General Elections in Germany

Berwick

General Elections in Germany, 2013
Here is a comment from Australia.
The Sydney Morning Herald writes:

The world's most powerful woman is afraid of dogs — according to a new authorised biography — but she barely blinked as she steamrolled the bulldoggish Steinbrueck. She hardly even acknowledged that opposition existed, speaking directly to the public in anodyne, reassuring tones, reminding them that Germany sailed through the choppy waters of the euro debt crisis under her firm direction.
"Germans like their quiet," wrote Der Spiegel. "Angela Merkel ... has understood her flock's desire for calm. [She] has successfully managed to remain above the fray with her promise of continuity".
Britain's Daily Mail is already calling Angela Merkel "Germany's Thatcher".. Yes, there's passage of time and the label of 'conservative'.
But unlike the Iron Lady, the world's most powerful woman won her country's trust based on consensus, and a canny political sense for occupying the political middle ground like a Colossus.
In a new biography, published on the eve of the election, Stefan Kornelius identifies a speech in October 2003 as the key to Merkel's beliefs: "Without freedom there is nothing!" said the child of East Germany, the conservative who learnt English by reading the British communist newspaper the Morning Star.
But Merkel, as drawn by Kornelius, is politically non-ideological. She does not hesitate to adopt policies of the left if she perceives them to be useful, or popular. She was in favour of nuclear power before Fukushima, then quickly abandoned it afterwards.
She does her own shopping, bakes cakes and uses the same battered Nokia phone she has had for years. A former physicist, she proudly applies her scientific mind to any problems. "I think, then I decide, then I act," she said in the election campaign debate.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/merkel-victory-germans-embrace-ultimate-mother-figure-20130923-2u8q6.html#ixzz2fgAnecsH

echo beach

BBC had an interesting documentary on Merkel by Andrew Marr at the weekend. He did make the comparisons with Thatcher but in fact they have little in common. Merkel is willing to compromise and will change her policies (e.g. nuclear power) if it is a reason for change.
Her policies obviously appeal to the German electorate but may not be as attractive to the rest of us.

Berwick

Merkel's party (CDU) has won the elections.

But it is as yet far from clear, how the new government will look like.

petronius

I find it weird the 5% threshold for gaining seats in the bundestag. - I know it is for historical reasons and to limit the scope for extremists but
how many minor parties and TDs would have been excluded in Ireland if we had that

Certainly the Workers Party and Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitt et al would have been excluded from getting a seat in the dail - unless they jumped ship like they eventually did and take over the labour party!
The Greens would have been excluded well certainly Roger Garland, Trevor Sargent and John Gormley would have had to wait longer for Green representaion in the Dail

Even the Progressive Democrats would have been excluded after their initial surge when they were founded to get 5% to secure dail representation

Now it would be hard for the hard-left to have any representation unless they bunched together - but there would be no Socialist Party deputies or People before Profit it would probably force the left leaning tds to have grouped together ...

munchkin_utd

ach, its a different system as they have a list system for number of the seats which would mean that you get 1/300th or something of the party vote and your monster raving looney party has a representation in the parliament.

And if anything the irish system which can have independents holding the country to ransom is the crazy one!
BTW, if the germans had the same number of seats as in Ireland per capita they'd have 2800 seats or so.
Again..... is the irish system something to be praised for its structure?

But I'll be honest, I like the german system as a whole.
Theres power at the community level as you'll have wee talking shop to gather local views, which is then administrated at the city/ district level, theres a the state level (i.e. Bavaria or Hessen) which looks after regional stuff, regional roads/ rail/ police/ schools etc and then the national government which at this stage is just an inter regional coordinator that sets income tax and has an army.
The EU is just a layer on top of that again, but you can see why Germans don't fear the EU becoming more powerful as its mostly a transfer of power/ responsibilities from the federal government to the EU which still leaves the cities and regions looking after the practical day to day stuff.
Or at the worst of it, the regions and cities are used to being told from above what they need to do in terms of operational guidelines (say for policing or health etc) so whether it comes from a german parliament or EU parliament is kindof irrelevant.

nesf

petronius wrote: »

I find it weird the 5% threshold for gaining seats in the bundestag. - I know it is for historical reasons and to limit the scope for extremists but
how many minor parties and TDs would have been excluded in Ireland if we had that

Certainly the Workers Party and Eamon Gilmore, Pat Rabbitt et al would have been excluded from getting a seat in the dail - unless they jumped ship like they eventually did and take over the labour party!
The Greens would have been excluded well certainly Roger Garland, Trevor Sargent and John Gormley would have had to wait longer for Green representaion in the Dail

Even the Progressive Democrats would have been excluded after their initial surge when they were founded to get 5% to secure dail representation

Now it would be hard for the hard-left to have any representation unless they bunched together - but there would be no Socialist Party deputies or People before Profit it would probably force the left leaning tds to have grouped together ...

No, you can't compare it like that at all. We use STV they used a very different system. You elect one candidate directly from your constituency and then you cast a second vote on a national list from a party. The 5% rule applies to the second vote. Our system is highly skewed since we don't have a national list, so for example, quite a number of people who'd vote People Before Profit, Green, PD or whatever can't because there are no such candidates in their constituency. So FF, FG and Lab are overrepresented in the national stats.