Napoleon reconquers Saarland

ddt

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ddt
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Germany today had elections in three states (Länder): Saarland in the west, and Thuringia and Saxony in the east. With the federal elections scheduled for September 27, the results are interesting, as well as the choices in the formation of coalitions in those states.

By now, you may think: what has this to do with Napoleon? That was a trick to get your attention to this thread, and I admit, it wasn't quite truthful. "Napoleon of the Saar" was the nickname of Oskar Lafontaine, who was long-time PM of Saarland in the 1980s and 1990s, as one of the top men in the SPD, the German Labour party. In those times, the SPD normally had an absolute majority in the Saarland.

Nowadays, Lafontaine has left the SPD and has, with other "west" Germans who were disappointed in the SPD, joined forces with the PDS, the former communist party of the GDR, under the name of "Die Linke" (The Left).

Die Linke has done very well in these elections in Saarland, polling at 21% (results). That's only third place, but there's a definite possibility that SDP, Left and Greens form a coalition. On the federal level, the SPD have always refused to enter into coalition talks with the Left, but left the question open what the state level leadership would do. For the centre-right CDU, the election results were disastrous; they held a (tiny) absolute majority of the seats, and have lost 13%.

In Thuringia, the situation is roughly the same (results). The CDU lost here 12%. The Left was already strong, but have gained 1%. SPD and Left have a tiny majority in seats and, moreover, they have in the past already formed a coalition government. The right-extremist NPD failed to reach the 5% hurdle to gain seats.

Only in Saxony, the CDU managed to hold on to its position (results), losing only 1%. With 40%, they can pretty much choose with whom to form a coalition. The NPD just made the 5% hurdle, but on the bright side, they lost 4%.

The other two small parties - the left-wing Greens and the right-liberal FDP - have more or less got the same results as four years ago. The SPD may be very pleased with the results: they did disastrous in the various polls for the last months, but they more or less managed to hold on to their positions.

Some interesting commentary in Der Spiegel:
- on the loss of the CDU
- on the chances on Red/Red coalitions

This is going to be an interesting month in German politics. What's your thoughts?
 
It will be a month of terrible commie fear in Germany up to the federal election on September 27.

Guido Westerwelle, head of the right-liberal FDP, already invoked it today. The results show again that The Left gains a lot of votes from former non-voters - people who suffered from the anti-welfare-state reforms of the last decade. The Left is the only party that wants to seriously re-do them.

Polls show The Left around 10% but i predict they will get more around 14%.

If they get too many votes without weaking the SPD, it would make it impossible for a coalition of christian democrats and right-liberals to form the government - Guido Westerwelle's wet dream is to become foreign minister - and the "big coalition" CDU/SPD would stay in place.

So we (me not - not my kind of humour) will again see at lot of demonization of The Left from them and in conservative media.

In any case, we will keep our beloved Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel.
 
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ddt said:
The right-extremist NPD failed to reach the 5% hurdle to gain seats.
Click to expand...

I skimmed this and saw "The right-extremist NDP...", and, as a Canadian, I stopped reading to laugh merrily for a while.
 
Mr. Hilter lost again. The right-extremist parties aren't worth mentioning in todays Germany. Seems like even the brand new Pirate Party with around 2% is much stronger than Republikaner, DVU or NPD - that's the good part.

The bad part is that it seems like i'll have to live with the embarrassment of Guido Westerwelle representing me abroad the next four years. Sucks.

"The Left" got something not so short of 13%.
 
In one tiny way, Die Linke is a good thing - they steal East German "protest" votes from the other fringe, i.e. the Neo-Nazi parties.
 
Childlike Empress said:
The bad part is that it seems like i'll have to live with the embarrassment of Guido Westerwelle representing me abroad the next four years. Sucks.
Click to expand...

Eeeeewwwww!

Otherwise, the outcome I expected, but didn't favour.
 
Ach du ***** - Schwesterwelle :)

Zee

Edited by Locknar: 
Post edited for breach of Rule 10.
 
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For our yankistani friends it's worth mentioning that Herr Westerwelle is well known for being gay, and he is openly gay after someone gave him a little kick in the booty for his coming-out a few years ago.

That's a great thing about german politics - there is a very broad consensus that the personal live of a politician is nothing we vote for or should be concerned about - it's completely seperated from the job he is doing and gets voted for.
 
Could someone explain the constitutional problem with overhang seats?

I understand how Mixed Member Proportional voting works (I think it is called Personalised Proportional Representation in Germany):

Voters elect local candidates but they also have a separate vote for a party used to top up the seats for each party so the proportion of seats for each party more closely matches their proportion of party votes. I understand their are thresholds to receive these seats.

This works fine for parties with more votes than seats one in the local constituencies. They get extra seats.

It doesn't work well for parties that receive more seats than party votes - they get to keep their 'extra' or 'overhang seats' and their are more seats in parliament than there otherwise would be.

I understand that a court has decided that these 'overhang' seats are unfair, even though they reflect the fact that these are the preferred local candidates for those constituencies. I am not sure why they decided this and what they are proposing to do about it.

The overhang could be solved by kicking out some of the, otherwise legitimately elected, local candidates but then you have the odd situation of either constituencies without representation or constituencies being represented by the second or third most favoured candidate and not the most preferred candidate.

The other way I have heard about is 'balancing' seats. These would add extra seats to the parties that end up being under-represented as a result of the overhang seats. The parliament as a whole grows even bigger, the proportion of seats for each party is close to the proportion of party votes they received and all the preferred local candidates receive their seats.
 
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It sounds like that is designed to minimize the "big mandate" of winning an election.

One of the arguments (for what its worth) against getting rid of the Electoral System in the US presidential election is that, by winning a state = win all, not just a proportional, number of its electoral counts, exaggerates victories, allowing presidents and their agendas to claim more of a mandate to enact their political promises.


That's exactly akin to these parties with "overhang" seats, from what I see here. They win more actual individual elections than, as a proportion, the party receives as a fraction of the total vote.
 
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