Four more years: Merkel re-elected

[The Minsky Moment]

Unified Germany maps still give me the heebie-jeebies.  GET IT HEEBIES ITS A GAG SON

What do you have against the Jeebies? 

[Zanza]

Comment by a guy in the German politics thread in the German forum on P'dox: "Now there's only social democrat/leftist parties left in parliament. I wonder where this will lead."

The SPD hasn't been a social democratic party in years.

They went way left for this election. Nowhere near the Schröder SPD.

Not sure about the details, but the gist of this analysis of party programs is probably correct:

[Zanza]

It looked for a while as if Merkel might gain more than half the seats in parliament, but it turns out she's 20 shy. She can now pick her coalition partner from Greens or SPD (with the SPD being much more likely), though I guess theoretically a minority government might work just as well.

Any particular reason the Greens/SPD/The Left people couldn't form a government?  Are the Socialists too establishement for the Greens and do not praise the memory of Erich Honecker enough for the ex-Commies?

The right wing of the Social Democrats (maybe like your "Blue Dogs" Democrats) has zero common ground with the left wing of the Left Party (a real Communist Party). And the "Realo" faction of the Greens would rather go into a coalition with the Conservatives too.

There are obviously people in all parties that promote such a coalition, but at least among the top personnel they seem to be a minority or at least not very vocal.

[Sheilbh]

There's a shocker. The party in the centre wins big

[Valmy]

There's a shocker. The party in the centre wins big

It always pays to simply be the least objectionable.

[Zanza]

Moving that far to the center opens space for a legitimate party right of the CDU. That was unthinkable during the history of the Federal Republic so far and all parties right of the CDU were generally considered neo-fascist. However this election a new party established itself and almost made it to parliament: the "Alternative für Deutschland", a tame, German version of the UKIP, that is anti-euro and has market liberal and conservative viewpoints and could eventually cost the CDU a lot of votes on their right wing. It remains to be seen if that party establishes itself as an accepted party on the right of the political spectrum or if it drifts towards the other neo-fascist parties such as the "National Democrats".

[Sheilbh]

Surely that would normally have been the FDP?

But I think it's inevitable. The Euro needs more and more integration to survive. There'll be non-extreme opposition to that, especially when every other party, broadly, supports that vision of Europe as a key part of Germany's identity. It's also I think understandable if there's broad agreement then an insurgent party can gather votes by being the only party saying the unthinkable.

I'd expect all Eurozone countries to get mainstream Eurosceptic parties soon, especially given how much trust in the EU is declining.

[Zanza]

It always pays to simply be the least objectionable.

Merkel is the quintessential non-objectionable politician. The best known election poster was this:



Might not tell you much, but every German can easily tell that's her standard hand gesture and the message of the poster was really just "vote for what you know". Or as her political idol Konrad Adenauer once said on election posters "No experiments".

[Syt]

Merkel has no big agenda beyond perpetuating the status quo. My impression of her has been that her politics are reactive, not pro-active. She's good in a crisis, but she's very reluctant to do anything that would rock the boat at home. She's good at gauging public opinion and appeasing it.

[Zanza]

Surely that would normally have been the FDP?

But I think it's inevitable. The Euro needs more and more integration to survive. There'll be non-extreme opposition to that, especially when every other party, broadly, supports that vision of Europe as a key part of Germany's identity. It's also I think understandable if there's broad agreement then an insurgent party can gather votes by being the only party saying the unthinkable.

I'd expect all Eurozone countries to get mainstream Eurosceptic parties soon, especially given how much trust in the EU is declining.

The FDP was not always right of the CDU. It surely was more market liberal and in the last 30 years moved against the social state, but it was always considerably more progressive in policy issues such as equal rights, privacy protection, the role of the church etc. And the FDP was certainly always in favor of European integration.

Let's see if the AfD can keep up their success and establish itself or if is just an anecdote of this particular election. There have been many protest parties in Germany and some of them occasionally had success on the state level, but since 1957 we have only seen five different parties in parliament on the federal level.

[Sheilbh]

Let's see if the AfD can keep up their success and establish itself or if is just an anecdote of this particular election. There have been many protest parties in Germany and some of them occasionally had success on the state level, but since 1957 we have only seen five different parties in parliament on the federal level.

True enough. If they run I'd guess the Euro elections next year could be a good chance for them to get their actual breakthrough.

But almost 5% and 15 000 members seems like a very solid start for a party that's under a year old.

[Zanza]

Merkel has no big agenda beyond perpetuating the status quo. My impression of her has been that her politics are reactive, not pro-active. She's good in a crisis, but she's very reluctant to do anything that would rock the boat at home. She's good at gauging public opinion and appeasing it.

What's interesting is that she had a quite reformist agenda when she was first elected in 2005, but somehow - despite having majorities to push through big changes - she never got around. Germany has not had a major reform since the 2003 "Agenda 2010" of Gerhard Schröder.

Merkel hasn't really fixed federalism, education, pensions, healthcare, taxes, low wage labor market etc. - all of which can and should certainly be improved.

Instead she spends way too much time squabbling about nonsense such as the "Betreuungsgeld" where parents that take care of their children at home instead of sending them to kindergarten get money from the state or the next silly topic by the Bavarians, a general toll on our motorways.

[Sheilbh]

Was it perhaps the experience of the 2005 election that scared her out of bold policy agendas?

Although even if it was it doesn't seem to go with her political temperament anyway

[Zanza]

True enough. If they run I'd guess the Euro elections next year could be a good chance for them to get their actual breakthrough.

But almost 5% and 15 000 members seems like a very solid start for a party that's under a year old.

The EP elections next year will almost certainly see them back as Germany no longer has the 5% threshold for EP elections, which means you need to win just a bit more than 1% of the votes to win a seat in Germany (96 seats total). With the current election result 9-10 German parties would get seats (CDU, SPD, Left, Greens, CSU, FDP, AfD, Pirates, NPD, perhaps Independents).

[Zanza]

Was it perhaps the experience of the 2005 election that scared her out of bold policy agendas?

Although even if it was it doesn't seem to go with her political temperament anyway

Her political temperament is certainly to wait and gauge public opinion and different policies before she makes a step forward and then repeat that and make the next step.

That said, she is an extremely intelligent and skilled politician and will do whatever needs to be done to stay in power. If a reformist agenda helps her with that, she would adopt it. But right now, that's not really the case.