German Federal Election 23rd February 2025

[Valmy]

The hard-core Nationalist lesbian living abroad is amazing. Euro politics are so weird.

[Duque de Bragança]

I was hoping for some props for spotting Elsa. 

Ilsa!   

[Admiral Yi]

 

[Duque de Bragança]

The hard-core Nationalist lesbian living abroad is amazing. Euro politics are so weird.

Actually, the (even more) hardcore wing of that party, Der Flügel, lost to the less extremist wing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Flügel

It all started, however, as party of university professors opposed to the single currency and common economic policy. Thanks to Merkel, they found a much more profitable niche.

Back to Alice Weidel, she seems pretty good at the oecumenical dialogue and reconciliation efforts between Protestants and Catholics in Germany:

Religion
At the end of 2017, Weidel accused the Catholic Church and the Protestant Church in Germany of "playing the same inglorious role that they played in the Third Reich", accusing both churches of being "thoroughly politicized" and stating that AfD is "the only Christian party that still exists" in Germany.[25] Such statements were dismissed by the Catholic German Bishops' Conference and the Evangelical Church as "polemics" and "derailment".[26]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Weidel

[Maladict]

Great, so even Languish is voting fascist now.

I mean, aren't you voting based on looks & if you would like to see the candidates naked?

But the fascists are supposed to be ridiculous looking men. 

[The Minsky Moment]

Well shit.  I deduced completely wrong.

Tried to warn you

[Zanza]

The hard-core Nationalist lesbian living abroad is amazing. Euro politics are so weird.

Actually, the (even more) hardcore wing of that party, Der Flügel, lost to the less extremist wing.

Wishful thinking. Bernd (or Björn as some say) Höcke is the grey eminence of the party and he is a full-blown national socialist.

[Duque de Bragança]

The hard-core Nationalist lesbian living abroad is amazing. Euro politics are so weird.

Actually, the (even more) hardcore wing of that party, Der Flügel, lost to the less extremist wing.

Wishful thinking. Bernd (or Björn as some say) Höcke is the grey eminence of the party and he is a full-blown national socialist.

Kalbitz being banned from the AfD is wishful thinking then I guess.

[crazy canuck]

I knew who all but one of them were, so made my vote in an informed manner. :pickelhaube:

So 1990s of you

[Sheilbh]

I'm not really sure who's the best option here

I'd vote Green but not sure they're really helping atm. Bring back zombie Helmut Schmidt.

[Zanza]

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz loses confidence vote

Olaf Scholz has been Germany's chancellor since 2021

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has lost a vote of confidence in parliament, paving the way for early elections on 23 February.

Scholz called Monday's vote and had expected to lose it, but calculated that triggering an early election was his best chance of reviving his party's political fortunes.

It comes around two months after the collapse of Scholz's three-party coalition government, which left the embattled chancellor leading a minority administration.

Ahead of Monday's vote, Scholz said it would now be up to voters to "determine the political course of our country", teeing up what is likely to be a fiercely fought election campaign.

However, losing Monday's no-confidence vote was the outcome Scholz wanted.

Since his argumentative three-party governing coalition collapsed in November, he had been reliant on support from the opposition conservatives to pass any new laws, effectively rendering his administration a lame-duck government.

Given Germany's stalled economy and the global crises facing the West, staggering on until the scheduled election date of September 2025 risked being seen as irresponsible by the electorate.

Scholz's Social Democratic Party (SDP) is trailing heavily in opinion polls, while the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) under Friedrich Merz appears to be on course for a return to government.

Opening the debate, Scholz said the snap election was an opportunity to set a new course for the country and called for "massive" investment, particularly in defence, while Merz said more debt would be a burden for younger generations and promised tax cuts.

'Kamikaze' move
Scholz's decision to stage a vote he expected to lose in order to dissolve his own government was described as a "kamikaze" move by German tabloid Bild - but it is generally the only way a German government can dissolve parliament and spark early elections.

The process was designed specifically by the post-war founders of modern Germany to avoid the political instability of the Weimar era.

This vote of confidence is not a political crisis in itself: it is a standard constitutional mechanism that has been used by modern German chancellors five times to overcome political stalemate - and one Gerhard Schröder deployed on two occasions.

However, there is a deeper problem within German politics.

On the surface, the collapse of the coalition was sparked by a row over money. Scholz's centre-left SDP and his Green partners wanted to ease Germany's strict debt rules to finance support for Ukraine and key infrastructure projects.

That was blocked by Scholz's own finance minister, Christian Lindner, who is the leader of the business-friendly liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), which prioritised driving down the debt.

Lindner was sacked and the coalition collapsed. After years of unedifying bickering, you could almost hear the sigh of relief in Berlin's corridors of power - but the underlying cause is more difficult to resolve and more worrying.

Germany's party political system has become more fragmented, with more parties than ever in parliament. The new upstart political forces are also more radical.

In 2017, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) entered the Bundestag for the first time, winning 12.6%.

In 2021 it slipped to 10.4% but is now polling at almost 20%.

The AfD will not get into government because no-one will work with it to form a coalition. But the far-right is eating into the share of the vote that goes to the two centrist big-tent parties which have always put forward modern German chancellors.

The bigger the AfD share is, the more difficult it becomes for mainstream parties to form a stable governing coalition.

That was arguably the underlying problem that pulled apart Scholz's fractious coalition: big-spending left-leaning Social Democrats and Greens trying to work with free-market small-state liberals.

Rather than going away after the next election in February, that problem is likely to get worse. If the far-right wins a fifth of seats in parliament, it could be even more difficult after February to form a stable coalition between like-minded parties.

Another new populist political party could also get into parliament for the first time, the anti-migrant nativist far-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance BSW, which is named after its firebrand Marxist leader.

The conservatives are leading in the polls but as things stand their options for coalition partners are limited.

They refuse to work with the far-right and it is hard to imagine they would like to work with the radical left either. The free-market liberals may not even get into parliament and some conservatives refuse to consider the Greens.

That leaves Scholz's SDP as a possible partner - even though Scholz is likely to be ousted from power after his stint in power saw his popularity plummet.

Whatever the next government looks like, the era of cosy consensual coalitions in Germany seems to be over.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg36pp6dpyo

Not much movement, no big surprises so far, surveys are fairly static. Will be tough to form government after the election.

[Hansmeister]

The only true choice.

[mongers]

I'm not really sure who's the best option here

I'd vote Green but not sure they're really helping atm. Bring back zombie Helmut Schmidt.

Yeah I could get behind that.

[The Minsky Moment]

The only true choice.

I'd say Adenauer but he still has a few more weeks to serve out his term as US President.

[Barrister]

The only true choice.

A Hansmeister posting ?!?

I have to admit I'm unfamiliar with Strauss.  QUickly googling him I find him to be an interesting right-wing mid-century German politician, but not quite sure of Hans's fascination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Strauss