3 state elections in Germany in September

[minionofmidas]

September 5th, Saarland
1999 result
turnout 68,7%
CDU 45,5 - 26 seats
SPD 44,4 - 25 seats
Greens 3,2
FDP 2,6
other 4,3

This is a left-leaning state with declining coal industry, but PM Peter Müller is extremely popular (heck, I like the guy myself) and the SPD is nationally very unpopular at the moment. You get the picture. The Greens' worst state in West Germany, but I guess they'll be getting back in. They're riding high in national polls right now.

Septermber 19th, Brandenburg & Saxony (both eastern states)
'99 results
Brandenburg
turnout 54,3 (one of the worst ever)
SPD 39,3 - 37 seats
CDU 26,6 - 25 seats
PDS 23,3 - 22 seats
DVU (far right) 5,3
Greens 1,9
FDP 1,9
others 1,7
Saxony
turnout 61,1
CDU 56,9 - 76 seats
PDS 22,2 - 30 seats
SPD 10,7 - 14 seats. Worst result ever in a state election.
Greens 2,6
FDP 1,1
others 6,5

In Brandenburg, currently governed by a SPD-CDU coalition, the PDS topped the poll in the Euro Elections, and I guess they'll do it again in September. What happens next no one can say. I hope the DVU gets stuffed. Outside chance of Greens getting back in.

In Saxony, the big question is whether the CDU can maintain its absolute majority (current guess: less than 50% likely, but will be close) and the little questions are, by how much will the PDS improve? Can the SPD escape falling into single digits? Will the Greens get back in? (Polls say yes, but they did so in Thuringia as well), Could the FDP do something here? (their best chance of the three, will be close), might there be a nasty surprise from the far right?

[minionofmidas]

Müller wins easily methinks...
How good are the Neo-Nazi's chances in the Eastern states?

You never know.They haven't won any seats since the Brandenburg election of five years back. I've seen two recent polls (by different firms) for Saxony, one of them was
CDU 44
PDS 25
SPD 12
Greens 6
FDP 4,5
right wing parties 5
other 3,5

the other was
CDU 45
PDS 25
SPD 10
Greens 6
FDP 6
NPD 2 (the worst of the far right parties)
other 6

I'd have to check which and how many of these outfits are actually running in Saxony.

[minionofmidas]

Bad news: The NPD is the only one of the more established far right parties (NPD, REP, DVU) to run. There's one thing called Deutsche Gemeinschaft für Gerechtigkeit that sounds far-right to me by their name.

[minionofmidas]

Hmm, so Nazi parties aren't banned?  I thought the FRG banned neo-Nazi parties.

Parties can be banned in Germany, by the Supreme Court, if they're deemed to be "anti-constitutional". The Government has to demand it, then the Supreme Court decides.
In 1952, the government asked the SC to ban the Socialist Reich Party, which was led by actual former Nazis. It was banned in 1953.
In 1951, government asked the SC to ban the Communist Party. Proceedings took five years and in the end the KPD was banned, but the SC raised the threshold so high - for example, asking the government to prove the party in question wasn't prodded onto that course by government informers - that no government tried to ban the NPD, which had a rash of successes in the mid-to-late sixties and then drifted back into obscurity, until the current one. They tried. They lost because the NPD is chockful of informers - in fact, it seems that for a time, the different police and secret service forces (we're a federalist country you know - each state has its own one, plus the feds...) had a working majority in some of the party's state units' leadership councils...
The worst thing about it was that, in some of these cases, the whole NPD leadership knew - they knew the law too and considered these guys their policy against a ban! It worked...

[minionofmidas]

No, that´s not what I meant. You said that all but two European users (you and Bono) are left-leaning. And what I tried to say is, that they are some Scandinavian members, who, despite the fact they´re using Democratic avatars, are conservative.

I'm not a very regular user, but I see myself as conservative too, in a Dutch way. .

I think that for Americans, almost every European user on this forum is left-leaning, while in European eyes almost every American user is right-leaning.

Especially Migrendel and Better Red.

Yeah, good description, OldEurope.

There's one thing I'd like to add: When you see polls of how people feel about a certain issue, split up by East/West and political party, you will often - but not always - notice that it's actually centrists who vote PDS. I'll be buggered if I know why that is...

[minionofmidas]

I had wondered why in God's name anybody would vote PDS, but I see some reasons now...

True Story: back in the mid-90's, when I was an undergraduate, one of my friends was a student from Germany. Ex-military, and Green-leftist. And when the subject of German politics came up, he would wince in disgust at the mention of the PDS, and expressed quite a negative view of it...

One reason may be he, like most Western leftists, in fact, didn't perfectly trust these guys. History is definitely a hindrance to a PDS breakthrough in the west.

[minionofmidas]

Polls will close at 6 pm in the Saarland. (High noon atlas time IIRC)
I'll get you some early results when the time comes.

[minionofmidas]

Turnout seems to be very low.
According to a sample only 28% had voted by 2 pm, as opposed to 38% at the last state election and 30% at the European elections.

[minionofmidas]

Turnout seems to be very low.
According to a sample only 28% had voted by 2 pm, as opposed to 38% at the last state election and 30% at the European elections.

Who d'yi think that helps?

Traditionally, Greens and CDU.
In this case, hard to say.

