Germany has voted.

[OldEurope]

Source: The Guardian, because it is in English

Bucking the trend


Ian Traynor, our Europe editor, offers the following view of Merkel's win:


More than three years into the European Union’s worst ever nightmare, Merkel, uniquely in the Eurozone, has been hugely rewarded for her handling of the currency and sovereign debt crisis. Everywhere else voters have punished governments.

Her victory demonstrates the gulf between Germany and the rest of the EU and the Eurozone, although it is not clear what impact her third term will have on the direction of the crisis.

Her victory, with an increased share of the vote for her Christian democrats than in 2009 no less, will vindicate her confidence in the way she has dealt with the euro challenge. She will be encouraged to carry on as before, not least since she is confident that the heat is going out of the crisis and that her emphasis on savings, cuts, and structural reforms in the stricken eurozone economies is beginning to pay off.


Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/22/germany-election-results-merkel-live-updates

---

Merkel is obviously stronger than ever. A landslide.

But be careful, different sources on TV and elsewhere show smaller gains for the conservatives.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. Allegedly latest ZDF projection has absolute majority for her party. n/t

[totodeinhere]

2. Where did you see that? The latest info I can find shows her at 42%

and three or four seats short of an absolute majority which will probably force her to try to form a grand coalition with the Social Democrats since the FDP might be out of parliament.

But make no mistake about it, a 42% to 26% win over the Social Democrats is big.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-22/merkel-wins-as-fdp-losses-leave-ally-unclear-exit-polls-show.html

[Benton D Struckcheon]

3. 'Twas a tweet

Saw another one said she got 302 out of 589, which would be huge if it verified. We'll see.

[DetlefK]

4. All parties below 5% don't get seats. +graphic

The FDP and the AfD didn't make it, plus asorted smaller parties make an additional wasted 6.3%, so her 42.4% is a RAZORTHIN absolute majority.



http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2013-09-22-BT-DE/index.shtml

[totodeinhere]

5. Sorry I can't read the German at that site but is there a breakdown of the projected number

of seats that each party will get?

I am also reading that at 4.9% the AfD is on the verge of entering Parliament which could shake things up.

[OldEurope]

6. Seats

At the moment, CDU will have 302 of 598 seats, which means absolute majority. But we will have to wait until all votes are counted, because we have a complicated system of additional seats (the laws were modified recently, don't ask me to specify). Also, if a smaller Party managed to have more than 5 % Merkel would lose some seats.

[totodeinhere]

10. Thank you. That's all very interesting. n/t

[DetlefK]

7. From 17 minutes ago:

http://wahl.tagesschau.de/wahlen/2013-09-22-BT-DE/index.shtml



73% voter-turnout. Parliament consists of 598 seats.

The CDU has lost its razorthin edge: Its at 42% right now, all other parties combined at 42.2%. Its down to 49.8% of seats in parliament.

Union = CDU = christian-democratic union (moderate conservatives)
SPD = social-democrats (moderate left)
FDP = free democrats (liberals, anti-war, pro-capitalism)
Linke = "the left party" (fringe left)
Grüne = Greens (liberals, greens)
Piraten = pirates (fringe liberal)
AfD = "alternative for Germany" (founded recently, isolationist)

[OldEurope]

8. One thing in your post is perhaps misleading.

The FDP were liberals. Nowadays they are libertarian, at best. IMHO they are only running the interests of some 1%-wanna-be groups. And the voters were well aware of that.

[JackRiddler]

35. No. The FDP are liberals.

Liberalism originally meant laisez-faire economics in a representative democratic state. Economically it meant the reverse of what it means today in the United States. Of course, the U.S. understanding of liberals as supportive of strong state regulation is largely nominal. Most American leaders labeled as liberals, if not their base, are committed to what is now called neo-liberal policy and have, e.g., supported measures for corporate deregulation. (We'll see what happens with the TPP vote.) In most places in the world, liberal still refers to what Americans now call "economic conservatives" (who are actually radical liberals, in the old sense). Parties named Liberal tend to be center-right, like in Australia. The FDP have always been raging libertarians, during their entire existence, though they are permissive on social issues and immigration, unlike the Australian Liberals who are more like Tancredo. (In another one of these historic word-flips, libertarian was originally coined as the self-identification of anarchist socialists like Emma Goldman, but let's not get into that.) Of course, to right-wing Americans a liberal is a dirty commie agent. Even among centrist pundits liberal is absurdly used as a 1:1 synonym for leftist, since the hegemonic discourse generally refuses to acknowledge the existence of anything to the left of Hillary Clinton except to call it extreme. Many leftists, meanwhile, have mounted a comeback for progressive rather than liberal as a more clear reference to the (soft) left politics represented, say, by 1960s U.S. liberals, or Al Franken. And of course we've seen the 20-year rise of the liberal humanitarian imperialists, who also are not really new under the sun but re-taking up "the white man's burden." The paradoxes around this word never cease.

