First Green state premier likely to emerge from state elections (Germany)

[reorg]

Source: Deutsche Welle

Polling stations have closed in two German states in elections, with the Green party making significant gains in the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg and Chancellor Angela Merkel's CDU suffering losses, according to projections on German public television.

The Greens polled 24.9 percent, an increase of 13.3 percent since the last state elections in 2006, meaning the state could be led by a Green party premier, a first in German history. The Greens' leader in Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, has been tapped as a likely candidate.

... The Social Democrats polled 23.4 percent, which means a coalition of SPD and Greens is likely.

... As predicted, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) took a severe drubbing, polling 38.2 percent in Baden-Württemberg, a drop of six percent.

The Free Democrats, partners with the CDU at the national level, polled 5 percent, leaving the two parties short of a majority to form a coalition. ...

Read more: http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14943224,00.html

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Projection two hours later (19:56 hours local time):

CDU 39.3
Greens 24.1
SPD 23.2
FDP 5.0
Left Party 2.8

Big wins for the Greens also in another state election, Rhineland-Palatinate. Big losses for the FDP, kicked out in Rhineland-Palatinate and possibly in Baden-Württemberg as well.

[suffragette]

1. K&R

[stockholmer]

2. go go Greens!!!

:bounce:

[JDPriestly]

3. Wow! Germans are environmentalists, and the Japanese catastrophe

certainly played a role in this.

Let this serve as a warning to American politicians.

[JackRiddler]

4. Sadly the American politicians have nothing to worry about.

In the US, given the same numbers, the winner of that election would be the CDU. The media coverage would treat it as though "the people" chose the CDU as WINNERS and that's that. The total numbers would barely be highlighted, that would be for wonks. Worse, SPD loyalists would be directing their anger not at the CDU but at the Greens for "spoiling" the election. No one would have any representation except the biggest party.

This is the biggest problem we face here: it's impossible to just vote for what you want and get representation proportionate to your vote total. You either get the plurality or you get ignored completely. This is why we're stuck with the impenetrable two-party system with its permanent consensus in favor of Empire, Bankers and Profits Ueber Alles.

[JDPriestly]

5. You are so right, JackRiddler.

And our system makes it very easy for corporations to stifle new solutions, new ideas, even new values. We are stuck. We have to take back the Democratic Party before we can take back our country.

[iandhr]

6. I am surprised the CDU...

...given they have a plurality, doesn't form a "Grand Coalition" with the SPD. That what Merkel did in her first term.

[DetlefK]

7. Depends on what they could get from the coalition negotiations.

CDU/SPD-coalition is not that prefered as each party would have to give up too much in the coalition treaty. Merkel's Grand Coalition was sort of an emergency solution, because otherwise a three-party-coalition would have been needed to form a government.

CDU/FDP and SPD/Greens are the most common.
About 3 decades ago there was a SPD/FDP-government in Germany and until recently there was a CDU/Greens-government in Hamburg. The CDU/Greens-coalition broke up, after the Greens claimed they had been withheld information.

[Ken Burch]

12. Unfortunately, divisions in the left made a Red-Red-Green coalition impossible

(even though such a coalition would have had a clear majority in the Bundestag)

The SPD are still refusing to do any coalitions with the Left Party(Die Linke), even though it's been twenty-two years since the Wall fell and there's only a tiny handful of people in Die Linke who had anything to do with the SED.

It's time to get past the old social democrat-communist split. The Cold War is over and nobody's a Stalinist now.

[Ken Burch]

10. Or with the Greens.

They had such a coalition in Hamburg, at one point(it finally fell, but lasted for a few years).

[reorg]

8. end results

CDU 39.0
Greens 24.2
SPD 23.1
FDP 5.3
Left Party 2.8
Others 5.6

30 years after its inception the Green Party in Germany will for the first time provide a governor/state premier, in a state that has been governed by the conservative CDU since WWII. It is this very state, however, where the German anti-nuclear power movement started and celebrated its first triumph: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyhl

So it seems very fitting that they won today. But it's not just the headlines from Japan, not Chancellor Merkel's desperate but transparent moves to quickly reverse the fatal mistake to undo the nuclear power phase-out which had this effect. Most of all, it was once again a broad popular movement, against a multi-billion Euro project called "Stuttgart 21", which mobilized hundreds of thousands not just to gather and demonstrate, but to go to the election and vote: turnout rose from some 53.4% to 66.2%.

[Ken Burch]

11. Another good thing...the NPD(the neo-Nazis)didn't get enough support to win seats

That's always something to watch in a German state election(I'm not exaggerating, they did win seats in one of the eastern state legislatures a few years ago).

[reorg]

13. yes, they were represented at one time in Baden-Württemberg

Like some states in the East, BW has been a hot spot for Neonazis in the past. But these are rare exceptions.

[Ken Burch]

9. Perhaps this will help shut up the "bring back nukes" crowd here in the U.S.

n/t.

[JackRiddler]

14. They are nothing short of crazy.

You'd think they'd shut the fuck up for a few weeks and then come back AFTER we actually have an idea of how bad the disaster is. But these people seem to be in love with nuclear energy, so they're dispensing patently illogical talking points (based on a false dichotomy that posits coal and nuclear as the only alternatives) while a meltdown is still in progress.

[onehandle]

15. It's amazing how the Greens can get things done over there, but here they get us Bush.

Good for the German Greens.