German Bundestag Election

[GoodSarmatian]

Sorry, I am not open to socialist arguments

And 'm not a socialist

German economy will resume growth thanks to more liberal economic policies leading to flexible labor market, which will make all German economic dependencies (like us) happier. When you guys stagnate, it's bad for us too. As for your wages - they're on average 5 times higher than ours, so I really don't see what your problem is.

Economic growth should not be an end in itself.
If a country can only increase economic growth with policies that are detrimental to the vast majority of it's population and decrease tax income then it should pursue other goals.

 

[Bill3000]

Only on paper. In reality, I can see lots of US Democrats agreeing with FDP positions.

Depends on the Democrat, but it really sounds quite a bit righter on the economic scale. They're certainly not third way. Really looks more like a non-socially conservative republican party than New Democrats to me.

 

[Winner]

And 'm not a socialist

I didn't say that

Economic growth should not be an end in itself.
If a country can only increase economic growth with policies that are detrimental to the vast majority of it's population and decrease tax income then it should pursue other goals.

First sentence is correct. But then, I simply don't share your view that the new coalition's policy would be detrimental to the population. On the contrary, I think the unemployment will get lower and the administration will become more efficient.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Depends on the Democrat, but it really sounds quite a bit righter on the economic scale. They're certainly not third way. Really looks more like a non-socially conservative republican party than New Democrats to me.

Economically the FDP is the most anti-tax, small government and pro free market party we have here in Germany.
Maybe they are farther on the right than Obama claimed to be during his campaign, but still I think in the political culture of the USA they'd be considered center-left.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

Did you vote? If so, who for? If not, who would you have?

 

[dot]

Looks like the FDP is losing slighty in second votes. It might be interesting after all.

 

[Bill3000]

Economically the FDP is the most anti-tax, small government and pro free market party we have here in Germany.
Maybe they are farther on the right than Obama claimed to be during his campaign, but still I think in the political culture of the USA they'd be considered center-left.

They would be considered "center-left" due to the fact that they are socially libertarian, not because of their economic stances. It's the equivalent of a moderate minarchist libertarian here and would have as its primary supporters many of the non-socially conservative conservatives on these forums.

 

[Huayna Capac357]

What are first and second votes?

 

[GoodSarmatian]

First sentence is correct. But then, I simply don't share your view that the new coalition's policy would be detrimental to the population. On the contrary, I think the unemployment will get lower and the administration will become more efficient.

The Schröder government already did enough to decrease unemployment imho, but we have now a new problem in Germany. We have people who have work and still hardly make ends meet. Now I don't know how you could solve this without either introducing a minimum wage or subsidizing unqualified labor in some way which of course would cost the state a lot of money and I am against the state spending a lot of money just so employers can save a buck.
The new government will probably concentrate on strengthening our export sector which was always strong while it should rather do something about our notoriously weak domestic demand.

 

[Riffraff]

What are first and second votes?

With the first vote, local candidates are voted directly into parliament. The second vote decides how many seats each party gets in parliament.

 

[ori]

the Bundestag needs to start its session within 30 days after the election - after that the President has to recommend a candidate for the office of chancellor - this does not have to be on the first day of the parliamentary session - however once he does recommend a candidate the Bundestag has 14 days to elect anyone - The usual time frame though is within a month or two after the election.

Edit: gah x-post this was in response to something Godwynn asked on the last page

 

[innonimatu]

By the way, there was also a legislative election in Portugal today, which resulted in an oddly similar situation: none of the two usual big parties has a clear majority, and three small parties (communists, the "new left", and the "christian democrats") gained votes. As I mentioned, the comparative weakening of the usual two big parties seems to be the one clear political trend across Western Europe.
The political systems in the Netherlands, Belgium and France has also been becoming pulverized?

Results would be far more interesting with strictly proportional systems, it seems to me...

 

[Jan H]

By the way, there was also a legislative election in Portugal today, which resulted in an oddly similar situation: none of the two usual big parties has a clear majority, and three small parties (communists, the "new left", and the "christian democrats") gained votes. As I mentioned, the comparative weakening of the usual two big parties seems to be the one clear political trend across Western Europe.
The political systems in the Netherlands, Belgium and France has also been becoming pulverized?

I think for Portugal it's more like a return to the "normal" situation. The absolute majority of the previous social-democrat government was an exception.
The Belgian system is completely messed up. Part of it is because the political parties are split along linguistic lines. Usually the overall results of the entire country aren't even reported in the media, only the separate results per language region. For example in the last senate elections in 2007, the biggest party had 19.5% of the total vote (the alliance of Flemish christian democrats and moderate Flemish nationalists; but since those elections, this alliance has split), the next biggest party held 12.4%...
So now we're stuck with a 5-party coalition

Results would be far more interesting with strictly proportional systems, it seems to me...

That's how it's done in the Netherlands.

 

[ori]

Results would be far more interesting with strictly proportional systems, it seems to me...

