Minority Governments are common in many jurisdictions, and tend to exert huge pressure on the minority party which holds the balance of power - in this case the Left Party.  They will get none of the credit for anything that goes well - the Government will take that - and all of the blame if the Government fails to achieve some goal - the CDU/FDP are, after all, only being "principled" in their opposition!

The Left party will be forced to compromise their principles in order to keep the Government in power - perhaps in response to some small concessions - which will be branded as examples of corruption and weakness by the Government - and when, finally, they are forced to bring the Government down, they will be blamed for betraying the left and risking a return to power by the right.  Their own base will be demoralised by every time they abstain on a Government measure without seeming to have had much influence.

All in all a pretty thankless position to be in...

Index of Frank's Diaries

There are many women in politics in Germany, from the leader of the country herself to heads of ministries and states. The latest are Hannelore Kraft, the brand new governor of Germany's most populous state, and her deputy Sylvia Löhrmann. Still, the country has a long way to go before the glass ceiling is entirely shattered.

On Wednesday, two women took the political helm in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The country's most populous state will now be led by a minority coalition governmentpairing the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) with the Green Party. Hannelore Kraft, 49, of the SPD, is the new governor, and Sylvia Löhrmann, a 53-year-old member of the Greens, will serve as her deputy.

It marks a fundamental shift for a state that has long been known as much for its graft and grime as it was for it coal and steel. Even as the rest of the country progressed politically, NRW remained a man's world, led by powerful former governors like Jürgen Rüttgers, Wolfang Clement and Peer Steinbrück. But this week, a message of female empowerment emerged from the former boy's club.

A key project of the Greens the CDU allowed to advance (against significant resistance from the party base) was the change of the school system. In most states of (West) Germany, elementary school is only four years, then selection starts; something seen as reinforcing class divides and braking vertical mobility by leftists. So Hamburg's Greens introduced a reform for a 6-year elementary school.

So far so good. But an initiative of parents against the reform gathered enough signatures for a referendum, to be held tomorrow. The ugly part of it is that a lot of the affected pupils are children of foreign nationals, who can't vote in this referendum.

A referendum victory would bring difficult times for the coalition, and its advocates within the CDU; and there is someone who doesn't want any of it: mayor von Beust. In the last two days, there were several media reports that he plans to resign claiming private reasons; Die Zeit reports today that the announcement shall be made hours before the end of the referendum.

In case you wonder, recent polls indicated CDU losses and SPD gains, with and SPD-Greens absolute majority -- which would mean that the CDU would want to hold to power by maintaining the coalition with clinched teeth under a new leader. However, a referendum success for the traditionalists might change poll numbers, and with that political calculations regarding eventual new elections.

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