Elections in Germany update:No turn to the right, after all!

Well, interesting nobody from us post this before.

Unfortunaly the far rights gains many percent. The NPD has now 12 seats in the parliament of Saarland. First time since 1968.

I think, if the voters want protest against the goverment they should just not go to vote and not vote for the far right parties.

Well, it seems -when we can believe today's polls- the trend is now again upwrds for the SPD and down for the CDU (especially up for Schröder and deep down for Merkel).

Yes, Thok, nobody posted this.
But I think, not many on A2K are interested in this ... and those, who are, already knew it :wink:



nimh

You are where here

Germany
Germany seems to have joined the trend of other western nations, whose populations are becoming more polarized into left and right politics and very few centrists left. This is not a good thing. Its the center that encourages compromises and bi-partisan cooperation and agreement.

BBB

No, I wasn't there this time! I had actually registered to go help out with our stand there, blow up balloons, hand out leaflets and everything like the last two times - but I was ill the past two days, and I felt too weak to go out that long! So I had to mail and say I wasnt coming ...

My dad didnt go either! He went shopping for furniture in Rotterdam, I can't believe it ... 66 and finally sold out ... :wink:

i read the reports on the german laender elections in the on-line issues of 'spiegel' and 'die welt'. i have to admit that the results are not pleasant, but they don't seem to be completely unexpected. i picked up the june 19 issue of 'the economist' at the library this morning. while it is not exactly up-to-date i like to read it about once a month because i think it does give me an understanding of what's going on in europe(even though it's a little to the right). they had a good commentary on the elections for the european parliament under the heading 'a plague on all their houses'. from what i understand, the voter turnout was not very good and particularly poor in the 'new' member states of the european community. the opinion of the economist is that the new constitution is is just too longwinded and incomprehensible for the citizens. also they think that many citizens have become very dis-satisfied with the brussels administration. perhaps the leaders of the european countries have to come to a better agreement on how to 'unite the new europe' ? what are the chances of a truly 'united europe' emerging ? hbg

I just heard tonight - there were 200,000 people there! That's huge ... last year, I think we had only 30 or 50 thousand. 200k on the Museum Square and another 25k on the Dam, I think!

Returning to the topic of the thread, in (East-)Germany they started a series of "Monday demonstrations" over late summer I think, no - against the government's Harz policies? A loaded name - the "Monday demonstrations" were the weekly manifestations of escalating numbers that brought the GDR regime down in '89, right?

Hi Hamburger,

we had some good discussion on the European Parliament elections at the "Following the EU" thread back then, more or less from around here onwards.

That's correct,against the Harz (IV) policies.

But the Monday demonstrations stopped last week.

nimh : thanks for pointing me in the right direction. hbg ... time to close shop, more tomorrow

Apropos, today is the 14th anniversary of the reunification.

later recognized, typo

Congratulations to the Germans.

May all walls and fences that violently keep people from their friends and kin be ridden from this world ...

Korea would be a nice start.

Thanks.





You are right. I agree.

But folks - here, the trend is for the left to move to the centre and centre right - and for the right to move farther right - that is, our old moderate left now stand where the moderate right did - almost!!! - before.

Has this happened in Germany???? Is your left really centrist, now, I guess I am asking?

How far right is your right?

The Social-Democrtas (the "esteblished" left, liberals, as our US-American friends would call them), is now a more les centrist, with a small leftish wing left (mostly just the normal party members like e.g. me) and a smalle rightish wing (most the few, who are governing).

The center thus went a bit more to the right.

Our right has always been far right - extreme far right is unconstutional.

Oh, and yes, of course not to forget the The Green.

They've established on the more left site.
Since there members are socially established as well, thus don't have no problems with social cuts, they are now THE for those, who usually would vote for our rightish liberals (F.D.P. - "Thomas' party") as well and eligible.

Walter has the inside story of course, but my impression from the outside is that the Socialdemocrats have moved distinctly to the right since the 80s and early 90s, as Socialdemocrats have everywhere (Neue Mitte and all). But also that they've gone distinctly less far in embracing the logic of liberal market economics than the Dutch Labour Party has - not to mention, of course, Tony Blair's New Labour. German politics is still referred to here by both left and right as an example of "stagnation", compared to the far-reaching liberalisation policies practiced here by the left-right "purple" government in the 90s.

On the other hand, in Germany Angela Merkel's Christian-Democrats seem a veritable haven of benign, reasonable centrism compared to the tough, raucous line adopted nowadays by the right-wing here. It's like they are where we were under the "purple" government, with left and right both embracing and pushing budget cuts, privatisation etc, but otherwise remaining in a kind of centrist, low-key common eh, discourse. Here, the right-wing is two parties, the Chr-Dems and the right-wing liberals, and while the Chr-Dems are now profiling themselves as the "tough doctors" (we will accept no compromise, for your own good), the right-wing liberals have adopted the firebrand rhetorics of the Fortuynists (notably on asylum-seekers, integration and the myriad dangers of Islam). They've also adopted Fortuyn's defiant style: confronted with the announcement of the demonstrations, their leader Zalm said: "I'm looking forward to it, I'll wave at them from our window".

So yeah. Germany politically now looks to me somewhat like Holland in the 90s. The left party moves to the right, while the right party moves to or remains somewhat in the center. Here, too, that created space first on the far left, where the Greens flourished and then the Socialists boomed (although both, in turn, are much more liberal than the smaller, truly far left parties of the 80s). And later, as you'll know, it showed up the newly created political space on the right, when Fortuyn burst onto the scene. So I'm not surprised to see these results, especially when you realise that Germany still lacks the economic boom that kept much of the lurking discontent under wraps here in the mid-/late-nineties.

That's an outsider's view.

<reading along>






on the note of the 14th anniversary - hamburger and mrs. hamburger were in Germany that day. i wonder how they recall it.

A friend of mine-- a recovered alcoholic who hasn't had a drink in more than 20 years -- was in Berlin on reunification day. He had gone over for the specific purpose of being a witness to history. He told me afterwards it took every ounce of his will-power not to get roaring drunk that day.

)Indeed, I see Angela Merkel's Christian-Democrats different to nimh.
And Stoiber's Christian-Socialists (the Bavarian part of the CDU), are sometimes more to left than the CDU. (Although generally, they are more conservative.)

The Social-Democrats didn't really move a lot in the 80's and early 90's, I think - all started about ten years ago, IMHO.

Stagnation? More steps back.
Take for instance the the student organisations of the parties. Themes, the established left is aiming for more are about the very as in the 70's ... but in the program of the conservative/right RCDS at those times. (Okay, it was chaotic then - and there, at universities :wink: