in, took place on the same day, I'd say 100%.

[pilskonzept]

I don't even know how the administration handles that problem. EU citizens ought to be handed out different ballots than Bremen's citizens, oughtn't they?

Yes.

Since they could also elect the Ortsbeiräte and since the European elections, where they could also participate in, took place on the same day, I'd say 100%.

Well, they still need to register if they want to vote for German Euro lists instead of "home country" Euro lists (and who cares about Ortsbeiräte enough to register?) but yeah, probably a lot more of them did than would have been the case without the Euros.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

Here is the result map of the local elections in the ten states that took place on the same day as the European election; the small dots represent the party with the second-most votes:



The AfD was so successful in East Germany that they won way more seats than they can fill with a mandate. About two dozens cities and counties are adversely affected by the AfD's strong performance.

[Former President tack50]

Here is the result map of the local elections in the ten states that took place on the same day as the European election; the small dots represent the party with the second-most votes:



The AfD was so successful in East Germany that they won way more seats than they can fill with a mandate. About two dozens cities and counties are adversely affected by the AfD's strong performance.

What is the 2nd placed party in Baden-Württenberg? I have never seen that colour (cyan?) before. Some sort of local party?

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

There is a very notable mayoral election in Saxony that has spread as far afield as Hollywood:

The 56,500 inhabitants of the Saxon city of Görlitz, directly adjacent to Poland, were called upon to elect a successor to independent Mayor Siegfried Deinege on May 26.
Here are the results:

Sebastian Wippel (AfD): 36.4%
Octavian Ursu (CDU): 30.3%
Franziska Schubert (Greens): 27.9%
Jana Lübeck (Left): 5.5%
(voter turnout: 58.6%)

As no candidate received a majority, there will be a run-off on June 16.
So far, so good. If Görlitz wasn't a popular film shooting location for Hollywood productions...
Movie producer Michael Simon de Normier, who co-produced The Reader, starring Kate Winslet, who won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA Award for her role as Hanna Schmitz, is planning on cinematizing a Beethoven biography in Görlitz in 2020. Dreading the prospect of an AfD mayor creating a climate of intolerance and xenophobia, he launched an urgent appeal for open-mindedness and to not vote for Wippel. Movies such as The Reader, Inglourious Basterds, Around the World in 80 Days, or The Grand Budapest Hotel were shot in front of the magnificent backdrop of Görlitz' history-charged old town, which is why the city is "Görliwood" by film geeks. De Normier is dreading that filmmakers might abandon Görlitz if Wippel becomes the mayor of that city. 33 celebrities have singed his public appeal so far, among them also British three-time Oscar nominated director Stephen Daldry.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

What is the 2nd placed party in Baden-Württenberg? I have never seen that colour (cyan?) before. Some sort of local party?

Exactly. Those are local voters' association (not to be confused with the party of the Free Voters) that run in only one single municipality or county. In official election statistics they are usually summarized as one unit.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

why is the SPD stronger in Brandenberg than in most of the rest of East Germany? Berlin exurbia?

also do the AFD strong local election results in the east mean they run any councils now?

[pilskonzept]

why is the SPD stronger in Brandenberg than in most of the rest of East Germany? Berlin exurbia?

Berlin exurbia is one of the reasons why the SPD's floor is a lot higher in Brandenburg than elsewhere these days. The other one is a history of relatively scandal-free governing since 1990.
 
Though the fact that the SPD won the 1990 elections in the first place is loosely related to Brandenburg's proximity to Berlin, too - resentment against the "Prussian", Berlin-centric state and its perceived neglect of the GDR's South was certainly a factor why the CDU (and other right-wing parties) did so well in Saxony and Thuringia, and thus established itself as the natural governing party in these parts.

also do the AFD strong local election results in the east mean they run any councils now?

They came first in the race for Görlitz district council (27/86) and Gera city council (12/42). The executive positions have not been filled yet.

[Anzeigenhauptmeister]

It seems that someone made an typo when entering the Greens score for the Bremerhaven diagram. It should not be 1.7% but 16.6%.

http://www.wahlen-bremen.de/Wahlen/2019_05_26/04012000/html5/Buergerschaft_Bremen_22_Gemeinde_Stadt_Bremerhaven.html

They finally fixed it.