Sunday, October 25, 2009

The 2009 German General Election in a Nutshell

stimmzettel_koeln_400q...opines of an ex-Pat of 30+ years followed by stats and facts.




Good morning, Class. Can you say "Coalition"?

Fact: no one Party could have taken the election with an absolute majority.  Whoever was going to win, they knew well ahead of the election that a winning ticket would only be the first step. If we look at it another way, "the winners" only advanced to the next step in the building of the new Government; die Koalitionsverhandlungen. What else can we expect from a true Multi-Party System?

Now, I know this may come to you as a shock but, Germany had, basically speaking, five major Parties entering the race this time around - six if we count the CSU as a Party on its own, which it technically speaking is. But with reality looking down on the two, they're really joined at the hip with the CDU unable to get a grip on Bavaria and the bavarian CSU unable to export bavarian politics to the rest of the Federation without the CDU. Understanding their relationship is key to understanding the political field in Germany.

Certain relationships existed prior to the elections so we can safely say plans for certain coalitional color combinations emerging as the winners and entering the Koalitionsverhandlungen had to have been made far in advance of the actual elections. This kinda takes the element of suprise out of an election as we can see in the low voter turnout for 2009. My youngest son who only recently turned 18 and with that become eligible to vote e.g. was reluctant to vote as he based his arguments on something which is not entirely untrue....in his very words - "they all stink, what we need is a revolution". The only problem I have with that idea is the question of who will be leading the revolution. As most of us know, revolutions are often breeded and eventually hijacked and steered to a desired outcome, i.e. unless we're talking about anarchy. Based on my personal experiences, I would say that even the anarchists are organized to a certain extent.

The big question for each voter would have had to have been - "do I throw it away, give it to one of the five or maybe a combination or do I use it as a weapon to show one or the other Party how upset I am with them? If you ask me, we had a large number of people voting as a weapon this year. To start with, the SPD, traditionally a worker's Party (see history and origin) was directly responsible for a number of heaps of steaming brown mass over the past ten years or so; Agenda 2010, Harz IV, Riester-Rente, German Troops in Afghanistan and something nobody really wants to talk about these days - the CIA Flights. I don't know about you but that last one would be enough to compel me to vote and to use my vote as wisely as I possibly could. To put it bluntly, all of the above but especially the CIA Flights and the SPD involvement in the cover-up which ensued once the kettle came to boil gave me reason to campaign against the SPD no matter who was to profit from it. Anyone but the SPD! Something tells me I wasn't alone with that feeling.

So who gets our votes, or in my case seeing as I'm not allowed to vote, who am I backing? The answer to that question, if I were to explain it in detail, would fill an essay on its own, taking us off into the intricate details of German history and an up close look at today's Germany, the loss of traditions, the erosion of the social democracy headed by the SPD , once the backbone of the German political system and the current social situation following the fall of the wall, the collapse of the UdSSR, the building of the EU and the way things were prior to all of the above. Let's skip that and cut to the chase - people are unhappy. A great many would like to see Germany return to a more social center. Some would even like to see a major shift to the left while others are horrified with the idea "the same people who brought us the Stasi" would become part of the new Government. Heaven forbid!

With the SPD walking lockstep with the CDU/CSU in the Grand Coalition, semi-socially-minded people had little other choice but to migrate either to the left (Die Linke), to the right (FDP, CDU/CSU) or take a hike in the woods (Green) leaving Realpolitik to the wolves. Don't get me wrong, the German Green Party does have a social strain but compared to Die Linke, Die Gruene are little fish in the political pond of socialism. It's like buying icecream - do I want that full vanilla experience or do I want three balls with three different flavors, a neopolitan "solution"?

The Parties :


The Green


FDP


CDU


The Pirates


The Left


SPD


CSU


The States :








































































































StateCapitalArea (km²)Population
Baden-WürttembergStuttgart35,75210,717,000
BavariaMunich70,54912,444,000
BerlinBerlin8923,400,000
BrandenburgPotsdam29,4772,568,000
BremenBremen404663,000
HamburgHamburg7551,735,000
HesseWiesbaden21,1156,098,000
Mecklenburg-VorpommernSchwerin23,1741,720,000
Lower SaxonyHanover47,6188,001,000
North Rhine-WestphaliaDüsseldorf34,04318,075,000
Rhineland-PalatinateMainz19,8474,061,000
SaarlandSaarbrücken2,5691,056,000
SaxonyDresden18,4164,296,000
Saxony-AnhaltMagdeburg20,4452,494,000
Schleswig-HolsteinKiel15,7632,829,000
ThuringiaErfurt16,1722,355,000

The results :

Provisional official result for the 2009 Bundestag election


On 28 September 2009, at 3.35 a.m., the Federal Returning Officer announced the provisional official result of the 17th German Bundestag elections on 27 September 2009.

With a voter turnout of 70.8 percent (2005: 77.7 percent), the parties obtained the following shares of the total number of valid second votes cast:










































Party20092005
SPD23.034.2
CDU27.327.8
FDP14.69.8
The Left Party11.98.7
Alliance 90/The Greens10.78.1
CSU6.57.4
Others6.03.9

image-18731-galleryV9-kdnp

Results by State (detailed final results statistical report - 4.148Mb PDF)



























































































































































