On a side note, CDU/CSU+FDP will probably lose their majority in the Bundesversammlung (which chooses the next president in the spring of 2009) over the upcoming state elections.

Up next is Hamburg, traditionally SPD turf, but governed Ole von Beust (CDU) at the moment. Satire party DIE PARTEI has an interesting campaign poster:

"CDU- voters, beware: Ole von Beust is gay!"

Both BILD and CDU fell into the trap (surprise, surprise) and called the technically factual statement a smear:


"If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles." Sun Tzu

I'm repeating what DoDo said: fingers crossed.

Indeed! But I realise I 'stole' that from nanne (in an email).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

I won't be around during the day tomorrow, so I add this pre-analysis of theoretical possibilities with a nonzero chance now:

1. The Left Party doesn't make it across the 5% limit. Then it can only be one block or another:

• 1.A CDU+FDP has (narrow) majority: looking at polls, almost certain
  
• 1.B SPD+Greens have (narrow) majority

2. The Left Party makes it across the 5% limit. Then as Turambar writes, neither of the above two blocks have majority. Due to the intolerability of Koch, a government can only be assembled around the SPD.

• 2.A SPD+Greens+Left Party: Ypsilanti declared it impossible, nor would the rest of SPD tolerate it, and methinks the Left Party realises it would be a death kiss for them
  
• 2.B Traffic lights coalition (SPD[red]+FDP[yellow]+Greens): I don't think many social-liberals remained to sustain that, and the Hessen FDP recently declared they won't coalition with "this SPD"
  
• 2.C Grand Coalition (SPD+CDU): is a possibility if the CDU gets rid of Koch. But Merkel recently declared no Grand Coalition in Hessen. Then agai, shafting voters on both sides, a Grand Coalition without both Koch and Ypsilanti is a possibility.
  
• 2.D SPD+Greens minority government with Left Party support: not much more comfortable for all involved than 2.A, yet probably the most likely
  
• 2.E new elections: who would want it?

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

European Tribune - State elections in Germany: can the left come back?

Lower Saxony: CDU+FDP are expected to get over 50%, so the coalition will probably stay in place even if the Linke should make it. You can check the party's positions against your own at wahlomat.de.

Interesting. They put me a little bit closer to the Left Party than the Greens. Yet one serious disagreement is with both: the demand for no more grades for elementary school pupils.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Another aspect to these state elections is what they portend for the coming national elections, and meanwhile for whether the SPD can begin to regroup.  But then i'd like to see the Greens become experts at economic policy, so they can guide us into the future, so what do i know.

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

This is what I come to ET for.  I mean, growing up in the US I watched a lot of School-House Rock on Saturday mornings (short cartoons that taught such things as civics, how a bill is passed [I am just a Bill, lonely on Capitol Hill...] and US history) and I had the old crank as a civics teacher in high school, but his crankiness ended up teaching me a lot about my duties as a citizen.  But now I need something of the sort to teach me about civics in my newly adopted land, and these types of diaries really help (and Dodo's diary on Ypsilanti).

I am a Left Party member here, but still learning the political system as it were.  I live approximately half-way between Essen and Kassel on your map above, but still in NRW.  However, I do support the SPD in Hesse, God I hope they win today!

Thanks again for the diary, I hope you write more on these topics because diaries can be so much more than personal opinion or news delivery, they can also be very educational as a whole.

"Schiller sprach zu Goethe, Steck in dem Arsch die Flöte! Goethe sagte zu Schiller, Mein Arsch ist kein Triller!"

According to the Hessen state broadcaster, turnout was low in the morning but picked up by 14h: now 34.6%, vs. 34% five years ago.

More importantly, compared to the last elections, cities have a higher and rural areas a lower turnout -- note that in Hessen and Germany, the Left usually scores higher in the cities and the DU/CSU on the countryside.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

This may not be relevant, but looking at the map led me to think that the last two hundred years of German history can be approached by the way the state boundaries have shifted. If I get some of the history and geography a bit wrong, put it doewn to my being an ignorant foreigner.

