Oerdin
Deity
So what is the real impact of these state level votes? Not much?
German state elections in March
- Thread starter ori
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Obviously, there is real impact on state level politics, because all these states are going to get a new government. But as the media has been all going refugees!!!
, I have no idea what is being discussed there.On the federal level, the composition of the Bundesrat is going to change and Merkel might have slightly more trouble to get the votes together for anything the states need to approve. In the short term, Merkel will be safe, especially because the CDU politicians that lost these elections were not her most loyal followers, but have all tried to put some distance between themselves and her.
But then, the federal elections are next year and it is unclear whether Merkel wants to continue or not. If she does, she might face a revolt of her party, if she does not, a fight for her succession will break out. In any case it is going to be interesting.
Long term, it is hard to say. It remains to be seen if the AfD can use these victories to build a lasting powerbase to the right of the CDU, or if it crumbles like many other minor parties after victories in state elections. Part of that depends on how much longer this refugee panic will last.
These election results will require coalitions that have never been tried before. I remains to be seen how stable these are and whether they are a sign of the changing party landscape or if they are just local aberrations.
Time for a recap!
Baden-Würtemmberg:
Green-Black seems most likely (http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video-168597.html)
Rheinland-Pfalz:
It is not clear yet as far as I could find.
Sachsen-Anhalt:
AfD got one more seat than expected. The parties want to hold conventions before deciding on coalitions, so we will be waiting for some time.
Five years is a long time. Who knows whether the UK, Greece, Turkey and Ukraine will be part of the EU five years from now (or on their way in or out), what the situation in the Middle East will be, what the economy is doing, how many terrorist attacks, natural disasters and nuclear power plant incidents will have occurred?
When you can kick the can 5 years down the road in an acceptable coalition, why let the perfect be the enemy of the acceptable?
I've seen the usual traffic light coalition, Deutschland coalition but also Kiwi coalition and Jamaica coalition. Any highlights I missed?
Baden-Würtemmberg:
Green-Black seems most likely (http://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video-168597.html)
Rheinland-Pfalz:
It is not clear yet as far as I could find.
Sachsen-Anhalt:
AfD got one more seat than expected. The parties want to hold conventions before deciding on coalitions, so we will be waiting for some time.
Five years is a long time. Who knows whether the UK, Greece, Turkey and Ukraine will be part of the EU five years from now (or on their way in or out), what the situation in the Middle East will be, what the economy is doing, how many terrorist attacks, natural disasters and nuclear power plant incidents will have occurred?
When you can kick the can 5 years down the road in an acceptable coalition, why let the perfect be the enemy of the acceptable?
Leoreth said:
I've seen the usual traffic light coalition, Deutschland coalition but also Kiwi coalition and Jamaica coalition. Any highlights I missed?
A new one I've learned was Kenya coalition for the black/red/green color scheme of the discussed coalition in Saxony-Anhalt.
Kenya coalition it is!
This one actually is the most interesting result of the three elections - I am quite curious how it will work out. Both policy wise and regarding the party politics.
Talk is cheap. I very much doubt that will happen. The usual counterthreat of the CDU is to found a Bavarian branch, which might cost the CSU a lot of votes and might even doom it in the long run.
yeah, not happening - neither will they leave the combined caucus.
they already are and thats fine for the CDU - its after all their proclaimed role. Ever since Strauß almost 50 years ago they proclaim that on their right there is nothing but the wall and the more cautious CSU politicians merely step back a bit and proclaim that on their right there is no space for a democratic party. That they now find not only a paty to their right but one with real success in getting elected is a serious problem for them.
Another problem for them is that they right now feel that they need to oppose the governments policies to do get back to being the rightmost democratic party which they surprisingly find hard to pull off convincingly while being part of the larger caucus of the governing coalition.
That said: there is currently a leadership race going on in the CSU as the current head Seehofer appears to be retiring (for the tenth or os time I feel, maybe he really does now, who the hell knows) and the potential successors are trying to get some, any really, attention by anyone. This thing is more playing to their own intraparty audience than anything else and is not going anywhere.
Another problem for them is that they right now feel that they need to oppose the governments policies to do get back to being the rightmost democratic party which they surprisingly find hard to pull off convincingly while being part of the larger caucus of the governing coalition.
That said: there is currently a leadership race going on in the CSU as the current head Seehofer appears to be retiring (for the tenth or os time I feel, maybe he really does now, who the hell knows) and the potential successors are trying to get some, any really, attention by anyone. This thing is more playing to their own intraparty audience than anything else and is not going anywhere.
Some bloke in the AfD Baden-Württemberg caucus (fraction/parliamentary group) was accussed of anti-Semitism. Part of the caucus wanted to kick him out, but that requires a 2/3 majority within the parliamentary party. They could not find such a large majority, so now more than half the parliamentarians have quit the caucus and are starting their own caucus.
accused of antisemitism for a book peddling the protocols of the elders of zion as probably not fiction and for calling talmud-judaism the enemy of the christian occident - this one wasn't even hard to decide on the accusation, merely on the politics of it. You can certainly keep people like that around, it just makes it impossible to deny palling around with anti-semites. The very fact that they were unable to find 2/3 of their caucus to atleast understand the politics of it is a problem for them of course (and a blessing for those fighting against this particular crop of nationalists).
looks like its a race for second place with the CDU this time - I really hate a political spectrum where most election results lead to a CDU/SPD or SPD/CDU government by default. In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern it might just be possible to have a SPD, Left, Green government which I am no fan of either, but perpetual "grand" coalitions are simply bad for all sorts of reasons, mostly though since public discussion on policy differences has ceased to exist for all intents and purposes - we need a strong opposition in most places.
Most polls I've seen for MVP have our "grand" coalition around 50% so they only gain the majority by a hair's breadth. There is plenty of opposition to go around, even though most of it is directionless opposition in the shape of the AfD.
The configuration we have on the federal level with CDU/CSU having close to a majority on their own was a historical fluke that is thankfully not going to repeat. There are some problems with grand coalitions (that the rise of the AfD causes) in terms of corruption and calcification of the political system, but the outcomes of the last state elections have shown how the liberal parties in opposing camps are willing to work together in different combinations while shutting out the illiberal AfD, so I'm not too worried about that.
The configuration we have on the federal level with CDU/CSU having close to a majority on their own was a historical fluke that is thankfully not going to repeat. There are some problems with grand coalitions (that the rise of the AfD causes) in terms of corruption and calcification of the political system, but the outcomes of the last state elections have shown how the liberal parties in opposing camps are willing to work together in different combinations while shutting out the illiberal AfD, so I'm not too worried about that.
