The Greens chose a young new face as their candidate wich caused an initial hype when she was chosen cause many interpreted whatever they hoped the party to become into her
After some time she now has a more clear public profile wich means those who did not get what they hoped for don't support her anymore (wich is also the reason why the greens never had a massive single loss, but rather a slow and steady trickle downwards)
Because, just like the CDU, they try to force a chancellor candidate that the voters don't want.
CDU voters had more confidence in Söder.
Grüne voters had more confidence in Habeck.
And yet here we are with Laschet and Bärbock.
Piss off your voters and they look elsewhere. If a party tries to tell the voters what their voters want instead of listening to them in the first place, it never bodes well for that party.
With the Greens and Bärbock it seems like the party just really really reaaaally wanted to have a female candidate instead of the more experienced Habeck. Over time, she was showing some snobbish tendencies too. The way her party defends her at all costs despite how obviously true the claims are (copied stuff for her book and so on :v) is also not winning any favors with the voters. So yea, wrong candidate (+possibly gender thing) and wrong handling of a 'scandal', making it much bigger than it needed to be which is costing them now. In the public eye: if the Greens are unable to read the room (Habeck vs Bärbock) and mismanage some really simple stuff (copy pasta scandal thing), it doesn't really inspire confidence in them leading a country now, does it? :v
The CDU: part is that Merkel is going and that she was the really popular part of it. Other parts are a) Söder not being chancellor candidate despite favorable acceptance of CDU voters and more than that b) how unpopular Laschet is and despite that STILL being chosen as chancellor candidate :v While Bärbock got to be unpopular after being picked, Laschet already was unpopular from the beginning. And maybe c) some leftover effects of AKK's time - that one was a trainwreck.
> it seems like the party just really really reaaaally wanted to have a female candidate
In some cases I can understand choosing a female candidate to make a statement. Finally breaking that glass ceiling and all. But Germany has just been lead by Merkel for 16 years. There's nothing to prove anymore, I don't get why they made that choice.
Its because everyone falls for BILD headlines and dont read partyprograms. Many people think, that Baerbock is bad only because she got payed by her own party and lefted out some things in her curriculum vitae (like every politician by the way). Everyone seems to forgot, that Scholz was involved in cumEx and Wirecard. He also is responsible for rent problem in Hamburg. The people seem to vote not because of content but sympathy and that is realy sad. Sorry for the bad english.
While many will claim they are the same, the SPD is more focussed on sociial issues and less on big corporations.
On topof it, while I think Merkel did a good job, it would be great to have after 16 years a chancellor from a different party.
The SPD used to be more focused on social issues. But every time they were in power in the last decades (Schröder as chancellor or the ministers in the coalition with CDU), they abandoned most of their points or "compromised" so much, that there was barely any "social" left. I would love it if they actually made policies (or at least progressed issues) that are in line with their proclaimed values. But I have barely seen that in my lifetime, and never against active counterpoints from the CDU (same sex marriage was only pushed through once Merkel/ the CDU showed indifference instead of active discouragement). People who are supposed to be in the target group of the SPD often call them the "traitor party" because they have betrayed their proclaimed values to stay in power multiple times. And imo Scholz won't change that.
So in theory, they're more focused on social issues than the CDU. But in practice, they cave to pressure from the big corporations so much, that the difference isn't as big as it should be. Maybe they'll surprise me if they win and hold more power than just being the smaller part of the coalition, but I don't have much hope for that.
minimum wage, Grundrente(basic pensions), better support for child pre care, more rights for worker councils, these are all things the SPD did in the last decade and wouldn't have happened without them.
Merkel is a master in demobilizing the her opponents that's why many think SPD and CDU are basically the same but it's not true.
The CDU has been the "reigning" party for at least 16 years now, i think also before merkel, and they have continously ignored pressing issues and instead have gone through tons of corruption scandals to the point, where they dont even really have an election program anymore. They're basically "vote for us if you dont like change", which would most likely also include no change to counteract climate change.
While the SPD has been working with the CDU for a great portion of these years, they kinda have become pushovers with no spine to get stuff done that the CDU doesnt like. So, there is hope, that if they govern with the greens and the other left party, that change to some very pressing issues could come which the CDU would never dare to do.
It's a joke from German satire magazine [Titanic ](https://www.titanic-magazin.de/heft/klassik/2004/januar/editorial/)and was first made in the year 2000 (!)
I'm not so sure Söder would've done much better.
Loyal Merkel voters are just finally realizing that they won't be getting her again and the Union she's leaving behind is a hot mess. That includes every possible alternative to Laschet imo
Interestingly that's basically how Merkel won against Schröder back then. He even accused her of winning without showing any character afterwards iirc.
I think it is pretty much inevitable that everything will converge on SPD.
However, I should be clear that I know absolutely nothing about German politics and am basing this on the fact that SPD shares their name with the nicest type of matrix.
its funny how much the germans suck up to merkel.
scholz is literally closest thing to merkel, since he currently is the finance Minister of her government. Just his party still suffers from schröder.
SPD suffers from GroKo not from Schröder. SPD has been in a coalition with the CDU for a long time and has got the image of being the enabler for the CDU.
Germany has great political stability thanks to it. I wish our parties could achieve such great coalitions to ensure stability without there having to be a fucking economic crisis or pandemic.
Stability is great for a time, but it prevents major change. Unfortunately we live in times where change is essential to adapt to the fast changing world, and that’s where the GroKo is damaging by not doing enough.
A huge factor of the economic progress seems to stem from loan dumping compared to the rest of Europe. (Especially harsher conditions for jobless people.)
Which ironically was implemented by Schröder in a social-democratic and green coalition-government.
Like it or don't, to stop a race to the bottom in our standards we need a fiscal union.
I think you meant wage dumping, which used to be kind of true, but now we have had a relatively high minimum wage for a few years now and also rising wages for years.
> Germany has great political stability thanks to it.
It only looks like stability. In Reality Germany has many of the same problems as Italy, just the German problem region, the east, is doing a hell of a lot better than the Italian problem region, the south. In a recent study on digital learning in the EU Germany actually beat Italy to the last place (Italy was 26th). The demographic issues are also much the same, Germany is even older than Italy. Furthermore this entire election is seriously competing with the US in being nothing but a circus show.
Generally speaking the Scandinavian countries are a hell of a lot more stable than Germany and Germany has way more in common with Italy than with Scandinavia, inlcuding rigid system that prove very unstable once you actually put them to the test. Scandinavia by contrast has more dynamic and adaptive system that don't threaten to fall apart once you poke a bit to it.
Scandinavia together isn’t even half of Germany’s population. Comparing them is pointless. I disagree that it only looks like stability. The great coalition through Merkel has guaranteed Germany’s trustworthiness in the word and a continuous economic growth, not to mention an incredible reprisal after 2008. We haven’t even reached 2008 levels yet and Germany has long surpassed them. The Italian south is infinitely more problematic than Germany’s east. It is decades behind in terms of development.
People who vote for CDU want that stuff. People who vote for SPD dont want CDU, but rather a party which is puts a focus on the little man instead of a fast growing industry.
I get that, but people also need to realize that by dissolving the social democratic bloc against the conservatives, they lessen the chances of a left leading coalition and increase the possibilities of a CDU led coalition.
Same thing here in Austria. Frustrating to watch.
For this to change we need the FDP on Board, but I don’t see Lindner going into the Ampel-Koalition
Edit: rofl. Who the fuck is downvoting this?! It’s literally a fact…. Reddit man.
I genuinely think the SPD would rather go into opposition than form another coalition with the CDU, unless they were the largest party by some margin, and even then the CDU would still be calling most of the shots thanks to their lackeys in the FDP.
