Germany's parliamentary elections are coming up on September 26th, 2021

In three weeks from tomorrow, German's will go to the polls to cast their votes for the major house in their Parliament, called the Bundestag. Based on the results, the party that can put together a coalition that brings them over 48.6% of the total vote gets to place their candidate in the chancellorship. It's a system that is very different from ours. Why 48.6%? Because German law assumes that 2.4% of the vote is going to be scatter vote / trash vote and so they do not see absolute majority as 50% +1 vote, but rather, 48.6% +1 vote. It's a peculiarity of their system that many are unfamiliar with.

The majority of seats in the Bundestag are alloted based on the national vote and the new representatives are allocated according to a seniority list, but some seats are called "direct mandate", where there are actual named persons up against each other for a specific seat in their congress.

Every German who votes gets to cast TWO votes for Representatives in the Bundestag. Germans use the word "Stimme" (Voice) to mean "vote". It's called the 1st voice and the 2nd voice. When Germans vote, they cast their vote(s) for a party or parties and not for a specific person but in the case of the chancellorship, everyone knows well who has been selected as the candidate.

There are 2 major parties in Germany and at least 4 middle to smaller parties, but on the ballot, the choice is for up to as many as 53 parties this time. One is even called "Die Piraten" (The Pirates), which has less than a snowball's chance in hell of winning anything, but hey, they are on the ballot.

The 2 major parties are:

1.) CDU/CSU (The Christian Democratic Party). CSU stands for the Bavarian version of this party. Bavarians always like to stand out and make people pay attention to them...

2.) SPD (The Social Democratic Party).

If you are thinking of a direct relationship to the Republican and Democratic Parties in the USA, that won't work. I will come back to this later.

Since 1982, 29 years, the CDU had the control of the Chancellorship, with Helmut Kohl having served 16 years from 1982-1998 and Angela Merkel having also served 16 years, from 2005-2021.

In between, from 1998-2005, was Gerhard Schröder (SPD), who served only 7-years instead of 8 because he pulled a parliamentary trick in 2005 to deliberately trigger a vote of no-confidence in himself personally so that the Bundestagswahl (the parliamentary election) of 2006 could be moved up one year, to 2005. He did this thinking that he had a better chance of winning, but it didn't work.

So, the vast majority of the time since the Reagan-Era in the USA has seen the CDU at the helm in Germany. People plain old got tired of Helmut Kohl in 1998 (I met him in 1999) and so the people elected a new coalition in 1998, with the SPD as the major party. And it is looking very much as if the same thing will happen here in Germany in three weeks, namely that Olaf Scholz (SPD) will best the CDU.

There are two middle sized parties:

The FDP (The Free Democrats), by far the most capitalistic party in Germany, also representing the richest of citizens. In the past, the CDU has often made a coalition

The Greens (Die Grüne/Bündnis '90), which came into being in 1990. From 1998-2005, the junior partner to the SPD under Schröder was this party.

There is also "die Linke" (The Left), which is actually a remake of the old East-German communist party (they call themselves socialists, but they are communists), a party that came into being after the reunification of Germany.

And then there appeared a very extremist, trumpian Party called AfD (Alternative für Deutschland - Alternative for Germany). This party is constantly getting in trouble for using old Nazi-Paroles or using thug techniques to silence people. A number of anti-semites and racists are to be found throughout the ranks of the AfD. One element not found there would be extremist muslims, who have their own party, called the BIG Partei, which has also advocated for the death penalty for homosexuals, etc.

The Parties have associated colors:

CDU/CSU = black
SPD = red
die Linke = (also) red
FDP = gold
Greens = Green
AfD = no one really knows for sure.

So, a CDU/FDP coalition has been usually called the "black-gold" coalition, while the SPD/Green coalition has been called the "red-green" coalition.

In 2013 and 2017, it was impossible for either of the major parties to build a coalition with their smaller partners and in this cases, for 8 long years, the two parties were forced to rle together. That is called the "Grand Coalition". Theoretically, CDU could have built a coalition with, for instance, the extreme Left (die Linke), but that party is like radioactive, no one wants to touch it. Similarly, in 2017, CDU could have theoretically made a coalition with the AfD, but again, that party is also radioactive.