At least in Germany a strictly proportional vote would not have made a difference in who is going to govern (this time around).

preliminary results:
CDU/CSU 33.5
SPD 23.5
FDP 14.5
Greens 10.5
Left 12

everyone else: 6

CDU/CSU/FDP will likely be the next government

Official Results:

CDU/CSU: 33.8 -> 239 seats
SPD: 23.0 -> 146 seats
FDP: 14.6 -> 93 seats
Greens: 10.7 -> 68 seats
Left: 11.9 -> 76 seats

CDU/CSU/FDP combined: 48.4 / 332 seats
SPD/Left/Greens combined: 45.6 / 290 seats

Not quite. It depends not on the SSW but on the electoral committee where CDU and FDP are in the minority. My guess: The CDU ends up in the opposition in this state.

Also, even if Carstensen can form a coalition with the FDP and secure the Bundesrat majority, said majority will most likely be lost rather early...

The official results give CDU/FDP in Schleswig Holstein 49 seats out of 95 - so they'll govern and the CDU/CSU/FDP coalition will have a majority in both chambers until at least May 2010 and if North Rhine Westphalia does not change hands then until well into 2011.

Now some notes on individual elections:
Greens have won a congressional district for the third time in a row - while I disagree with most of Ströbele's policies his civil rights agenda is excellent and for winning a first past the post election with 46% while his party is in the teens.

And after sufficiently celebrating the more capitalist parties its time to put on my socialist hat and as a loyal union member and activist during the last nation wide physician's strikes proclaim:


my union boss won his congressional district

and beat the current secretary of health in doing so

he'll be part of the new government - so at least health care wise there will be union participation

 

[kronic]

The official results give CDU/FDP in Schleswig Holstein 49 seats out of 95 - so they'll govern and the CDU/CSU/FDP coalition will have a majority in both chambers until at least May 2010 and if North Rhine Westphalia does not change hands then until well into 2011.

Has it already been cleared by the electoral committee? I assume this is includes only the "kleinen Ausgleich".

And btw, it's precisely the situation that I was warning of before. The alliance of two parties with fewer votes than the other parties represented in the parliament get more seats...and that's quite clear actually: 46,4 % vs. 48,1 %. Not good.

 

[ori]

Has it already been cleared by the electoral committee? I assume this is includes only the "kleinen Ausgleich".

And btw, it's precisely the situation that I was warning of before. The alliance of two parties with fewer votes than the other parties represented in the parliament get more seats...and that's quite clear actually: 46,4 % vs. 48,1 %. Not good.

its the election commissions report - I did see that the minority won the majority - but this is based on schleswig holstein's election law not on the federal one that was discussed prior to the elections. They did award quite a huge number of additional seats to all other parties to counter the surplus seats the CDU got - the parliament got expanded from 69 to 95 seats in order to dos - however the FDP profited most from that for whatever reason - so I have no idea what kind of Ausgleich they used
I guess it'll be subject to litigation - but really they need to change that law...

Edit: just to be clear - this is the preliminary result - and the final decision will be made in a few days when all counting and recounting is wrapped up - but from all reports it seems as if they expect this majority to stay around (litigation pending - but election law litigation usually ends up in prospective and not retroactive decisions).

Edit2: actually I now read their report (here - German PDF) - and the CDU hat 11 surplus seats so they awarded 22 additional seats to the other parties which would be what has been called "großer Ausgleich".

 

[kronic]

its the election commissions report - I did see that the minority won the majority - but this is based on schleswig holstein's election law not on the federal one that was discussed prior to the elections. They did award quite a huge number of additional seats to all other parties to counter the surplus seats the CDU got - the parliament got expanded from 69 to 95 seats in order to dos - however the FDP profited most from that for whatever reason - so I have no idea what kind of Ausgleich they used
I guess it'll be subject to litigation - but really they need to change that law...

Edit: just to be clear - this is the preliminary result - and the final decision will be made in a few days when all counting and recounting is wrapped up - but from all reports it seems as if they expect this majority to stay around (litigation pending - but election law litigation usually ends up in prospective and not retroactive decisions).

Edit2: actually I now read their report (here - German PDF) - and the CDU hat 11 surplus seats so they awarded 22 additional seats to the other parties which would be what has been called "großer Ausgleich".

I know it's the law of S.-H. - but it appearently has the same problem.

It appears that the "kleiner Ausgleich" was used and it seems like CDU and FDP can bribe the Danish minority into not siding with red-red-green in the electoral committee and therefore push through the "kleiner Ausgleich": http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,651911,00.html

I just don't think it's a good thing when the minority gets to rule over the majority (no matter if it's legal or not). And I demand it to be changed.

 

[ori]

its a completely different beast in SH - the problems there stem from a system that is not really comparable to the federal one.
However what I find interesting is that there are apparently three solutions out there in this case:
according to the article you linked to
-"klein" - same number of additional seats as number of overhang seats
-"groß" - twice the number of additional seats (the max allowed by the SH election law - and what was used)
-"really large" - what spiegel calls "groß" - in violation of the election law (and thus actually difficult for the election commission to decree) but in keeping with what the SH constitution seems to suggest
Its a mess - but really the SH election law is even more of mess since they are among the few states still using D'Hondt when distributing seats which favors the larger parties - instead of the now standard Hare Niemeyer distribution which is unbiased. Add to that that they dole out far more than half of the seats as congressional districts and have an election law that contradicts a specific rule in their constitution and you get a result like this.
I would not call the SSW decision as a result of a bribe - they just don't want to go along breaking the election law because of what the SPD/Green/Left (most likely correctly) think is what the constitution requires.