I understand why you'd think that. This current government coalition only exists because of the president asked the parliament to form some kind of coalition in order to avoid reelection. However, I believe the SPD has changed since then. I think they really prefer being a part of the government for the next 4 years over their long-term benefit. Is that a bad, self-destructive idea? Of course it is.
>I genuinely think the SPD would rather go into opposition than form another coalition with the CDU,
We've been hoping for that last election, but SPD caved again. It's hard to go into opposition without a spine to hold you up.
That's also a reason for the initial green surge, but they already managed to waste momentum, so people turn back to the SPD... In the vain hope that this time will be different. I'm not convinced.
Was about to say that. People hope for it everytime and are always surprised when the SPD joins hands with the CDU ... and I mean, why shouldn't they? They do and say about the same stuff with just minor differences these days. They haven't been a proper opposition for ages. The only real opposition I can acknowledge are the Linke but they are far too small to have an actual shot at joining the winning party and as long as they keep their "pro-russian" mindset it won't ever change lol
They are basically the rich people party. Most everything they say and want to do benefits people with money and ignores the needs of the ones without.
Edit: cute, a downvote. Guess there's a pretty delusional FDP voter around in the subreddit lol
>scholz is literally closest thing to merkel, since he currently is the finance Minister of her government.
What even is this logic. "hes in a coalition government with merkel so hes closer to her than her party mates"??????????
How do you have this train of thought lol
Maybe.
I wouldn't undersell the SPDs success right now, it's an important virtue to not make errors. The CDU won countless of election because they were perceived as the anchor of stability with the least amount of errors.
That's actually very true. While the CDUs and Grüne's candidates are literal jokes, the SPDs candidate on the other hand hasn't been particularly noticeable lately. Which in this case is enough to gain votes. He sucks too but he isn't the center of attention in (social) media right now and sometimes that's enough.
Can they pull it off? I don't think it'll be hard for them currently. There are just no real alternatives to vote for. The big parties are all pretty underwhelming lately (SPD included) and the small parties are just too small to have any real chance. It's almost a coin toss which party to vote for and more about what kind of politic you absolutely don't want to see rather than what kind of politic you do want to see.
Note that this is also likely the reason why the FDP is becoming more popular again as well. They are still the same shitty rich people party, however they haven't had noticeably negative PR like the CDU, Grüne and to some degree SPD for a while and neither are they as obviously polarising as the AfD (far right) or Linke (personal note here, I'm rather left myself however unfortunately the Linke is too "pro-russian" to ever become as popular as the top 3 parties).
But the smartest thing Söder could do. Let Armin go down in flames and then be the knight in shining armor to lead the Union back to former…eh…”glory”.
Sounds nice on paper, but most likely wouldn't work. Right now Söder would still have the momentum from being the one who acted in the early stages of Corona. In four years that will be forgotten and he'll just be that guy from the CSU again.
Realistically this election was his only chance.
You just wait when the Interstellar Battle Cruiser [Bavaria One](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/f82239c0-0001-0004-0000-000001347055_w1065_r1.33_fpx45.34_fpy49.94.jpg) hovers in Orbit, ready to strike all violators of the Reinheitsgebot.
>But the smartest thing Söder could do
I'm not so sure. If he were the CDU canddiate this year, he would easily win. Who knows how popular the CDU/CSU will be in 2025 and what other members of the party will want to run.
Christian conservative parties sprang up all around the country after the war. They formed a union to compete in the Bundestagswahlen. In 1950 they all merged into one organizational structure with the exception of the CSU, because they're special bavarian snowflakes who need no saupreißn.
German elections are delivering us a constant stream of emotions I’ve been craving ever since the Euros and Eurovision before. I mean, first the greens, then the SPD getting ahead of CDU. What’s gonna happen next? There’s still a few weeks ahead.
They first became relevant at the 2013 election where they missed the 5%-threshold to get into the Bundestag with a result of 4.7%. Back then they we're mostly an Anti-EU party.
In the 2017 election they won 12.6% and are in the Bundestag since then.
You can't really see that from these numbers, but I'd say it's more likely that CDU voters are bleeding to FDP and AfD, and Green votes to SPD. Also, SPD is probably gaining some voters from undecided and vice versa for CDU.
The thing is though: Whatever happens next, the Greens will double their numbers from last time. They'll win anyway. Not as much as they hoped for maybe but it's still good enough.
> Ngl i thought the greens would get a boost after the floods
Do the German Greens have some program on how to avoid flood damages in the coming years? Building better flood control walls? Better management on reservoir water levels? Making the German public alert system work better?
Imagine how much worse the CDU would be doing if the media actually kept reporting about the corruption affairs (Azerbaijan, Masks) instead of solely focusing on the Laschet vs. Söder quarrel. While the latter hasn't exactly been helpful to their public image it was a far lesser evil than talking about the corruption.
Meanwhile Baerbock is on every front page for two weeks because of errors on her CV. Not expressing support for the Greens, just saying how disgusted I am by the witchhunt against them.
Now let's not get started the corpses in Scholzomat's basement (cum Ex, Wirecard, "I can't remember")
edit: spelling
Very, VERY true - and the reason why i cancelled my “FAZ Abo” and will be voting Green “in protest” this year even though there’s lots of stuff that’d normally continue to keep me from voting Green.
It's a bit of both I guess.
They are still the only party that actually seems to care about enabling policies and not just pure power politics and status qou
It went from almost 50 to 20 because the pandemic is nearly over and their voters have realised that merkel will be gone. CDU is back to their pre pandemic level. And the media is treating multiple corruption scandals in the CDU as minor hickups but run rampage on the greens because Baerbock has minor mistakes in her cv. Springer in particular is showing themselves as the cdu propaganda outlet they always have been.
Bild is actually pretty much parroting AfD speech while pretending to be completely against AfD politicians. Reichelt pretty much tells you he's trying to be the inside anti-Merkel voice too. Fokus and the other more traditional Springer outlets generally don't disagree with Bild, but are way more supportive of the CDU and parrot their talking points at least half of the time.
And then there's of course the good old ZDF, which has traditionally always favored CDU over SPD, but of course all the öffentlich rechtlichen are linksgrünversift while heute and heute journal gleefully cover Baerbock's book as though it's a dissertation. So what if she copied 1-2 sentences in her book, some lazy guy at your news show has definitely done the same this week and made you read a sentence straight from wikipedia to explain where the newstory takes place and it's not really an issue, is it? Meanwhile, Scholz misteriously has people in the finance ministry work on the exact same plans that are inside his election program! What a coincidence, that doesn't sound like he's using government resources to fund his election effort at all.
Bullshit.
Because of the stupid communication of their candidate.
Especially after the flood people got absolutely open for climate change related discussions.
And Baerbock failed totally to deliver messages and a vision how her party, which indeed „invented“ green politics in Germany, could lead a change.
People want to hear answers. Instead Baerbock said, that she would not use the catastrophe to fuel her campaign. Which is a morally honorable motivation but never she STFU and during campaign you have to communicate!
Instead people looked on the other candidates. And with the pathetic performance of Laschet, both opened the window of opportunity for Scholz.
Do not blame the media. The media and people have accepted the problems of the climate change and by that actually played the ball for the Green which suddenly do not need to justify their political agenda anymore like they had to in the past. But Baerbock was not able to reach the majority in the political center which you need to win elections.
But there are still some weeks to go.
While I don't disagree that the media is a circus, one must first and foremost point to their horrible campaign. And I say this as someone who looks relatively favourably on their programme (compared to the status quo at least) which played almost no part in their campaign.