↓CDU/CSU
(%)  ↓
SPD
(%)  ↓
FDP
(%)  ↓
Left
(%)  ↓
Green
(%)  ↓
others
(%)  ↓
Flag of Baden-Württemberg.svg Baden-Württemberg34.519.318.87.213.96.3
Flag of Bavaria (lozengy).svg Bavaria42.616.814.76.510.88.6
Flag of Berlin.svg Berlin22.820.211.520.217.47.9
Flag of Brandenburg.svg Brandenburg23.625.19.328.56.17.4
Flag of Bremen.svg Bremen23.930.310.614.215.45.6
Flag of Hamburg.svg Hamburg27.927.413.211.215.64.7
Flag of Hesse.svg Hesse32.225.616.68.512.05.1
Flag of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.svg Mecklenburg-Vorpommern33.216.69.829.05.55.9
Flag of Lower Saxony.svg Lower Saxony33.229.313.38.610.74.9
Flag of North Rhine-Westphalia (state).svg North Rhine-Westphalia33.128.514.98.410.15.0
Flag of Rhineland-Palatinate.svg Rhineland-Palatinate35.023.816.69.49.75.5
Flag of Saarland.svg Saarland30.724.711.921.26.84.7
Flag of Saxony (state).svg Saxony35.614.613.324.56.75.3
Flag of Saxony-Anhalt (state).svg Saxony-Anhalt30.116.910.332.45.15.2
Flag of Schleswig-Holstein.svg Schleswig-Holstein32.226.816.37.912.74.1
Flag of Thuringia (state).svg Thuringia31.217.69.828.86.06.6







































































































































































































































































Summary of the 27 September 2009 German Federal Diet election results

PartiesConstituencyParty listTotal seats
Votes %+/−Seats+/−Votes %+/−Seats+/−Seats+/− %
Christian Democratic Union[A]13,852,74332.0-0.6173+6711,824,79427.3−0.521−53194+1431.2
Christian Social Union of Bavaria[A]3,190,9507.4−0.945+12,830,2106.5−0.90−245−17.2
Social Democratic Party12,077,43727.9−10.564−819,988,84323.0−11.282+5146−7623.5
Free Democratic Party4,075,1159.4+4.706,313,02314.6+4.893+3293+3215.0
The Left4,790,00711.1+3.116+135,153,88411.9+3.260+976+2212.2
Alliance '90/The Greens3,974,8039.2+3.814,641,19710.7+2.667+1768+1710.9
German Pirate Party46,7500.1+0.10845,9042.0+2.000
National Democratic Party768,1751.8−0.00635,4371.5−0.100
Human Environment Animal Welfare16,8810.0+0.00230,5720.5+0.300
The Republicans30,0450.1−0.00193,4730.4−0.100
Ecological Democratic Party105,2760.2+0.20132,3950.3+0.300
Family Party17,8370.0−0.10120,7160.3−0.100
Others289,7980.7+0.20447,0941.0−0.200
Totals43,235,817100.029943,357,542100323+8622+8

Suggested Further Readings.....

Analysis of the election by Ingo Schmidt: The German Federal Elections: Centre-Right Wins Majority, Social Democracy Suffers Crushing Defeat, The Left Receives a Boost

Saarland, a Jamaican First - The right-wing trajectory of the German Green Party has reached a new level with its decision to form a so-called Jamaica coalition with the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the free-market Free Democratic Party (FDP) following elections in Germany’s smallest state, Saarland.

Matthias Platzeck & Kerstin Kaiser to form Red/Red coalition in Brandenburg and a few more tidbits regarding colation building.

CDU & SPD form coalition for Thuringen

Germany a Lab for political experiments

Deutschland

How to get off the hamster wheel

The sun is shining and it's friday night. Let's paint the town red or green or yellow or white. It'll go black all by itself.                              -curt

5 comments:

  1. Curt, your son is right. It all seems to boil down to one thing. It doesn't matter who the hell we vote for. Be it, Germany, the U.S. or the U.K. Elections are just something to keep our eyes off the ball and distracted from what's really going on globally. The NWO has taken control and all of us are being set up to be ruled by an iron fisted one world government.

    We are all being pulled, as if by magnet, to the lair of the beast. They've got everything readied and the pandemic scam is part of it. A centrally controlled, non democratic, all powerful central government. Ruled of course, by those that have perpetrated the bank lootings. Now that they've bankrupted most of us, they are attacking our health, unleashing the lab created flu to scare us into taking their killer vaccines to thin out the herd and weaken the rest of us.

    What are our choices? There is only one. Revolution. What form should it take? We need to discuss.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Curt for all this info! It does help, tho I know how really difficult it is for an American to understand the multi-party dynamics in Europe. (Once had an Italian friend tell me bluntly it just wasn't possible! :)

    Sounds like the SPD has much in common with the Democrats here.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Geeez, I was trying to get through Parlimentary 101. Thanks for presenting the equally or more serious confusion of the German Bundestag.

    What do you think of Merkel? I get the impression she is cut from the same cloth as Hillary. Tough lady?

    Thanks again for the article review. Avitazen compatriot!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I hope they do as we should Curtis. Opting out of the UN would be all of ours, best move. Germany through history seems to always takes a lead. Do you think you will remain there for life?

    Germany could be the first true democracy, the one without the Illuminated allumni. Unlike the weakling, dumbeddown masses in this Motherland, they could again rally around a true leader this time versus the last Lil General.

    No minimum wage? In a union happy country? Bizarre. Wasn't Ferkel resistent to the Obama call for new order bailout? That was all show maybe or does she really clash. MSM paints a picture of a G-7 and a half when it comes to Merkel.

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  5. Oh yes, Puddy, I'll be here for the long run. Too much to see for one lifetime. Besides, I love this place and the variety of it all.

    No minimum wage, nope. Very bizarre.

    Ferkel has good ideas too but which NWO puppet is allowed to act alone and free of script? Unlike Obombus, she's not a walking JFKII which does allow for a few interesting moments. For Ferkel's sake, I like to think she's not aware she's being used the way she's being used....by the Banks, BigCorp & BigPharm. Still, she'll never be another Helmut Schmidt. They destroyed the mold after that one was cast.

    ReplyDelete