[Benton D Struckcheon]

11. ZDF's now saying one seat short of absolute majority,

which dovetails with what you're saying, looks like.

[DetlefK]

12. With numbers changing every few minutes, I come back tommorrow. ;-)

[Benton D Struckcheon]

13. Good plan. n/t

[Yo_Mama]

20. Yes but there are hundreds of seats in Bundestag that are allocated on the basis of party votes

She got far and away the most party votes, and several smaller parties didn't get to the 5% threshold to get their share of the party list Bundestag seats. Thus, when all the numbers are in and the Bundestag seats are counted, it is possible that she will be able to govern without forming a coalition with another party. If she does need anything, it won't be much.

[DFW]

9. If the AfD gets in, the deck gets heavily reshuffled

If not, Merkel either has a one or two vote majority at best, maybe even one or two votes short. The counting is going on, and unlike our Republicans, none of the parties here "will take care of the counting."

It looks like Merkel will be forced into a coalition of some sort, and though some have floated the notion of the CDU and the Greens, a leader of the Greens was just on TV here saying their positions on the issues were so far apart, she didn't see how it would work. Actually, even some of my SPD friends have said that they would have a better chance to consolidate the party as an opposition party** than as the junior partner in a grand coalition where, trying to get legislation done that both partners could accept, neither one would really have a chance to see whether their own program works.

I don't know if Merkel would be cool with trying to go it alone with 300 seats against 298 in the Bundestag. That's some kind of thin ice to walk on for four years. So, wait until the final results are in, and then see where everything stands.

** on edit--we're watching the round of the party heads on German TV right now, and Peer Steinbrück just said this very same thing.

[totodeinhere]

14. What about a coalition with the AfD if they get in? I am not an expert on German

politics by any means but I do know that in general under a parliamentary system coalition partners don't have to agree on everything and in fact they usually don't. The AfD would be a very junior partner in a possible coalition and obviously the CDU would control the finance ministry or whatever they call it in Germany. So the two parties could simply agree to disagree about the euro.

[OldEurope]

15. No, no AfD is...

... for leaving the Eurozone. This party is not an option for any coalition. They are only the party of "against".

Edited to add: If there was a vote in the Bundestag about Europe or the Euro, Merkel could lose when the AfD voted against it. Then she would have to perform the "Vertrauensfrage" (= motion of confidence) to see if she still can make the policy she and her party wants. Losing this vote would cut her off (the chancellor is elected by the Bundestag, not directly by voters). Germany then would have to vote a new parliament.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. They said they'd ruled that out already

The anti-capitalist Left Party, which Steinbrueck rejects as a governing partner, has 8.5-9 percent and the AfD, or Alternative for Germany, 4-5 percent. While that is on the 5 percent threshold needed to win seats, CDU leaders including Thuringia Prime Minister Christine Lieberknecht have ruled out coalition talks with the AfD because of its anti-euro stance.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-20/merkel-evokes-postwar-peace-to-champion-eu-in-final-campaigning.html

but if the AfD just scraped in with above 5%, and the FDP doesn't, perhaps they'd be tempted, rather than a grand coalition with the SPD who would demand more power.

[DFW]

19. Little to no chance of that

There's a roundtable on German TV going on right now, and all the party leaders of parties that are definitely over the 5% hurdle are discussing what might come next. Steinbrück spoke for them all when he said that it needed to be pointed out that NO party was present that was for a retreat from Europe or the Euro. As the AfD has as their main issue that Germany has to loosen its ties to the EU and ditch the Euro, I see Merkel as ruling out any coalition with them, much as Steinbrück has ruled out any coalition with the Linke. The SPD could rule if they went into a coalition with the Greens and the Linke, and they categorically rule it out.

[Dawson Leery]

17. The FDP may be wiped out. Their austerity war is over.

[OldEurope]

18. I don't think it was the FDP

It was Merkel and Schäuble (minister of finance).
FDP was simply trying to get some benefit for the rich.