One possible coallition that some have thought possible would be CDU/FDP and Greens together, which is called the "Jamaica Coalition" as those three colors can be found in the Jamaican flag.

In order for a party to get seats in the Bundestag, it must get at least 5% of the national vote +1 vote more, otherwise it falls through. This happened to the FDP a number of years back.

When all the votes are counted, the parties that did not make the 5% hurdle are discounted and the percentages are recalculated based on this votes for parties that made it over the 5% hurdle. There are roughly 600 seats in the Bundestag, sometimes as high as 610, sometimes as few at 595. It looks like there will be 598 seats this time, but that may change by one or two seats.

The polling places close at 6PM local time in Germany (that nation is entirely within one time zone) and as soon as the polls have closed, the initial projections will be made. They will probably not be the final projections, but usually by 9PM, Germans have a good idea who the next Chancellor will be. The office of Vice-Chancellor (who is also simultaneously the German equivalent of Secretary of State) falls to the junior partner party.

Since the 1950s, the German's have conducted what it called "the Sunday poll" (Sonntagsumfrage), which has been pretty accurate and predictive, I must say.

I do watch the German elections with interest, but since I am a US-American, I don't vote here.

On the same day, there are usually local and some provincial elections as well.

I will be feeding this thead with more data over the next weeks.

If you have any questions, feel free to post them here and I will answer them to the best of my ability.

-Stat

 

If you are trying to gauge the Germany party system ideologically to the US system, then the CDU/CSU would come the closest to moderate Democrats and left-leaning Republicans in the USA.

The SPD would be more like that hard left-flank of the Democratic party in the USA.

The FDP would be closer to the fiscal conservative part of the Republican party.

The "Left" would correspond to the American Communist party (hello, Gus Hall!!!)

And the batshit crazy, thuggish, racist, zenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic part of the Republican Party, often known that the trumpian part, would correspond mostly to the AfD.

 

At first I read "Since 1982 ... the CDU has had control of the Chancellorship..." thinking where is Gerhard Schröder? Anyway, das wird eine interessante Wahl, mein lieber Statistikfachmann.
Other countries domestic affairs is not something we should bother our yank friends with on this board, I'd say. The less they talk and speculate about this, the better for those who hold common sense in high regard.

 

Trump wasn't homophobic. Xenophobic or mysogynistic.

Try again!

 

"Die Piraten" could well describe BOTH of our parties, since they each love to plunder our pockets and spend it like rum-soaked water rats......

 

People who hate Trump and his supporters like to label them with all kinds of ridiculous accusations. I see the new favorite smear is “Taliban.” I guess racist and Nazi is too bland now. For me, I think Trump is a crude, arrogant, narcissist (typical New Yorker?) but his policies are good for the country.

 

Sure he was.

 

Ok, that WAS funny

 

Nope. He really wasn't.

 

Sure he was and still is.

 

Well I guess if you go by emotion and blindly listening to the media driven narrative then yes.

 

If you listen to a couple of guys from Queens ragging on each other you'd certainly think they're homophobic and mysogynistic...and they almost certainly aren't. Funny how these smears didn't show up until Trump decided to run for President as - God forbid - a Republican.

 

Similar to UnFree nations such as Australia & Canada
Germans cannot vote for the Chief Executive of their preference.
No Trump
No Governor Franklin Roosevelt
No General Eisenhower

THE PEOPLE ARE BOUND BY PARTY
from the people's choice.
The most senior bought member of each party
is the choice for Chief Executive?
What of the people's preference?


As I understand, the "people" of Germany
really are as UnFree as Australians & too

Dare The World Trust Germany
FREE Elections of a Chief Executive?