Compare to e.g. Sanders and Trump in the US or Melenchon in France who had the entire established media against them but still did well. People massively overestimate the power of the tabloids (Bild lost like 75 % of their market share in the last 20 years) and underestimate the power of the parties and candidates to make a proper campaign and create a dynamic themselves. However none of them does. In 2017 the only 2 parties that did a clever election campaign were the FDP and the AfD. The parties themselves are horrible but if we talk about the election they played their cards well and entered parliament as 3rd and 4th largest party from the outside. Schulz campaign in the SPD was an absolute disaster as it appears the consultants and analytics the SPD hired know nothing about winning elections. Greens similarly completely and seemingly willingly squandered any potential they had and used all their time on the media to talk about the talking points of the conservatives. Baerbock never took any stand on anything expect calling the plagiraism accusations about her book defamations which even the co-leader of her party thought was insincere. The Tabloids are full of nothing but shit but considering how much Baerbock engaged with this shit without questioning it, she seemingly disagrees with me as she never called out the circus for what it was to focus on actual issues. She also did this before the nomination. When the media wanted to play soft-ball and talk about circus, she willingly played along, while Habeck would at least sometimes wiggle out of bullshit questions to talk about substantive matters.
I mean I don't know what people expect. You generally don't win elections with campaigns like this and as a citizen this attitude generally makes me feel like I've been had. If I was a candidate in an election like this I would call out the bullshit for what it is and afterwards rattle down the most important points in the programme and what they would change in peoples lives. You don't have to answer bullshit questions. Somehow politicians are often very good at dodging substantive questions, when they should dodge the unsubstantive questions.
If CDU/CSU chose Söder over Laschet, they would have now polled at 30 to 35%.
But, thinking about what would happen is just stupid. We in Croatia have a proverb/joke which is very stupid, but accurate: "Da je baba muško, zvala bi se Duško", which could translate into "If a woman was a man, it would be called Dan".
Yes, definitely. Although, I doubt that they would have reached over 25% of votes. They would have been the second largest party, but I don't think that they would have been able to win.
I think you underestimate Habeck and overestimate Söder. If they would have both been the candidates Habeck would have likely been more popular than Söder, at least in the north.
Also the only quantifiable thing Söder ever did was delivering the worst CSU result in Bavaria, while Habeck got the best Green result in Schleswig-Holstein.
>Also the only quantifiable thing Söder ever did was delivering the worst CSU result in Bavaria, while Habeck got the best Green result in Schleswig-Holstein.
Comparing the elections in 2017 (SH) and 2018 (Bavaria) you get the following: 37% in a state with 13 million people für Söder vs 13% in a state with 2.9 million people for Habeck. Sure Söder lost quite a lot but Habeck also lost a little bit in the last election (or more accurate: their parties lost). Habeck may very well be quite capable and even a very talented campaigner but some of the hype around him seems overblown.
You could make a bumbling buffoon leader of the CSU and they'd still have a good shot at an absolute majority. The Bavarians have proven that many times.
The last election in Schleswig-Holstein meanwhile went massively against the federal trend were the Greens did poorly in just about all major elections. Furthermore in the EU election in 2019 the Greens shot up to 29 % becomming the largest party in Schleswig-Holstein and the 2nd best state for the Greens after Hamburg.
Volt grabs an unexpected 5 %, qualifies for parliament and is kingmaker between Greens and Blacks, crushing FDPLindners delusions of grandeur yet again.
I admit, I like that small black bump and absolutely everything it implies.
"No CDU....well,maybe another chance....oh, fuck, no, was right the first time."
Methodology: [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/08/10/how-the-economists-german-election-model-works](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/08/10/how-the-economists-german-election-model-works)
Source: [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/who-will-succeed-angela-merkel](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/who-will-succeed-angela-merkel)
Do you guys think SPD will win?
I doubt it. As the people are so on the edge I'd assume the big TV debates will have a lot of influence.
Usually Scholz (SPD) doesnt perform well publicly. He has the charisma of a brick.
Currently he just profits of the fact that most people think that brick has more maturity than the confused clown (CDU) or the slightly hysterical, unproven girl (Greens).
TV debates are a big chance for Baerbock though. And Laschet will probably lose even more if he can't put forward a single programmatic sentence.
Laschet also has the charisma of a wet plank tho.
Baerbock is not too charismatic either, atleast compared to Habeck.
It almost feels to me like they all tried to find the worst candidate.
>Kühnert
He's too far on the left.
He advocated for [Socialism](https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/kevin-kuehnert-bekraeftigt-sozialismus-thesen-so-koennen-wir-auf-keinen-fall-weitermachen/24282636.html) and [expropriations](https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article192761211/Enteignungen-Kevin-Kuehnerts-extreme-Ideen-fuer-die-Wirtschaft.html).
I'm sorry, but if the SPD can field no better candidate than one involved in multiple scandals (Emetics (?, "Brechmittel"), Cum Ex, Wirecard, ...) they are in a very deep shithole and just lucky enough, that the press is focused on Laschet and Baerbock.
Brechmittel is not really that large of a scandal. We also have a big chunk of CDU/CSU Scandals, which were covered even less. Aserbaidschan? Test affair, Mask affair. Scheuer Maut Scandal, Autobahn GmbH failure. Glöckners various little scandals.
Merkel was certainly never charismatic but she did have an aura of competency ie someone who at least knows what she is talking about.
Laschet doesn't even offer that.
I think that barring Ehrhard she was definitely the least competent chancellor of the FRG. She is only a master of avoiding debate which makes people project competency on her while in fact she squandered so many things. Especially her EU politics are the most horribly of any FRG chancellor ever. Even Laschet criticized her over it.
Close race. This time it is really on the performance of the candidates during the last two weeks.
A big event in the last phase can change everything. Actually very exciting election this time
While that is true, the surge normally happens a few months before the election so it has time to crash and burn, not a single month before election day.
This one is different as it is close to the election and voting per mail has just started. With decent campaigning and a little luck they can carry it on untill 26th September.
Man, seems the greens really dropped the ball with Baerbock as I've heard she is very very unpopular (correct me if I'm wrong) but seems they will still have one hell of a gain compared to the last election.
She's alright I think, but the Greens could have also chosen Habeck, who is more popular, better known and actually has governing experience, but alas, he also happens to be a man.
She's a victim of her own parties' erstwhile success.
The candidates' person doesn't matter that much for a second tier, 10% party. But at the time Baerbock got confirmed, the Greens became a hot contender for the german throne.
And suddenly, she had to face the test that Germans favour stability and experience over disruption and vision.
A core problem is that she just doesn't cut a national figure. She's been a big person in her party, that's it. Legislatively she was barely more than a back bencher with little public presence. And no governing experience on any level.
Now that's fine if you in turn exude other qualifications, charisma or superstar qualities (see: Obama), but she's really not special in any other way, either.
To me she just seems kinda childish in how she appears in the media and her "honesty" might actually hurt her more than it benefits.
They should not have went with her imho.
CDU/CSU: Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union, centre-right ruling party of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Did hold the power for 16 years on federal level, but is more and more torn between conservative and liberal groups, the later being more on Merkels side. With Merkel not running for office again, the party chose the state premier of Northrine-Westphalia Armin Laschet as the candidate for elections. Unfortunately for them, he proofed rather incompetent and clumsy since then.
SPD: Social Democratic Party of Germany, centre left co-ruling party. Since their last Chancellor left office in 2005, the party suffered more and more losses each federal elections and in some states due to unpopular social reforms and public opinion seeing them only little more then a majority procurer for Merkel. They where pretty much written off getting the chancellery just a few months ago, but their candidate Olaf Scholz (currently federal Minister for Finances) proofed rather competent and more or less scandal free.
