So, on September 24th Germans will elect the 19th Federal Diet, i.e. the lower house of parlament i.e. what is generally accepted to be the thing that matters.
This is largely a "pro forma" thread, on the vague notion that there maybe should be one.
Cause this is one mother of a summarily boring campaign.
This is largely the case because as early as May it has become rather clear that the opposition has no chance to come up with a swing anywhere close to what would be needed to seize power:
There has been some hype - as you can see - with memes and everything, which lasted all of, like, six weeks.
In case you are unfamiliar with German politics, you can - rather crudely - file the small parties as 2 and 2 right/left of center respectively.
If trends hold, there will be 6 factions in the 19th Diet, up from 4 now:
The FDP (yellow), a longstanding staple of German politics, will reenter parlament (think: social libertarian tax cutter business types).
And the fabled AfD (blue) will likely enter as well, for the first time. So far their (semi-)latent racism, general unproffessionalism, hilarious demeanor and the fact their presumptive front bench personel has awesome timing for finding themselves subject to criminal prosecution is - so far - the sole redeeming quality of this campaign - as far as the entertainment value is concerned.
With this 6 party situation and the AfD deemed untouchable a continuation of the current coalition between the two major parties is virtually a foregone conclusion.
Probably the last chance for the opposition to gain substantial momentum is the TV debate (we only have one), which is scheduled for September 3rd.
This is unlikely to happen since Merkel has a tried and true method of turning public debates into something slightly more boring than filling out tax forms while intently listening to white noise.
In case you care: Germany's upper house is a complicated beast (i can refer you to writings of mine on the subject) and is not elected at the same time.
Anyway... needless to say, we're all very excited.
Feel free to ask questions, post Polandball comics and/or Hasselhoff jokes.
It's not like we had much else to do between now and September 24th.
As i said: Terrible entertainment value.
We're very sorry.
This is largely a "pro forma" thread, on the vague notion that there maybe should be one.
Cause this is one mother of a summarily boring campaign.
This is largely the case because as early as May it has become rather clear that the opposition has no chance to come up with a swing anywhere close to what would be needed to seize power:
Spoiler :
There has been some hype - as you can see - with memes and everything, which lasted all of, like, six weeks.
In case you are unfamiliar with German politics, you can - rather crudely - file the small parties as 2 and 2 right/left of center respectively.
If trends hold, there will be 6 factions in the 19th Diet, up from 4 now:
The FDP (yellow), a longstanding staple of German politics, will reenter parlament (think: social libertarian tax cutter business types).
And the fabled AfD (blue) will likely enter as well, for the first time. So far their (semi-)latent racism, general unproffessionalism, hilarious demeanor and the fact their presumptive front bench personel has awesome timing for finding themselves subject to criminal prosecution is - so far - the sole redeeming quality of this campaign - as far as the entertainment value is concerned.
With this 6 party situation and the AfD deemed untouchable a continuation of the current coalition between the two major parties is virtually a foregone conclusion.
Probably the last chance for the opposition to gain substantial momentum is the TV debate (we only have one), which is scheduled for September 3rd.
This is unlikely to happen since Merkel has a tried and true method of turning public debates into something slightly more boring than filling out tax forms while intently listening to white noise.
In case you care: Germany's upper house is a complicated beast (i can refer you to writings of mine on the subject) and is not elected at the same time.
Anyway... needless to say, we're all very excited.
Feel free to ask questions, post Polandball comics and/or Hasselhoff jokes.
It's not like we had much else to do between now and September 24th.
As i said: Terrible entertainment value.
We're very sorry.
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