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, sorry. When I tried to post the exit polls, I  met with the strangest bandwidth problems...took off and cursed my computer...now I'm back...
Exit poll was
CDU 48,5
SPD 30,5
Greens 5,5
FDP 5,5
others 10,0

latest projections (two different ones) are
CDU 47.7 or 47.6
SPD 30.6 or 30.2
Greens 5.6 or 5.8
FDP 5.2 and 5.2
NPD 3.8 or 4.2

Partial results are actually already in for 3/4 of the state (I wonder how come? Don't they count ballots by hand on the Saar anymore?) and look slightly different in relevant details:
CDU 48,9
SPD 30,8
FDP 5.0
Greens 4.9
NPD 3.7
Plus they include the others...
Familienpartei (small, kinda centrist protest party - never won anything) 3.2
PDS 2.1

[minionofmidas]

Turnout's round about 56%. That's abysmal.

[minionofmidas]

Partial results are actually already in for 3/4 of the state (I wonder how come? Don't they count ballots by hand on the Saar anymore?) and look slightly different in relevant details:
CDU 48,9
SPD 30,8
FDP 5.0
Greens 4.9
NPD 3.7
Plus they include the others...
Familienpartei (small, kinda centrist protest party - never won anything) 3.2
PDS 2.1

CDU 48.6
SPD 30.8
FDP 5.0
Greens 4.9
NPD 3.9

Turnout 56.3

This is the result for the state without its largest city and capital, Saarbrücken.
Which means the CDU result will go down a bit, the Green result will go up, the FDP result will probably go up a bit too. Possibly the SPD one as well.

[minionofmidas]

Saarbrücken is in!
Preliminary final result (not yet certified or anything)
Turnout 55,5
CDU 47.5
SPD 30.8
Greens 5.6
FDP 5.2
NPD 4.0
Familienpartei 3.0
PDS 2.3

The SPD has lost half its voters from 1999...Even the Green and FDP gains are small in terms of votes. Of course, the CDU ones again gets away with calling a loss a win.

[minionofmidas]

With the NPD at 4% in Saarland I'm afraid it's very likely that they will get >5% in Saxony and the DVU will (again)
get >5% in Brandenburg.
Let's hope the PDS gets most of the protest votes.


At least in Saxony the SPD cannot lose 13%...

LOL!

Al: The CDU vote staying more or less put? Hardly.
5 years ago, 45,5% on a 70% turnout = about 32% of the electorate.
Now, 47,5% on a 55,5% turnout = just over 25% of the electorate. Granted, a lot of that is attributable to less-than-diehard CDU supporters staying home, or rather going out into the country, because Müller's win wasn't seen as in doubt and the weather was so fine, but still...

[minionofmidas]

Add to those NPD Saxony worries the fact that they got some very disreputable characters high up on the list...people with connections to the banned Neonazi organization Skinheads Sächsische Schweiz, or SSS for short.

[minionofmidas]

Does it makes you wonder, when my newspaper (Politiken) has more reports from states elections in South Germany than the national elections in Canada a while ago

Joke aside - Is CDU/CSU advocating another economic policy than SPD or are people just voting against SPD? I am just wondering how CDU is going to improve thing if or when they win the national election

Basically not. On details, yes, but it's mostly more of the same medicine, not less.
Opinion polls show the people know that, too:
Pretty recent one...
Would CDU/CSU do a better job in government?
28% yes
52% no
the rest was split between a "same" option (which makes you wonder if "no" was supposed to mean "they'd do worse" - the wording is not really clear) and don't knows.

[minionofmidas]

Those that believe that (more or less) these reforms are needed, they vote CDU because that's what they've always voted...
Those who used to vote SPD, or who still do, are unhappy with these reforms. They don't go and vote CDU. They just don't go and vote.

[minionofmidas]

I believe Jens was talking of LPF.
Although, to be fair, they weren't really on an upward swing at the last election.

[minionofmidas]

These polls actually look like good news...SPD remaining strongest party in Brandenburg, CDU out of a majority in Saxony. Greens back in, too. I mean, hey, what more could you ask for?
But I fear the worst as far as the DVU and especially the NPD are concerned...I wouldn't be surprised if the b*stards scored as high as in '98 Saxony-Anhalt.

[minionofmidas]

...which for a time in the mid-to-late nineties was the only thing that kept the FDP alive...

...Early projected results...

Saxony
CDU 43,2 or 43,5
PDS 22,6 or 22,8
SPD 9,6 or 10,0
NPD 8,9 or 8,8
FDP 5,8 or 5,5
Greens 5,0 or 5,0
others 4,9 or 4,4

Brandenburg
SPD 32,6 or 32,8
PDS 28,3 or 27,8
CDU 19,6 or 19,8
DVU 6,1 or 5,7
Greens 3,4 or 3,1
FDP 3,2 or 3,7
others 6,8 or 7,1

Right wing fears have come true, CDU absolute majority in Saxony gone, CDU and SPD lose equally in Brandenburg, Greens disappointing even though they may get back in in Saxony. No info on turnout yet, I'll look though.

[minionofmidas]

Turnout appears to be about 60% in Saxony, about 50% in Brandenburg.
Greens still struggling about the 5% mark in Saxony, FDP is in. SPD *might* yet be overtaken by the NPD (makes sick noises). Still can't believe it even though I'm at the same time amazed why *anyone* should vote SPD in Saxony state elections when all they want to be is the CDU's junior partner in government.

[minionofmidas]

CDU saying they'd try to form a government with SPD, FDP or Greens.
Greens uninterested.
FDP saying they'd  join the government, but "not at any price".
SPD trying to claim this as a success since, after all, the CDU majority has been broken.

[minionofmidas]

400-odd of Saxony's 500-odd townships counted, Greens at 3,2% but that doesn't mean anything since the big cities are all missing.
For the first time in history, CDU didn't get all the direct seats in the state. PDS have definitely nicked the Hoyerswerda seat.
Have to leave in a couple a minutes...hope the Greens get in after all...