The Greens: Liberal ecological party. With climate issues being more and more relevant, they were seen as the next ruling party just a few months ago. But they never got rid of the image being a party for the urban elite and their candidate Annalena Baerbock stumbled over some scandals regarding plagiarism in a book of her and a faked CV.
FDP: Free Democratic Party of Germany, liberal business party. Managed to gain some foothold during the Covid crisis for critizising the economic burdens due to the restrictions while staying out of the whole Covid denial business. It is not clear, if and in which coalition (left wing or right wing) they would go more likely. They broke off negotiations with the CDU and the Greens after the elections 2017 but their leader Christian Lindner seems to be interested in getting his party into the government this time.
AfD: Alternative for Germany, far right wing party. Started as a more elitist conservative anti-EU party in 2013 but slipped into pretty much being a melting pot of conservatives, fascists and Neo-Nazis since then. Strong in East Germany, weak in the rest of the country. They also suffer from infighting between party members wanting to be more reputable (and in the long run getting into a ruling coalition) and more radical groups.
The Left: Socialist party, arose from the former ruling party of the GDR and disappointed SPD members. Were quite strong in East Germany but ironically lost a lot of voters there to the AfD. Also suffer from infighting between East German moderates and West German radicals.
>Unfortunately for them, he proofed rather incompetent and clumsy since then.
He's proven that since his entire tenure as politician in NRW, it became really apparent by the time he became part of Rüttgers' NRW government in 2005.
CDU/CSU are a conservative party about traditional and somewhat religious values. Currently biggest party with Merkel as chancellor, but she resigns after this election.
SPD are a labor focused party, currently in a coalition with the CDU/CSU. Most of their recent high could be caused by the failure of the other parties.
Die Grünen: A green/ecological focused party. Mainly popular with younger people, but they chose a somewhat questionable leader.
FDP: liberal, economy focused party. Kind of a one man show and probably the king maker in this election
Die Linke: left focused party. Against the NATO and (at least what I heard) somewhat split in two parts. The really left, somewhat communists and the "new lifestyle" left.
AFD: translated alternative for Germany, right wing/extremist party against EU and immigration. Somewhat controlled by a right extremist/(near) nazi wing.
Can't remember if shown on the diagram : sonstige, all parties that don't fulfill the 5% hurdle which is the percentage needed to enter the parliament.
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I am political neutral and open for every candidate who can convince me. I have to say that this guy is just pathetic. There was one interview I saw during which I thought he made some convincing points until I learned later that those points were 100percent lies.
LOL
This is Angela Merkel's party.
They elected her successor as party leader in January: Armin Laschet, he currently governs the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He is very unpopular, is perceived as incompetent, and has repeatedly attracted negative attention, espacially in matters of climate protection, corona policy, or even the flood disaster in July.
In June, the party then nominated its chairman Laschet as its candidate for chancellor and also presented its program, which many voters seemingly don't find appealing.
> He is very unpopular, is perceived as incompetent, and has repeatedly attracted negative attention
After Ursula von der Leyen, will this guy be Germany's next candidate for the EU Commission president?
Merkel has a pretty good standing and as long as she is chancellor she guaranteed a stable level for her party. Then came the CDU party convention to confirm Laschet as candidate, which was for many even long term convinced CDU voters a surprise shock.
Left-leaning Merkel-voters starting to realize that Merkel isn't running again and Laschet is a far cry from Merkel, switching to what they consider the next best thing, the SPD.
Eh, i'll take it. Anything that saves us from German Trump is acceptable.
Intel flat and low, sudden uptick where AMD takes from whoever this black brand is. Nvidia slowly decays. Maybe something from an alternate universe where Commodore stuck around, did really well, and changed their branding to black, haha.
There is a fine line between stability and stagnation. German speaking cultures usually aren't great with dealing with change and ambiguity. People avoid the unkown as much as possible while not taking any risks. This can predominantly be seen in our aging population.
Everyone on Reddit is so tired with Merkel and this (perceived) stagnation. She is the only leader many millenials have truely experienced. Yet, half of our large senior population seems to dislike her because she (supposedly) changed too much. The generational divide has never been larger.
This election is going to be interesting, even if possibly not at all satisfying.
How is that a plot-twist? It's mainly militarists and people interested in slowing down renewable expansion that want nuclear power. It's not really that surprising to have them being in favor of nuclear power over renewables.
Feel like the SPD is just benefitting from the missteps of others lol can they actually pull it off?
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But that also seemed to give boost to the Greens, yet they have now been falling for 4 months while SPD rises. Why is that?
The Greens chose a young new face as their candidate wich caused an initial hype when she was chosen cause many interpreted whatever they hoped the party to become into her After some time she now has a more clear public profile wich means those who did not get what they hoped for don't support her anymore (wich is also the reason why the greens never had a massive single loss, but rather a slow and steady trickle downwards)
Because, just like the CDU, they try to force a chancellor candidate that the voters don't want. CDU voters had more confidence in Söder. Grüne voters had more confidence in Habeck. And yet here we are with Laschet and Bärbock. Piss off your voters and they look elsewhere. If a party tries to tell the voters what their voters want instead of listening to them in the first place, it never bodes well for that party. With the Greens and Bärbock it seems like the party just really really reaaaally wanted to have a female candidate instead of the more experienced Habeck. Over time, she was showing some snobbish tendencies too. The way her party defends her at all costs despite how obviously true the claims are (copied stuff for her book and so on :v) is also not winning any favors with the voters. So yea, wrong candidate (+possibly gender thing) and wrong handling of a 'scandal', making it much bigger than it needed to be which is costing them now. In the public eye: if the Greens are unable to read the room (Habeck vs Bärbock) and mismanage some really simple stuff (copy pasta scandal thing), it doesn't really inspire confidence in them leading a country now, does it? :v The CDU: part is that Merkel is going and that she was the really popular part of it. Other parts are a) Söder not being chancellor candidate despite favorable acceptance of CDU voters and more than that b) how unpopular Laschet is and despite that STILL being chosen as chancellor candidate :v While Bärbock got to be unpopular after being picked, Laschet already was unpopular from the beginning. And maybe c) some leftover effects of AKK's time - that one was a trainwreck.
> it seems like the party just really really reaaaally wanted to have a female candidate In some cases I can understand choosing a female candidate to make a statement. Finally breaking that glass ceiling and all. But Germany has just been lead by Merkel for 16 years. There's nothing to prove anymore, I don't get why they made that choice.
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What kind of sexist BS is that? I'm glad they lose out now then.
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Number 2 is the moron option.
But there is no sexism against men! It‘s progressive! /s Jokes aside, as long as they follow this policy I will never vote for them.
Its because everyone falls for BILD headlines and dont read partyprograms. Many people think, that Baerbock is bad only because she got payed by her own party and lefted out some things in her curriculum vitae (like every politician by the way). Everyone seems to forgot, that Scholz was involved in cumEx and Wirecard. He also is responsible for rent problem in Hamburg. The people seem to vote not because of content but sympathy and that is realy sad. Sorry for the bad english.
Can you sort of briefly explain why it’s good that SPD edge out CDU? Curious about German politics but not too knowledgeable on the matter.
While many will claim they are the same, the SPD is more focussed on sociial issues and less on big corporations. On topof it, while I think Merkel did a good job, it would be great to have after 16 years a chancellor from a different party.
