Our Conservatives, or their Conservatives? Also, I had no idea Angela Merkel was from a centre-right party. She's the German Jacob Rees-Mogg. Man, losing at World War 2 really is the key to having a great country nowadays.
I don't think BoJo is shaking in his boots at the prospect of the German Conservatives getting bombed out with 19 percent of the vote.
Angela Merkel's secret to her longevity in office and being reelected three times has been what is called asymmetric demobilisation. In short, you demobilise supporters of your political opponents or opposing parties by adopting just enough of their agendas as your own to give few swing voters a reason to vote against you, but also not alienate too many of your own core voter base. Angela Merkel ended Germany's reliance on nuclear power in favour of renewable energy after the Fukushima disaster, although the Conservatives had traditionally always been nuclear-friendly. She also oversaw and actively supported the enactment of gay marriage, which was outrageously progressive for a party founded on principles of devout Catholicism. The result was that she became post-war Germany's most widely respected politician, and by a wide margin. But it made life difficult for anybody attempting to run against her during the last 16 years.
>Germany's Social Democrats narrowly won Sunday's national election, projected results showed, and claimed a "clear mandate" to lead a government for the first time since 2005 and to end 16 years of conservative-led rule under Angela Merkel.
>The centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) were on track for 26.0% of the vote, ahead of 24.5% for Merkel's CDU/CSU conservative bloc, projections for broadcaster ZDF showed, but both groups believed they could lead the next government. With neither major bloc commanding a majority, and both reluctant to repeat their awkward "grand coalition" of the past four years, the most likely outcome is a three-way alliance led by either the Social Democrats or Merkel's conservatives.
>Attention will now shift to informal discussions followed by more formal coalition negotiations, which could take months, leaving Merkel in charge in a caretaker role. Scholz and Laschet both said they would aim to strike a coalition deal before Christmas. "Germany will end up with a rather weak chancellor who will struggle to get behind any kind of ambitious fiscal reform at the EU level," said Naz Masraff at political risk consultancy Eurasia.
>>94718 It's almost as if functioning multi-party democracy results in multiple parties with significant vote shares.
Given the number of seats the Union and the SPD are going to get, the government is either going to be grand coalition or coalition with both the Greens and FDP. Nobody wants to work with AfD and Die Linke don't have enough support to be worth anything.
>>94718 This is what happens when you count the votes differently. You get multiple parties all with ~20% of the vote and they have to form a coalition, meaning that lots of views are represented in government and the voters can vote for anyone they like and still have a chance at being listened to. The downside is you don't get such clear leadership from one party, but that's hardly any downside at all and this sounds like paradise to me.
I think the Linke is in regional coalition governments in some German states. Which is a bit odd since they are essentially descended from the East German communist party. The AFD appear to be Germany's BNP, which makes it a bit unsettling that they got over ten percent of the vote.
>>94723 The downside is that coalition building will now involve backroom deals with party officials. That's pretty much what we have within the two parties but it still smells and will involve constant back-and-forth deal making between one of the leading parties and whomever they get into bed with.
I doubt we'll see a grand-coalition, the last time the SPD and CDU went into government it was disastrous for the junior partner.
>>94725 They're Germanies UKIP at best. The German BNP is NPD.
>>94726 >The downside is that coalition building will now involve backroom deals with party officials.
As opposed to our system, where coalition building happens through backroom deals with party officials.
Mr. Laschet appears to still claim the chancellory although he lost. I guess at 1.7 percent behind the SPD, their win isn't as clear cut as they had hoped. But still, how would this be possible, beyond one man's delusions?
I find it especially endearing that the Germans get so creative with their party colours. A CDU, FDP and Greens coalition would be known as a Jamaica coalition, whereas SPD, CDU and Greens together would be a Kenya coalition.
>They're Germanies UKIP at best. The German BNP is NPD.
I understand the AFD has decidedly more of a far-right and racist bent though than UKIP. The NPD seems to be even more right wing than that, with its party platform more or less openly calling for a return to pre-1945 Germany.
>>94732 I can understand names like the traffic-light coalition, because everybody knows what colours are on traffic lights. And my guess at the colours of the Jamaican flag turned out to be correct too. But who knows the colours of the Kenyan flag off by heart?
>>94733 If you know anything about flags, you can guess the Pan African colours of red/green/black, and then if you know anything about Kenya you'll remember it's got a big fuck off shield with white bits.
Personally I like it that the people naming these things are expecting a little bit of awareness from people.
>Personally I like it that the people naming these things are expecting a little bit of awareness from people.
The woke lot would probably lose their shit here in Britain if we did a Tory, Lib Dem and Greens coalition government and called it Jamaica. Cultural appropriation, and that.
From my visits to Germany in the Before times, I can say that people are still a bit more carefree (ignorant?) and less steeped in wokeness than here in Britain. I wouldn't say you'll be shocked what still goes in Germany, but it's something you will definitely notice.
>if we did a Tory, Lib Dem and Greens coalition government
EDIT: Of course that would be blue, yellow and green in our case, but you probably get my point. Ours would probably be called a Brazil or Rwanda coalition.