Moi
The most FREEDOM member on PF

​

 

Fake News. Trump embraced Gay Marriage more than a decade before Barack and Drunken Hillary did. Cyrus Vance refused to charge Rapist Harvey Weinstein and Hollywood and The left colluded with silence as he completed a 40 year career of raping young Left Wing Women. You are engaging in projection, and you are not alone on the Left in this: CNN "Analyst" Bakari Sellers Says the GOP Is Homophobic. He Lobbies for a Country Where It’s Illegal To Be Gay.

Left Wing Grifter, Slanderer And Hypocrite.​

He's "a foreign agent of the government of Liberia, which criminalizes homosexuality." Soldout for $10,000-per-month.

"Jewel Taylor, the vice president of Liberia, in 2012 proposed a law that would make homosexual acts a felony punishable by death."

Sellers, "The Sellout" was given an opportunity to state his side for the article at the link, but passed.

 

German politics is just overall very different from American politics. The majority of Germans are economically comfortable. Germany is considered the "wealthiest" and most "prosperous" of the major countries in Europe. Yes, overall living standards of the middle class in Germany are a little bit lower in Germany than they are in the US, but a larger share of the population in Germany are in the middle class. So most of the people are complacent and, financially speaking, feel like they can afford a bit of social liberalism and economic progressivism, although the majority are probably moderately conservative on economic matters (probably owing to being in the middle class).
There is a growing social divide in Germany due to policies of mass immigration, but Germany is still nothing like the US and is still relatively culturally homogenous. It will be several decades until that really begins to change.

The system in the US is what is called a "winner take all system" due to each person within each district getting only one vote for one candidate. This inevitably results in a two-party system. In Germany, the fact that each person gets more than one vote, and more than one candidate can be elected from within each election district, leads to a multi-party system, with more competition. Of course this leads to the necessity of coalition governments, where different parties have to form alliances.

 

Hard to take you seriously when you can't do a honest post without having a rant about Trump or Republicans.

 

The bolded: absolutely incorrect. However, that has nothing to do with the upcoming parliamentary elections.

 

Update:

after the final 3-way Chancellorship debate (called a "Triell" in German) last night, it is looking more and more as if Olaf Schulz (SPD)'s Party is going to win the plurality of seats in the Bundestag, with the Greens probably getting enough seats to make for the same Red-Green coalition that we saw from 1998-2005 under Gerhard Schröder (SPD) and Joschka Fisher (die Grüne/Bündnis '90).

In fact, this may be the best take for the SPD since the early 1970s. Wait and see. In terms of the question of competence, Olaf Schulz is running away with it, a rarity in German politics.

As I wrote in the OP, I have no dog in this race, I am simply observing it from the outside.

 

I would love to move the US to this system, the two party system is broken beyond repair. One thing you will not find much of in Germany is people who put party before country. Here is it common place.

 

So, today is Saturday, September 25th, 2021, one day before the German national parliamentary elections and Co.

Yesterday, Friday, September 24th, was the last day for the candidates to make their closing arguments (Schlussrede).

According to German law, today is a day for Germans to pause and think about whom they are going to vote without being bombarded with advertising and such. However, candidates are allowed to campaign in their home-districts, respectively. Remember, the person who becomes the Chancellor (and Vice-Chancellor) are also Representatives from their districts.

Tomorrow, the polls will open in the morning and since Germany is all within the UTC +1 timezone, at 6 PM (18:00) German time, the polls will close and the first projections will appear.

This year will be the first time in 16 years where Angela Merkel (Bundeskanzlerin - CDU/CSU) is not a candidate. The last time the Germans felt such a void in their politics was in 1998, after 16 years of Helmut Kohl (Merkel's mentor, to note) at the helm.

This year is the first time ever that 3.5 MILLION new voters have been added to the rolls and apparently we are looking at well over 95% intended turnout among new voters. Because no one has to declare for a party before the elections, there is no way to know how those new voters will vote, but traditionally, youngers voters in Germany, just as in the USA, tend to think and vote more liberally than conservatively.

The spate of end-polling is showing a three party race between the incument CDU and the challengers SPD and the Greens, with the smaller parties (FDP, die Linke, AfD) all likely to go over the 5% hurdle in order to get seats in the legislatives. The SPD has been ahead by a small margin for a good while now, but 26-30% is nowhere near the percentages that the big parties used to get in the past.