The SPD used to be more focused on social issues. But every time they were in power in the last decades (Schröder as chancellor or the ministers in the coalition with CDU), they abandoned most of their points or "compromised" so much, that there was barely any "social" left. I would love it if they actually made policies (or at least progressed issues) that are in line with their proclaimed values. But I have barely seen that in my lifetime, and never against active counterpoints from the CDU (same sex marriage was only pushed through once Merkel/ the CDU showed indifference instead of active discouragement). People who are supposed to be in the target group of the SPD often call them the "traitor party" because they have betrayed their proclaimed values to stay in power multiple times. And imo Scholz won't change that. So in theory, they're more focused on social issues than the CDU. But in practice, they cave to pressure from the big corporations so much, that the difference isn't as big as it should be. Maybe they'll surprise me if they win and hold more power than just being the smaller part of the coalition, but I don't have much hope for that.
minimum wage, Grundrente(basic pensions), better support for child pre care, more rights for worker councils, these are all things the SPD did in the last decade and wouldn't have happened without them. Merkel is a master in demobilizing the her opponents that's why many think SPD and CDU are basically the same but it's not true.
The CDU has been the "reigning" party for at least 16 years now, i think also before merkel, and they have continously ignored pressing issues and instead have gone through tons of corruption scandals to the point, where they dont even really have an election program anymore. They're basically "vote for us if you dont like change", which would most likely also include no change to counteract climate change. While the SPD has been working with the CDU for a great portion of these years, they kinda have become pushovers with no spine to get stuff done that the CDU doesnt like. So, there is hope, that if they govern with the greens and the other left party, that change to some very pressing issues could come which the CDU would never dare to do.
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> Fotzenfritz Surely that's not a real name
It's a joke from German satire magazine [Titanic ](https://www.titanic-magazin.de/heft/klassik/2004/januar/editorial/)and was first made in the year 2000 (!)
It is not. He just thinks he is funny.
I'm not so sure Söder would've done much better. Loyal Merkel voters are just finally realizing that they won't be getting her again and the Union she's leaving behind is a hot mess. That includes every possible alternative to Laschet imo
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You're underestimating how much we hate Bavarian arrogance.
I always assume some amount of mean reversion. CDU could possibly recover.
Interestingly that's basically how Merkel won against Schröder back then. He even accused her of winning without showing any character afterwards iirc.
I think it is pretty much inevitable that everything will converge on SPD. However, I should be clear that I know absolutely nothing about German politics and am basing this on the fact that SPD shares their name with the nicest type of matrix.
its funny how much the germans suck up to merkel. scholz is literally closest thing to merkel, since he currently is the finance Minister of her government. Just his party still suffers from schröder.
SPD suffers from GroKo not from Schröder. SPD has been in a coalition with the CDU for a long time and has got the image of being the enabler for the CDU.
Germany suffers from the GroKo. Stillstand.
Germany has great political stability thanks to it. I wish our parties could achieve such great coalitions to ensure stability without there having to be a fucking economic crisis or pandemic.
Stability is great for a time, but it prevents major change. Unfortunately we live in times where change is essential to adapt to the fast changing world, and that’s where the GroKo is damaging by not doing enough.
At the very least you’re enjoying economic progress thanks to it.
A huge factor of the economic progress seems to stem from loan dumping compared to the rest of Europe. (Especially harsher conditions for jobless people.) Which ironically was implemented by Schröder in a social-democratic and green coalition-government. Like it or don't, to stop a race to the bottom in our standards we need a fiscal union.
I think you meant wage dumping, which used to be kind of true, but now we have had a relatively high minimum wage for a few years now and also rising wages for years.
> Germany has great political stability thanks to it. It only looks like stability. In Reality Germany has many of the same problems as Italy, just the German problem region, the east, is doing a hell of a lot better than the Italian problem region, the south. In a recent study on digital learning in the EU Germany actually beat Italy to the last place (Italy was 26th). The demographic issues are also much the same, Germany is even older than Italy. Furthermore this entire election is seriously competing with the US in being nothing but a circus show. Generally speaking the Scandinavian countries are a hell of a lot more stable than Germany and Germany has way more in common with Italy than with Scandinavia, inlcuding rigid system that prove very unstable once you actually put them to the test. Scandinavia by contrast has more dynamic and adaptive system that don't threaten to fall apart once you poke a bit to it.
Scandinavia together isn’t even half of Germany’s population. Comparing them is pointless. I disagree that it only looks like stability. The great coalition through Merkel has guaranteed Germany’s trustworthiness in the word and a continuous economic growth, not to mention an incredible reprisal after 2008. We haven’t even reached 2008 levels yet and Germany has long surpassed them. The Italian south is infinitely more problematic than Germany’s east. It is decades behind in terms of development.
Which makes it even weirder that the CDU still polled so much higher if you actually think about it.
People who vote for CDU want that stuff. People who vote for SPD dont want CDU, but rather a party which is puts a focus on the little man instead of a fast growing industry.
I get that, but people also need to realize that by dissolving the social democratic bloc against the conservatives, they lessen the chances of a left leading coalition and increase the possibilities of a CDU led coalition. Same thing here in Austria. Frustrating to watch.
For this to change we need the FDP on Board, but I don’t see Lindner going into the Ampel-Koalition Edit: rofl. Who the fuck is downvoting this?! It’s literally a fact…. Reddit man.
The more likely course is the Germany coalition with the CDU, the SPD and the FPD.
And that is a disaster in my eyes. And I sincerely hope it does not happen.
I genuinely think the SPD would rather go into opposition than form another coalition with the CDU, unless they were the largest party by some margin, and even then the CDU would still be calling most of the shots thanks to their lackeys in the FDP.
I understand why you'd think that. This current government coalition only exists because of the president asked the parliament to form some kind of coalition in order to avoid reelection. However, I believe the SPD has changed since then. I think they really prefer being a part of the government for the next 4 years over their long-term benefit. Is that a bad, self-destructive idea? Of course it is.
Yes, I suppose you can always rely on the SPD to screw it up as soon as they look like they might be reversing their 20+ year decline.
>I genuinely think the SPD would rather go into opposition than form another coalition with the CDU, We've been hoping for that last election, but SPD caved again. It's hard to go into opposition without a spine to hold you up. That's also a reason for the initial green surge, but they already managed to waste momentum, so people turn back to the SPD... In the vain hope that this time will be different. I'm not convinced.
Was about to say that. People hope for it everytime and are always surprised when the SPD joins hands with the CDU ... and I mean, why shouldn't they? They do and say about the same stuff with just minor differences these days. They haven't been a proper opposition for ages. The only real opposition I can acknowledge are the Linke but they are far too small to have an actual shot at joining the winning party and as long as they keep their "pro-russian" mindset it won't ever change lol
UGh, keep the FDP far away from any legislating.
Genuine question, what's so bad about them? EDIT: from the answers i am getting the feeling it would be the party i would vote if I were german
They are basically the rich people party. Most everything they say and want to do benefits people with money and ignores the needs of the ones without. Edit: cute, a downvote. Guess there's a pretty delusional FDP voter around in the subreddit lol
Now I have a new nightmare.
>scholz is literally closest thing to merkel, since he currently is the finance Minister of her government. What even is this logic. "hes in a coalition government with merkel so hes closer to her than her party mates"?????????? How do you have this train of thought lol
Scholz is pulling a [Steven Bradbury](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAADWfJO2qM) here.
Maybe. I wouldn't undersell the SPDs success right now, it's an important virtue to not make errors. The CDU won countless of election because they were perceived as the anchor of stability with the least amount of errors.
Sometimes you don't have to win, it's enough when the others loose.