The only thing I regret is that we no longer have an openly gay minister of foreign affairs to scare the homophobic countries like Saudi Arabia or Russia.

[Celefin]

21. Mixed feelings but it was currently the best possible outcome I think

But... and here's something to drink to:
The neo-liberal free-market fetishists of the FDP have been voted out in a landslide.
They lost over 2/3 of their votes (which is probably why the conservatives from the CDU have gained - FDP voters disgruntled by a dismal government performance of their party).

This really speaks volumes about the political climate in Germany.

The social democrats and greens managed by scandals and stupidity to severely damage their prospects just in time... nothing new here.

Anyway. German elections remain suspenseful... as it should be in a working democracy.
Will be very interesting to see what happens now after the CDU has lost its FDP appendix and either needs to form a minority government or go into a coalition with a non-conservative party. Also this time around, the social democrats don't appear overly keen on forming a 'grand coalition'... it has never done them any good.

German politics just got interesting again!

[Ken Burch]

23. Christ, I wish the SPD would get past its "no coalition with Die Linke" stubbornness

The Berlin Wall fell a quarter-century ago. The people who want the DDR back have almost no influence in the party anymore(it's now clearly an independent democratic socialist party of the honorable radical left), and there's no possible chance that the SPD is ever going to just wipe Die Linke out(especially if the SPD keeps insisting on shifting further and further and further right).

Stalinism is dead. The post-1919 split in the Left should die with it.

[Celefin]

32. 'Die Linke' filled the space the SPD vacated under chancellor Schroeder

and they have done what they could do to distance themselves from them at all costs. Mostly for the fear of being labeled stasi-sympathisers and communist-huggers by the conservatives. If the SPD were to remember where it stood under Willy Brandt they'd get 90% of the 'Linke' voters back, I'm pretty sure of that. As it is, socialists and 'real' social democrats have nowhere else to go... the SPD became irrelevant to them when it embraced the neo-liberal free-market agenda under Schroeder.

So yes, they should be open to a coalition. I guess it's become a matter of saving face now or some such thing.

[Dawson Leery]

25. The FDP has been wiped out in the state governments too.

The end result has given the upper chamber to the left.

[Celefin]

31. Yep - in day-to-day German politics that is really important

The CDU came out really strong... but it can't just pass any laws that have to go through the upper chamber as it sees fit.
Now if only the SPD refrains from forming a coalition with the CDU (where they always lose out).

[jakeXT]

34. 5.0 in Hesse /nt

[JDPriestly]

22. The Frankfurter Allgemeine shows that the Union -- CDU and CSU together got about 42%

(maybe more). That is a big improvement over 2009 when they got 33.8%.

These results are not final.

The FDP got less than 5% according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine and will not sit in parliament. That is a big change. So did the Pirate Party.

The SPD (socialists) got about 29% which is an increase from 23% in 2009 (the SPD's worst loss in history).

The Greens got 8%, down from 10.7% in 2009. The Party of the Left was down to 8% from 11.9% in 2009. (Apparently there was some scandal about the stance of the Greens or the Green Party leader on pedophilia.)

The ADP -- Alternative for Deutschland (Germany) Party's result is not sure yet. ADP is critical of Germany's membership in the European Union.

The Frankfurter Allgemeine credits the Union of the CDU and CSU's handling of the economy for Merkel's success in the polls.

I summarized the article because it is written so that translating four paragraphs would not tell an American reader what he wants to know. I left out commentary that only Europeans would be likely to care about.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/bundestagswahl/bundestagswahl-union-kurz-vor-absoluter-mehrheit-12585691.html

Again, these are not the final results.

[gopiscrap]

24. that's a pretty reliable newspaper

I frew up partially in Frankfurt and reading their news lots of times.

[DonCoquixote]

26. as I told someone earlier

George W. Bush - Out of Power
Silvio Berlusconi - Out of Power
Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy -Out of Power
Tony Blair - Out of Power

Angela Merkel - Still in the driver's seat, running over flowers and pedestrians on a quest to push her country to the right.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

27. More like, Doing all she can to prove someone from former Communist East Germany,....

....can be as much of a right-wing asshole as someone from Austria.

[DonCoquixote]

28. same thing

and the irony is Germany is the economic powerhouse it is BECAUSE of government sponsored education.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

29. It's a socio-economic success because corporations didn't write their laws.

[quadrature]

30. is a minority gov't possible? ...nt

[MissHoneychurch]

33. Not very likely n/t