🇩🇪 German state & local elections

[Yeahsayyeah]

Well, defections in the interest of the Land or political deals happen. For a majority at the moment one would basically need the cooperation of CDU/CSU, SPD and Greens.

Basically the Bundesrat can veto every law. There are two groups of laws. One, where the veto can be overturned by the absolute majority of the members of the Bundestag. There is a special council of Bundestag and Bundesrat members for official negotians in this case (Vermittlungsausschuss).

And one, where the veto can not be overturned.  The Bundesrat must also confirm international treaties, has some special legislation matters (road traffic rules, for instance) and has to agree to changes of the constitution

[Yeahsayyeah]

Could Schulze be elected as an independent in that constituency?

AFAIK, he will not stand again.

[Yeahsayyeah]

With these numbers Saxony would become nearly ungovernable. Imagine a Kenya-Government nobody wants hanging on on CDU-overhang-seats and weird Green backbenchers, while CDU and SPD are licking their wounds and bickering around extensively.

[Yeahsayyeah]

It would probably not be enough seats for a Jamaica coalition. It would depend on overhang seats (that are not fully compensated in the Saxon electoral system). On the other hand I don't think it would be politically feasible. The Saxon Greens are a relatively left wing state party, that rejected the possibility of a black-green coalition by high margins in 2014. And the Saxon FDP is more of the "we only have to buld streets and decrease unnessecary bureaucracy like environmental protection and everything will be fine" sort.

[Yeahsayyeah]

There is already a name for that: Baum-Frick-administration.

Actually I can't really fathom how the CDU in Saxony could do a coalition with a party whose leaders literally say things like "The CDU should face reality now and subjugate to us". So I think, this time the cordon sanitaire will probably hold, but it's probably the last round.

[Yeahsayyeah]

I doubt the CDU will govern with the AfD. Mike Möhring literally called Bernd Höcke a Nazi, last week.

The state constitution is quite open to minority governments. In the thir round the candidate with the most votes would be elected. On the other hand it knows self-dissolution of the Landtag.

[Yeahsayyeah]

It looks like the Kenya coalition in Sachsen-Anhalt could break up over the far-right past (and present) of a CDU Landtag member.

[Yeahsayyeah]

1) Greens
2) Pirates
3) Left

[...]

12) SPD (rofl)
13) CDU
14) FDP
15) AfD


But there are many questions, that are quite symbolism, like "climate emergency declaration" and I'm not too sure about all the implications of the planned Diebsteich train station (I heard more bad things like "a kind of Stuttgart 21 train wreck and a new station in the void") and the use of the Moorburg coal power station for heating.

[Yeahsayyeah]

3,6 percent for Die Linke is actually their best result in a Baden-Württemberg state election.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Coalition forming in Sachsen-Anhalt will be interesting. The relation between the CDU that has clearly done a rightward turn in this state (or at least has become more open about it) and the other partners in the Kenya coalition is not very well. CDU would probably like Jamaica or the "Germany coalition" (black-red-yellow, you see...) more. I don't think they will dare to do the Baum-Frick-administration, after what happened in Thuringia.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Why it was considered a so important issue the CDU to have more votes than the AfD?

Because many people, journalists included, don't understand our political system and care for symbolic "wins".

[Yeahsayyeah]

Why it was considered a so important issue the CDU to have more votes than the AfD?

Because many people, journalists included, don't understand our political system and care for symbolic "wins".

I would contest this. They care for symbolic 'wins' BECAUSE they know how the German political system works.

Ok, I'm interested to hear the argument for this position. ;-)

[Yeahsayyeah]

Why do the SDP do so strongly in M-V (and Brandenburg) relative to other eastern Lander anyway?

For this time: Schwesig is a popular MP. Generally speaking for MP. Until 2002, the elections have been at the same date as the federal elections, so now midterm effects. Especially in the early nineties the CDU-run governments were scandal-ridden desasters. And the SPD was always competitive, so there was real competition.

Many people seem to think, that all state politics in the East is like Saxony, but Saxony is actually the outlier.

[Yeahsayyeah]

They should have given Mrs. Schachenbach the Ministry of soll walks and what is left.

[Yeahsayyeah]

All politics is federal now, it seems.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Lafontaine, Ulrich... maybe, from a left-wing oerspective,the Saarland, this geopolitical quirk of the 20th century should just be dissolved

[Yeahsayyeah]

Well, it would be better, if it was...