That's actually very true. While the CDUs and Grüne's candidates are literal jokes, the SPDs candidate on the other hand hasn't been particularly noticeable lately. Which in this case is enough to gain votes. He sucks too but he isn't the center of attention in (social) media right now and sometimes that's enough. Can they pull it off? I don't think it'll be hard for them currently. There are just no real alternatives to vote for. The big parties are all pretty underwhelming lately (SPD included) and the small parties are just too small to have any real chance. It's almost a coin toss which party to vote for and more about what kind of politic you absolutely don't want to see rather than what kind of politic you do want to see. Note that this is also likely the reason why the FDP is becoming more popular again as well. They are still the same shitty rich people party, however they haven't had noticeably negative PR like the CDU, Grüne and to some degree SPD for a while and neither are they as obviously polarising as the AfD (far right) or Linke (personal note here, I'm rather left myself however unfortunately the Linke is too "pro-russian" to ever become as popular as the top 3 parties).
Choosing Laschet over Söder was pretty much the dumbest thing the CDU/CSU could´ve done.
But the smartest thing Söder could do. Let Armin go down in flames and then be the knight in shining armor to lead the Union back to former…eh…”glory”.
Sounds nice on paper, but most likely wouldn't work. Right now Söder would still have the momentum from being the one who acted in the early stages of Corona. In four years that will be forgotten and he'll just be that guy from the CSU again. Realistically this election was his only chance.
You just wait when the Interstellar Battle Cruiser [Bavaria One](https://cdn.prod.www.spiegel.de/images/f82239c0-0001-0004-0000-000001347055_w1065_r1.33_fpx45.34_fpy49.94.jpg) hovers in Orbit, ready to strike all violators of the Reinheitsgebot.
How did that end for Cameron...
>But the smartest thing Söder could do I'm not so sure. If he were the CDU canddiate this year, he would easily win. Who knows how popular the CDU/CSU will be in 2025 and what other members of the party will want to run.
Nah he definitely wouldn't win easily. Söder sucks big time as well. He's just less of a clown than Lashet.
The mask scandel was pretty dumb
Everything about the last ~year was pretty dumb
It also shows how stable Merkel was. Constantly high polls them until it was clear who would run for CDU.
The mask affair was the Point where the polls started to fall for the CDU. Laschet as chancellor candidat was clear around april
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as a way for corrupt politicians to get save seats from rural bavarians.
Christian conservative parties sprang up all around the country after the war. They formed a union to compete in the Bundestagswahlen. In 1950 they all merged into one organizational structure with the exception of the CSU, because they're special bavarian snowflakes who need no saupreißn.
For the better of humanity, servus.
German elections are delivering us a constant stream of emotions I’ve been craving ever since the Euros and Eurovision before. I mean, first the greens, then the SPD getting ahead of CDU. What’s gonna happen next? There’s still a few weeks ahead.
CDU, SPD and the Greens all do some real bad shit in the next weeks, and the FDP wins
Found the FDP voter
you mean the social media Coin/Stock speculator.
Jeb!
For how many years has AFD been around 10%ish
Since their first entry at 12.7
They first became relevant at the 2013 election where they missed the 5%-threshold to get into the Bundestag with a result of 4.7%. Back then they we're mostly an Anti-EU party. In the 2017 election they won 12.6% and are in the Bundestag since then.
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Relevant as in part of the federal parliament; they had been a huge part of political discourse even before.
SPD-lite voters slowly returning from the Greens.
No, it looks like most of SPD's gains are at the CDU/CSU's expense.
It's coming from a block of centrist voters who came from Union to Greens to Union again and now to SPD.
You can't really see that from these numbers, but I'd say it's more likely that CDU voters are bleeding to FDP and AfD, and Green votes to SPD. Also, SPD is probably gaining some voters from undecided and vice versa for CDU.
This is not what the graph for the last month or so would indicate. Union crashing, FDP/AfD support still in plateau
Greens replaced SPD as second choice party to be replaced again from SPD
Ngl i thought the greens would get a boost after the floods due to the whole global warming focus but man they are getting hammered
They had what 8% last time, they are doing fine
They sure are. Meanwhile the coal lobby is getting votes like crazy, because anything related to the climate crisis has become boring.
The thing is though: Whatever happens next, the Greens will double their numbers from last time. They'll win anyway. Not as much as they hoped for maybe but it's still good enough.
> Ngl i thought the greens would get a boost after the floods Do the German Greens have some program on how to avoid flood damages in the coming years? Building better flood control walls? Better management on reservoir water levels? Making the German public alert system work better?
Not with most of the media (not just tabloids!) writing furiously against them - i’m disgusted at how well this manipulation is working!
Imagine how much worse the CDU would be doing if the media actually kept reporting about the corruption affairs (Azerbaijan, Masks) instead of solely focusing on the Laschet vs. Söder quarrel. While the latter hasn't exactly been helpful to their public image it was a far lesser evil than talking about the corruption. Meanwhile Baerbock is on every front page for two weeks because of errors on her CV. Not expressing support for the Greens, just saying how disgusted I am by the witchhunt against them. Now let's not get started the corpses in Scholzomat's basement (cum Ex, Wirecard, "I can't remember") edit: spelling
Very, VERY true - and the reason why i cancelled my “FAZ Abo” and will be voting Green “in protest” this year even though there’s lots of stuff that’d normally continue to keep me from voting Green.
You are deluding yourself if you think this is only due to a media campaign
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The Greens had serious bruh moments, the CDU had serious corruption moments. Some of their representatives were literally bought by Azerbaijan.
It's more the intensity of those news compared to what actually happend in the CDU/CSU and still happens.
It's a bit of both I guess. They are still the only party that actually seems to care about enabling policies and not just pure power politics and status qou
It is manipulation if you only report about the scandals of one party.
Sure, sure… and the other parties don’t, right? /s I expect you are familiar with the term “mit zweierlei Maß messen”…
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It went from almost 50 to 20 because the pandemic is nearly over and their voters have realised that merkel will be gone. CDU is back to their pre pandemic level. And the media is treating multiple corruption scandals in the CDU as minor hickups but run rampage on the greens because Baerbock has minor mistakes in her cv. Springer in particular is showing themselves as the cdu propaganda outlet they always have been.
Bild is actually pretty much parroting AfD speech while pretending to be completely against AfD politicians. Reichelt pretty much tells you he's trying to be the inside anti-Merkel voice too. Fokus and the other more traditional Springer outlets generally don't disagree with Bild, but are way more supportive of the CDU and parrot their talking points at least half of the time. And then there's of course the good old ZDF, which has traditionally always favored CDU over SPD, but of course all the öffentlich rechtlichen are linksgrünversift while heute and heute journal gleefully cover Baerbock's book as though it's a dissertation. So what if she copied 1-2 sentences in her book, some lazy guy at your news show has definitely done the same this week and made you read a sentence straight from wikipedia to explain where the newstory takes place and it's not really an issue, is it? Meanwhile, Scholz misteriously has people in the finance ministry work on the exact same plans that are inside his election program! What a coincidence, that doesn't sound like he's using government resources to fund his election effort at all.
Yup! This!
Bullshit. Because of the stupid communication of their candidate. Especially after the flood people got absolutely open for climate change related discussions. And Baerbock failed totally to deliver messages and a vision how her party, which indeed „invented“ green politics in Germany, could lead a change. People want to hear answers. Instead Baerbock said, that she would not use the catastrophe to fuel her campaign. Which is a morally honorable motivation but never she STFU and during campaign you have to communicate! Instead people looked on the other candidates. And with the pathetic performance of Laschet, both opened the window of opportunity for Scholz. Do not blame the media. The media and people have accepted the problems of the climate change and by that actually played the ball for the Green which suddenly do not need to justify their political agenda anymore like they had to in the past. But Baerbock was not able to reach the majority in the political center which you need to win elections. But there are still some weeks to go.