Also, the polling is telling us relatively little since up to 40% of German voters, namely, the voters who did not cast their votes early by mail (Briefwahl) but rather, will show up tomorrow, are still undecided, so anything is possible.

However, if history is our guide, the numbers from the end polling may shift, but not all that radically.

The Greens are poised to have the best performance in their party's history.
The CDU is poised to have, by far, the worst performance in their party's history.
The SPD is middling, but that may be enough to best the CDU, which has sunk like a rock.

All parties are in agreement that no one will be able to build a coalition with only two parties, three will be needed.

A coalition must come in at 48.8% of the vote in order to win.

So, all bets are off for tomorrow.

It could be that the CDU, like Lazarus, shoots up from the grave and is suddenly from 20% at 35%, but I doubt it.

It could be that the Greens actually take the lead among the parties during the first projections, only to slightly lose that lead later on. Or maybe the Greens could out and out win, they are already the leading party in at least two German provinces.

All eyes will be watching to see what the AfD, an ugly, racist, ultranationalist party chock full of ex-nazis, will do tomorrow. In polling, the AfD is at about 11%, which is 11% too much for my taste.

No party wants to make a coalition with the former Communists in "die Linke", so there are really only four parties that could make a combination of some kind of three-way coalition in order to take the reins of Government.

CDU-Greens-FDP
SPD-Greens-FDP
SPD-CDU and another party, likely the Greens.

The thing is, the Greens and the FDP are like oil and water, getting them to work together would require a miracle.

So, tomorrow's election is bound to bring some major surprises, also in legislative districts where the election is a direct mandate.

-Stat

 

Today is the day!
I have already voted some days ago - by postal vote.

 

First info after the closing of the polling stations:
It looks like CDU/CSU and SPD both have 25 % of the votes.
But all this can still change in the course of the evening.

 

Sooooo, the Wahllokale (voting precincts) have closed and the national news network ARD has given the first projections (these will not be the end projections). The bulk of the counted votes in the current projection consists of election day vote:



This means that a huge number of mail-in votes have yet to be counted. See: last paragraph



Facit for now: the big winners here in contrast to the past are (as suspected would be) the Greens. Right now, the two major parties (CDU/CSU, SPD) are tied a 25% a piece, the Greens are at 15%, both the AfD and the FDP are tied at 11% and the extreme Left (Die Linke) is at 5%.For the exteme Left, that would be warning bells, because this may mean that by the end of the night, that party may fall under 5% and therefore would not get any seats in the German Parliament's major House (the Bundestag), which will have 730 seats in the coming sesson. Absolute majority for any coalition would be 366 seats.

So, this is a little hard to explain, but a number of seats are called "direkt mandat" seats (direct mandate), so in spite of the fact that CDU/CSU and SPD are tied right now, the CDU/CSU actually has about 10 more seats, due to direct mandate elections in 10 specific congressional districts.

With these numbers, a Grand Coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD is possible (which is exactly what Germany has right now), but no one wants that.

There could be a coalition with CDU/CSU, FDP and the Greens.

There could be a coalition with SPD, the Greens and FDP. There is no way to make a 3-way coalition with the extreme Left (which no one wants, anyway), because at 5%, that would bring SPD, the Greens and Die Linke only to 45%, short of the 48.6% needed for what the Germans consider absolute majority.

No one wants the AfD to get into the upper echelons of the German government, so that will not be a possibility.

8% of votes went into splitter parties that will not get a seat in the Bundestag, so those votes were essentially wasted votes. And should Die Linke fall under 5%, then the % of wasted votes will rise.

Guaranteed this will not be the end projection, but at least we have a start at the beginning of the evening.

Germans are also reckoning with some delays in counting the mail-in ballots due to Covid-19.

 

The network ARD just confirmed that at least 45% of all votes in the German national election have not yet been tabulated, so the first projections are very very unlikely to hold.

 

Thread about Germany’s elections and it only took 2 posts unit the first Orangeman love .