So we have more than 15% of the votes without representation in the parliament. And CDU/CSU apparently will need a coalition partner for the seat or two they seem to run short of the "absolute majority" with their 41.5% of 71.5% of people entitled to vote who went for it. And non of the candidates for such a coalition have less than 60 seats. Bizarre. Almost a textbook illustration of the undemocratic nature of the 5% rule.
As Chaos already mentioned, two parties just failed to get the 5% hurdle, so it is quite extraordinary. Normally, it's only about 5-6% of the votes which go to parties which don't make the 5% hurdle. Not that I'm in favour of it - I'd be in favour of no hurdle at all, i.e., not more than getting enough votes for a seat.
What's also interesting is the consequences of the new election law. After the last Bundestag election, the Bundesverfassungshof (Supreme Court) decided that the rule about the Überhangmandate (overhang seats - the direct mandates a party got to keep if they had more direct mandates in a state than seats they were entitled to) was unconstitutional, because it meant that your vote could have negative weight.
So the election law was changed: as compensation for the Überhangmandate, the other parties got Ausgleichsmandate (compensation seats). You can see the result
here in the seat distribution. The 2009 election had an absolute record number of 24 Überhangmandate over the 598 normal number of seats. Now, there are only 5 Überhangmandate (column UM), but a whopping number of 27 Ausgleichsmandate. So the Bundestag is bigger than ever before. IIRC, there were proposals to amend the law which would result in far less compensation seats.
There's no coalition in sight. Funny how the pre$$titutes hardly dare to mention #rotrotgruen, isn't it?
Block parties, like I said.
Steinbrück said on election night that Red/Red/Green is no option for him. It'll take a couple of more federal elections before that becomes a real option for the SPD, I estimate.
Moreover, with the small majority that coalition would have - 319 out of 630 - you really only need a handful of defectors to turn the majority into a minority. In the sense of building a stable majority, the result is crap. The alternatives are either a very small majority, or such a big majority that there is no opposition to speak of.
In a sense, all parties have lost this election. FDP and AfD clearly by not getting 5%. The Left and the Greens by getting a lower result than last time, and lower than in the polls - especially the Greens who at times had hoped even on 15 or 20%. The CDU/CSU had the second-best result ever (they once had a majority, under Adenauer) but failed to get the majority, and the FDP isn't there to help them to that majority. Now Merkel is in the unenviable position ti
have to build a coalition with either SPD or Greens, who can take the backseat and ask for policy compromises above their comparative weight in seats to agree to that coalition. And lastly, the SPD is in the position that it sort-of must agree to such a coalition in the end, being the other big party that has always stood for taking government responsibility, and fear being overshadowed in a coalition government by Merkel, and doing even worse in the next election.
.
), so if the remains agree to a coalition, they could well end up next time like the FDP did now. And there's already kind of a revolt in the SPD, including the mighty NRW-SPD, against going with Merkel again.
Entertaining, being an outside observer.