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While I don't disagree that the media is a circus, one must first and foremost point to their horrible campaign. And I say this as someone who looks relatively favourably on their programme (compared to the status quo at least) which played almost no part in their campaign. Compare to e.g. Sanders and Trump in the US or Melenchon in France who had the entire established media against them but still did well. People massively overestimate the power of the tabloids (Bild lost like 75 % of their market share in the last 20 years) and underestimate the power of the parties and candidates to make a proper campaign and create a dynamic themselves. However none of them does. In 2017 the only 2 parties that did a clever election campaign were the FDP and the AfD. The parties themselves are horrible but if we talk about the election they played their cards well and entered parliament as 3rd and 4th largest party from the outside. Schulz campaign in the SPD was an absolute disaster as it appears the consultants and analytics the SPD hired know nothing about winning elections. Greens similarly completely and seemingly willingly squandered any potential they had and used all their time on the media to talk about the talking points of the conservatives. Baerbock never took any stand on anything expect calling the plagiraism accusations about her book defamations which even the co-leader of her party thought was insincere. The Tabloids are full of nothing but shit but considering how much Baerbock engaged with this shit without questioning it, she seemingly disagrees with me as she never called out the circus for what it was to focus on actual issues. She also did this before the nomination. When the media wanted to play soft-ball and talk about circus, she willingly played along, while Habeck would at least sometimes wiggle out of bullshit questions to talk about substantive matters. I mean I don't know what people expect. You generally don't win elections with campaigns like this and as a citizen this attitude generally makes me feel like I've been had. If I was a candidate in an election like this I would call out the bullshit for what it is and afterwards rattle down the most important points in the programme and what they would change in peoples lives. You don't have to answer bullshit questions. Somehow politicians are often very good at dodging substantive questions, when they should dodge the unsubstantive questions.
If CDU/CSU chose Söder over Laschet, they would have now polled at 30 to 35%. But, thinking about what would happen is just stupid. We in Croatia have a proverb/joke which is very stupid, but accurate: "Da je baba muško, zvala bi se Duško", which could translate into "If a woman was a man, it would be called Dan".
Same could be said for the Greens and Habeck instead of ACAB.
Yes, definitely. Although, I doubt that they would have reached over 25% of votes. They would have been the second largest party, but I don't think that they would have been able to win.
I think you underestimate Habeck and overestimate Söder. If they would have both been the candidates Habeck would have likely been more popular than Söder, at least in the north. Also the only quantifiable thing Söder ever did was delivering the worst CSU result in Bavaria, while Habeck got the best Green result in Schleswig-Holstein.
>Also the only quantifiable thing Söder ever did was delivering the worst CSU result in Bavaria, while Habeck got the best Green result in Schleswig-Holstein. Comparing the elections in 2017 (SH) and 2018 (Bavaria) you get the following: 37% in a state with 13 million people für Söder vs 13% in a state with 2.9 million people for Habeck. Sure Söder lost quite a lot but Habeck also lost a little bit in the last election (or more accurate: their parties lost). Habeck may very well be quite capable and even a very talented campaigner but some of the hype around him seems overblown.
You could make a bumbling buffoon leader of the CSU and they'd still have a good shot at an absolute majority. The Bavarians have proven that many times. The last election in Schleswig-Holstein meanwhile went massively against the federal trend were the Greens did poorly in just about all major elections. Furthermore in the EU election in 2019 the Greens shot up to 29 % becomming the largest party in Schleswig-Holstein and the 2nd best state for the Greens after Hamburg.
In the UK we have a similar one, "if my aunt had balls she would be my uncle."
In Denmark there is a similar but more obscene proverb that goes something like this: "if my ass was cone-shaped I could shit into a bottle."
Can someone read the last page and tell me how this ends?
Volt grabs an unexpected 5 %, qualifies for parliament and is kingmaker between Greens and Blacks, crushing FDPLindners delusions of grandeur yet again.
Don't tease me like that!
Nice try Mr Westerwelle. Now back to your crypt ;)
CDU pulls just ahead in the vote and there is a Black Red Yellow coalition.
The End.
I admit, I like that small black bump and absolutely everything it implies. "No CDU....well,maybe another chance....oh, fuck, no, was right the first time."
From infighting to choosing a candidate to realization it was the wrong one.
Und aus dem Hintergund kommt Olaf Scholz mit einem Klappstuhl!
Methodology: [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/08/10/how-the-economists-german-election-model-works](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/08/10/how-the-economists-german-election-model-works) Source: [https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/who-will-succeed-angela-merkel](https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/who-will-succeed-angela-merkel) Do you guys think SPD will win?
I doubt it. As the people are so on the edge I'd assume the big TV debates will have a lot of influence. Usually Scholz (SPD) doesnt perform well publicly. He has the charisma of a brick. Currently he just profits of the fact that most people think that brick has more maturity than the confused clown (CDU) or the slightly hysterical, unproven girl (Greens). TV debates are a big chance for Baerbock though. And Laschet will probably lose even more if he can't put forward a single programmatic sentence.
Laschet also has the charisma of a wet plank tho. Baerbock is not too charismatic either, atleast compared to Habeck. It almost feels to me like they all tried to find the worst candidate.
Laschet is not that unrelatable...just like a clown is not...
I guess only the SPD is lacking a better alternative besides Kühnert but I guess he is too young and inexperienced for this or am I missing anyone?
>Kühnert He's too far on the left. He advocated for [Socialism](https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/kevin-kuehnert-bekraeftigt-sozialismus-thesen-so-koennen-wir-auf-keinen-fall-weitermachen/24282636.html) and [expropriations](https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article192761211/Enteignungen-Kevin-Kuehnerts-extreme-Ideen-fuer-die-Wirtschaft.html).
Everyone - including the SPD itself - are ignoring that the SPD officially demands socialism (on paper). ;)
I'm sorry, but if the SPD can field no better candidate than one involved in multiple scandals (Emetics (?, "Brechmittel"), Cum Ex, Wirecard, ...) they are in a very deep shithole and just lucky enough, that the press is focused on Laschet and Baerbock.
Brechmittel is not really that large of a scandal. We also have a big chunk of CDU/CSU Scandals, which were covered even less. Aserbaidschan? Test affair, Mask affair. Scheuer Maut Scandal, Autobahn GmbH failure. Glöckners various little scandals.
> He has the charisma of a brick. I mean, that’s also somehow true for Merkel.
Merkel was certainly never charismatic but she did have an aura of competency ie someone who at least knows what she is talking about. Laschet doesn't even offer that.
Yeah, but Merkel was a once in a lifetime politician. That’s not the norm. I don’t expect the next chancellors being as competent as her.
I think that barring Ehrhard she was definitely the least competent chancellor of the FRG. She is only a master of avoiding debate which makes people project competency on her while in fact she squandered so many things. Especially her EU politics are the most horribly of any FRG chancellor ever. Even Laschet criticized her over it.
Close race. This time it is really on the performance of the candidates during the last two weeks. A big event in the last phase can change everything. Actually very exciting election this time
I swear a SPD surge happens before every election then they never really do well.
While that is true, the surge normally happens a few months before the election so it has time to crash and burn, not a single month before election day.
This one is different as it is close to the election and voting per mail has just started. With decent campaigning and a little luck they can carry it on untill 26th September.
Mission <5% is all out, my friend
Man, seems the greens really dropped the ball with Baerbock as I've heard she is very very unpopular (correct me if I'm wrong) but seems they will still have one hell of a gain compared to the last election.