Napoleon consolidated many of the states of the Holy Roman Empire. Then the Prussians expanded across the map (without looking it up, it seems to me at least six of the modern states were wholly or mainly part of the Kingdom of Prussia; and thats not counting the former Prussian territory now in Poland or Russia).

Consolidation even continued during the Weimar Republic, with the creation of Thuringia.

The Nazis (like the Communists later) did not want to encourage traditional regional loyalties, so they broke up the states into smaller districts.

After the second world war the basis of the present state map was constructed. Compared with the Weimar states, Prussia was broken up and there was some consolidation in the south.

Finally after re-unification the states were re-created in the east; producing what exists now.

Another random thought, the Bundesrat seems to have been the model for the European Council. There are the same characteristics of state governments being represented as such, with a prescribed number of votes roughly related to population.

ZDF:
Hessen:
CDU: 36.5%
SPD: 37%
FDP: 9%
Greens: 8%
Left Party: 4.8%

Lower Saxony:
CDU: 42%
SPD: 31%
FDP: 8%
Greens: 8%
Left Party: 7%(!)

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Hesse

ZDF
CDU  36,3%
SPD  37,1%
FDP   9,1%
Green 8,0%
Left  4,8%
Other 4,7%

ARD
CDU  35,7%
SPD  37,5%
FDP   9,4%
Green 8,0%
Left  4,9%
Other 4,5%

ZDF sees a "patt". 55 seats for both CDU-FDP or SPD-Greens. ARD sees a tiny SPD-Green majority of 56 seats.

Lower Saxony:

ZDF
CDU  42,3%
SPD  30,9%
FDP   8,0%
Green 8,0%
Left  6,9%
Other 3,9%

ARD
CDU  43,8%
SPD  29,6%
FDP   8,1%
Green 8,1%
Left  6,6%
Other 3,8%

Seems pretty clear.
CDU-FDP coalition.

It's a good day to move to Hessen...

Just sat down to our first homemade meal (we literally drove down with all our stuff from Berlin this afternoon) and flipped on the tube to see who won, and to be greeted with this type of response to Köch's rhetoric is mollifying to say the least.

I think I'll enjoy my time here in Frankfurt.

Of the far-right parties, overall, both the Republicans and the more hardcore NPD seem below 1%.

However, NPD has a well-known centre in the small town of Wölfersheim, to the Northeast of Frankfurt, where they could even achieve double-digits in the past. Today only 5.0% remained of that. Nearby Hirzenhain is the only town with a higher result: 5.4%, from what I found, may be the personal effect of NPD's female local councillor Josephine Fröhlich.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Just in:

CDU 36.8% (by 3,595 votes...)
SPD 36.7%
FDP 9.4%
Greens 7.5%
Leftists 5.1%
Republicans 1.0%
NPD 0.9%
Free Voters 0.9%
Animal Protection Party 0.6%
Pirate Party 0.3%
...

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Some election districts introduced electronic voting in Hessen. A suit against their use was thrown out just days before the election. But SPIEGEL reports the protests aren't dead: the Chaos Computer Club observed lax behaviour and other problems in 50 cases.

• Some computers were stored at home by party members uring the prior night.
  
• Some computers were left unattended.
  
• Some computers malfunctioned and broke down during election day.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

1. Ypsilanti and the Hessen SPD is courting the FDP, while their federal counterparts exert a less kind push: they talk about the FDP's 'civic duties' to not let the state ungoverned.

2. The FDP local leaders again react with rejection again, complaining of "neverending slime from the SPD" and even the suggestion from Ypsilanti that they are in talks. However, some federal leaders are more cautious, in line with nanne's expectations.

3. SPD leader Beck reinforced his rejection of a coalition with the "so-called Leftists", and implied that a Grand Coalition without Koch and with a changed CDU is an option for them.

4. Wulff and other CDU leaders hope and push for a Koch-led Grand Coalition, and Merkel said so too, and told that SPD+Greens 'failed with their strategy to push the Left Party over the edge'. Koch implied that he'd like to see the SPD struggle with a left-only coalition, or lead a caretaker government after failure of talks.

Talks can go on until April, they will be long.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}