[Yeahsayyeah]

I'm just following German politics on the surface, but isn't the actual takeaway for the FDP that voters are dissatisfied with their role in the federal govt not because they're not visible enough, but too visible instead? It's the smallest coalition partner and prevents SPD and Gruene from passing more left-wing or center-left policies. And these 2 parties had respectable showings despite Scholz having medicore approvals it seems. Or is the FDP result just related to state issues?

If I'm not mistaken, FDP was thrown out of the Bundestag after the 2nd Merkel cabinet, so it seems German voters just like them as opposition party and not as governing party?

If you go by exit polls by age the FDP seems to basically hold their newer youngish voters, but lose many of the older black-yellow-camp "loan voters" in the traffic light era. There isn't too much room for (european) liberal financial, budget and economy doctrine in permanent crisis mode. So the black-yellow-camp voters see them as "enablers of left-wing policies" and more leftish voters see them as a "roadblock against progress or getting anything done".

[Yeahsayyeah]

Many FDP voters of 2017 in Niedersachsen seem to have switched to AfD outright, yesterday, according to voter migration studies.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Yeah, that's a shock-shift related to the stoked fear of "their will be widespread blackouts in winter". One can contrast this with the Fukushima-related schock-shift of about 80 per cent wanting to abandon nuclear energy.

Aside from these schock-shifts the public opinion measured by polls usually was a slight minority to majority for the actual phase-out scenario with one in fourth to one in three wanting to stretch the phase-out longer and about 20 per cent who are pro-nuclear-energy in the sense that they want new reactors to be built. So it was basically seen as a settled issue in Germany before February 2022 as there are more people being strongly against nuclear power as strongly in favor, many don't have strong opinions unless problems occurr and the building of new nuclear power plants hasn't been exactly economically feasible for decades and isn't even wanted by those who would have to build and operate them.

So the "big wedge issue" is now made to be, weither 3 power plants responsible for about six per cent of German electricity production should be operated for half a year or not.

[Yeahsayyeah]

For anybody interested, the official result page can be found here:

https://www.wahlen-berlin.de/wahlen/BE2023/AFSPRAES/agh/index.html

The perecentage wins/losses can be a bit misleading, because they compare to 2016.

[Yeahsayyeah]

Yes but when a state government is a coalition (which it almost always is) doesnt that mean that the state delegation to the Bundesrat is mixed - in other words if there was a CDU-SPD coalition in Berlin and Berlin had 5 Bundesrat members - it would send 3 CDU and 2 SPD members or something like that.

State delegations to the Bundesrat must vote as one as they represent the state government, not individual parties.

Well then presumably one of the "bargaining chips" the SPD could use in their talks with the CDU would an agreement that Berlin votes in the Bundesrat cannot be used to impede the legislative agenda of the federal government?

The normal thing in these matters is a solution à la "If our opinions differ, the state delegation in the Bundesrat will abstain". Consequences differ. There are laws that need Bundesrat approval ("Zustimmungsgesetz" and laws that don't, but can be vetoed by a majority decision of the Bundesrat ("Einspruchsgesetz"), but this veto can be overridden by an absolute majority of the Bundestag members.

[Yeahsayyeah]

I totally see why parts of the SPD don't want to continue the R2G-government. I just don't see how Giffey of all people has a mandate to lead them there.

Of course, instead of a "government only for middle-class and well-off people inside the Ringbahn" Berlin would now get a "government only for well-off and petty-bourgeois Frontstadt people of West Berlin" ;-)

[Yeahsayyeah]

Why does Bremen have 4 year cycles instead of 5 like every other state. Come to think of it, why does most state governments get 5 year terms when the federal government has 4.

Four years was the standard for state elections, too, until the mid-nineties. Then their was an urge of CDU/CSU and SPD alike too prolong the periods for state parliaments in the name of "elections cost money" and "giving governments more time to govern and let's have less 'permanent campaigning'".

[Yeahsayyeah]

Results:

https://landtagswahl2023.bayern.de/eingangsmeldung.html

https://wahlen.hessen-ltw23.23degrees.eu/wk/00000000000/overview

No results in Bayern yet, but Hessen has 3000 of 7000 polling stations counted.

AfD is over 20%, but it is presumably rural areas and no big city polls yet.

Postal votes tend to come last for both socio-economic reasons and copying right-wing American talking points, AfD tend to vote in person.

In Bavaria results seem to be only published when the full electoral district/constituency is in.