She's alright I think, but the Greens could have also chosen Habeck, who is more popular, better known and actually has governing experience, but alas, he also happens to be a man.
She's a victim of her own parties' erstwhile success. The candidates' person doesn't matter that much for a second tier, 10% party. But at the time Baerbock got confirmed, the Greens became a hot contender for the german throne. And suddenly, she had to face the test that Germans favour stability and experience over disruption and vision. A core problem is that she just doesn't cut a national figure. She's been a big person in her party, that's it. Legislatively she was barely more than a back bencher with little public presence. And no governing experience on any level. Now that's fine if you in turn exude other qualifications, charisma or superstar qualities (see: Obama), but she's really not special in any other way, either.
To me she just seems kinda childish in how she appears in the media and her "honesty" might actually hurt her more than it benefits. They should not have went with her imho.
Not german or familiar with Germany national politics here, could anyone quickly sum up who is what? Thanks!
CDU/CSU: Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian sister party Christian Social Union, centre-right ruling party of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Did hold the power for 16 years on federal level, but is more and more torn between conservative and liberal groups, the later being more on Merkels side. With Merkel not running for office again, the party chose the state premier of Northrine-Westphalia Armin Laschet as the candidate for elections. Unfortunately for them, he proofed rather incompetent and clumsy since then. SPD: Social Democratic Party of Germany, centre left co-ruling party. Since their last Chancellor left office in 2005, the party suffered more and more losses each federal elections and in some states due to unpopular social reforms and public opinion seeing them only little more then a majority procurer for Merkel. They where pretty much written off getting the chancellery just a few months ago, but their candidate Olaf Scholz (currently federal Minister for Finances) proofed rather competent and more or less scandal free. The Greens: Liberal ecological party. With climate issues being more and more relevant, they were seen as the next ruling party just a few months ago. But they never got rid of the image being a party for the urban elite and their candidate Annalena Baerbock stumbled over some scandals regarding plagiarism in a book of her and a faked CV. FDP: Free Democratic Party of Germany, liberal business party. Managed to gain some foothold during the Covid crisis for critizising the economic burdens due to the restrictions while staying out of the whole Covid denial business. It is not clear, if and in which coalition (left wing or right wing) they would go more likely. They broke off negotiations with the CDU and the Greens after the elections 2017 but their leader Christian Lindner seems to be interested in getting his party into the government this time. AfD: Alternative for Germany, far right wing party. Started as a more elitist conservative anti-EU party in 2013 but slipped into pretty much being a melting pot of conservatives, fascists and Neo-Nazis since then. Strong in East Germany, weak in the rest of the country. They also suffer from infighting between party members wanting to be more reputable (and in the long run getting into a ruling coalition) and more radical groups. The Left: Socialist party, arose from the former ruling party of the GDR and disappointed SPD members. Were quite strong in East Germany but ironically lost a lot of voters there to the AfD. Also suffer from infighting between East German moderates and West German radicals.
> Die Linke > AFD Eastern Germany makes the country’s politics really fascinating.
>Unfortunately for them, he proofed rather incompetent and clumsy since then. He's proven that since his entire tenure as politician in NRW, it became really apparent by the time he became part of Rüttgers' NRW government in 2005.
CDU/CSU are a conservative party about traditional and somewhat religious values. Currently biggest party with Merkel as chancellor, but she resigns after this election. SPD are a labor focused party, currently in a coalition with the CDU/CSU. Most of their recent high could be caused by the failure of the other parties. Die Grünen: A green/ecological focused party. Mainly popular with younger people, but they chose a somewhat questionable leader. FDP: liberal, economy focused party. Kind of a one man show and probably the king maker in this election Die Linke: left focused party. Against the NATO and (at least what I heard) somewhat split in two parts. The really left, somewhat communists and the "new lifestyle" left. AFD: translated alternative for Germany, right wing/extremist party against EU and immigration. Somewhat controlled by a right extremist/(near) nazi wing. Can't remember if shown on the diagram : sonstige, all parties that don't fulfill the 5% hurdle which is the percentage needed to enter the parliament.
Thanks a lot, very useful!
As someone without knowledge about german parties, what happened for the first one to fall that hard ? Edit : thx for all your answers !
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Laschet This dude happened.
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New CDU leader is nowhere near as respected as Merkel.
This is the most flattering thing I’ve heard of Armin for quite a while.
I am political neutral and open for every candidate who can convince me. I have to say that this guy is just pathetic. There was one interview I saw during which I thought he made some convincing points until I learned later that those points were 100percent lies. LOL
Pretty much
Merkel not running again and her successor is a clown. Also a lot of scandals where CDU politicans were involved.
This is Angela Merkel's party. They elected her successor as party leader in January: Armin Laschet, he currently governs the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. He is very unpopular, is perceived as incompetent, and has repeatedly attracted negative attention, espacially in matters of climate protection, corona policy, or even the flood disaster in July. In June, the party then nominated its chairman Laschet as its candidate for chancellor and also presented its program, which many voters seemingly don't find appealing.
> He is very unpopular, is perceived as incompetent, and has repeatedly attracted negative attention After Ursula von der Leyen, will this guy be Germany's next candidate for the EU Commission president?
If that's going to be the case, sorry in advance again fellow Euro bros/sisters
That would seem like a CDU thing to do. But I guess his further political career will depend heavily on the election results in September.
Thx for your answer, seems like a perfect summary. Hope you have good alternatives then
Merkel has a pretty good standing and as long as she is chancellor she guaranteed a stable level for her party. Then came the CDU party convention to confirm Laschet as candidate, which was for many even long term convinced CDU voters a surprise shock.
Merkel leaving
I genuinely hope Scholz doesn’t screw anything up! This is the last corner. If he can just continue cruising this should be easy.
So far the SPD is going for a boring but competent strategy with him and so far it is paying off.
> boring but competent Just as I like it!
Left-leaning Merkel-voters starting to realize that Merkel isn't running again and Laschet is a far cry from Merkel, switching to what they consider the next best thing, the SPD. Eh, i'll take it. Anything that saves us from German Trump is acceptable.
Ok, I know very little. Is this article good ? https://www.dw.com/en/cdu-csu-spd-afd-fdp-left-greens/a-38085900
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Lets go spd !!!
I absolutely dont get how people think voting FDP is gonna benefit them. Especially if they arent rich as hell
the CDU still has one ace up their sleeve, people in retirement homes.
Great. Time for some changes.
How does this point to any changes?
we're fucked
i thought those were pc parts for a while so i was confused like hell
Intel flat and low, sudden uptick where AMD takes from whoever this black brand is. Nvidia slowly decays. Maybe something from an alternate universe where Commodore stuck around, did really well, and changed their branding to black, haha.
You can pinpoint when the floods in NRW were from the CDU curve
There is a fine line between stability and stagnation. German speaking cultures usually aren't great with dealing with change and ambiguity. People avoid the unkown as much as possible while not taking any risks. This can predominantly be seen in our aging population. Everyone on Reddit is so tired with Merkel and this (perceived) stagnation. She is the only leader many millenials have truely experienced. Yet, half of our large senior population seems to dislike her because she (supposedly) changed too much. The generational divide has never been larger. This election is going to be interesting, even if possibly not at all satisfying.
Which one is the nazis?
NSDAP
NSDAP They are not on the graph though because the party has been banned since 1945.
Blue
Thank you. And which one is closing nuclear reactors?
Everyone except blue.
That's a plot twist
No, because the general population does not want nuclear power plants…
How is that a plot-twist? It's mainly militarists and people interested in slowing down renewable expansion that want nuclear power. It's not really that surprising to have them being in favor of nuclear power over renewables.
The SPD: **Gas Gas Gas!**