Time Turn Sunday Open Thread | 82 comments (82 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 7)

Just to stress the point: current seat projections are CDU: 19, SPD: 17, Left Party: 9, Pirates: 4, Greens: 2. So the SPD could get the prime minister post with a simple and solid SPD-Left Party coalition (no need for a volatile three-party coalition like last time).

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 02:05:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 3)

The seat projections are stable , you can drop the word "current".

There is the chance for a left of centre coalition. We will now see if the SPD prefers left or right policies, hehe.

by Katrin on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 02:30:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

Hehe.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 02:31:47 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 2)

Well it was rather narrow in the end, just 185 votes decided whether the Greens get two seats or zero.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 05:43:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 4)

I hope that will teach them. Black and Green or Jamaica will be punished by the voter.

by Katrin on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 06:08:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 1)

Indeed. (Though the same day taz had to bring an article about the Realos hating Künast for seeing the light after the Berlin elections debacle.) But, with all that has been said about the Greens arriving at their natural place on the bourgeois side, it seems SPD voters are much more tolerant of such adventures...

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 06:35:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

Hm, if Greens realise that Black+Green is not what the voters wants, and FDP continues their route to irrelevance, and SDP continues to reject red+red, the remaining possible governments are:

Single party CDU or SDP if either >50%
SDP+Greens if >50%
CDU+SDP

With Linke and Pirates being in, 1 and 2 are unlikely. So Grand coalitions it is. If/when CDU+SDP are not >50% we are entering interesting territory.

A vote for PES is a vote for EPP! A vote for EPP is a vote for PES! Support the coalition, vote EPP-PES in 2009!

by A swedish kind of death on Mon Mar 26th, 2012 at 02:51:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

SPD. Yes, the three polls last week see SPD+Greens at 41-43% and the three others with a chance to pass the 5% limit at a combined 49-51%. And I don't think that the federal SPD would wish for any of the three-party coalitions...

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Mon Mar 26th, 2012 at 03:47:32 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

Maybe the German political culture needs to get used to minority governments, then.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 26th, 2012 at 04:29:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 4)

Unlikely. Grand coalitions have another advantage: they keep up the fiction that both large parties would serve their respective clienteles, if there wasn't the coalition partner forcing them to do something else. Especially the CDU has the problem that they must modernise, but that parts of their clientele perceive this as a movement to the left which they don't like.

It's not only the voters of the Greens who punish Black/Green coalitions: the coalition in Hamburg was exploded by a mutiny of the more traditional part of the CDU clientele.

by Katrin on Mon Mar 26th, 2012 at 08:58:54 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 2)

I like how you eschew the concept of electorate or base and go straight for clientele.

There are three stories about the euro crisis: the Republican story, the German story, and the truth. -- Paul Krugman

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Mon Mar 26th, 2012 at 09:29:59 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

Thank you. The mutiny inside the Hamburg CDU's, er, clientele was about the attempt of making our school system a tiny bit fairer instead of completely dependent on class, by the way.

by Katrin on Mon Mar 26th, 2012 at 10:55:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 1)

Is there any hope that many of the current leaders of the SPD will come out of the spell they have been under since drinking the Cool-Aid of Neo-Liberal, Neo-Classical Economics & Politics? Or is this what we are looking at until they die of the party dissolves?

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 02:34:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 2)

No. Not as long as they have more than 5%.

Repeat after me: the Left Party is an untouchable Stalinist lot. Don't get near.

by Katrin on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 02:39:56 PM EST
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Re: Saarland elections (none / 1)

Personal animosity between the SPD's top man Maas and Lafontaine doesn't help.

by epochepoque on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 03:32:14 PM EST
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Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

Oskar's always been something of a polarizing personality.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 04:06:25 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

But what changed for the worse in three years? They could get along last time.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 05:48:08 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 1)

Gabriel would be the best bet. On any given issue, he gets it about 50%, which, given the sad crop of major-party leaders, is about as good as you can hope for.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman

by dvx (dvx.clt ät gmail dotcom) on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 03:41:42 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (4.00 / 3)

To be fair, I'm not sure if the Saarland SPD or its leader is that much neolib, but the practical argument he raised ('the debt brake is a law at federal level, we will be denied federal money transfers if we don't keep to it') can also be read as "we have no idea how to oppose this, we give up" defeatism.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 05:47:31 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Saarland elections (none / 0)

In such a case he should step down or be forced out. If that is what he believes, how does it help to enter a government as the junior partner with the chief exponent of the poisonous proposals?

As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun Mar 25th, 2012 at 07:56:04 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Time Turn Sunday Open Thread | 82 comments (82 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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