So that being said, Sunday night was a good night to be a German conservative. Almost a great night. In the vote for the Chancellorship, Angela Merkel pounded her SDP opponent, Peer Steinbrück. Given that Steinbrück comes from his party's "business" wing and that he was close to the banks and the bankers, it should not have been that surprising. If you want a conservative why not pick one who claims to be one in the first place? Merkel would make at least as much sense.
Monday morning the newspapers were even talking of a triumphant night for Merkel.
Well it almost was.
Except for one rather unfortunate detail.
Back to Germany's amazing proportional representation voting system. And back to its rule (designed to keep the extremists out) that a party must win 5% of the vote to be elected to the German Parliament - the Bundestag.
Merkel's CDU, along with its Bavarian sister party, the CSU, won 41.2% of the vote. Between them they won 5 seats short of the number needed to win an absolute majority. That has not been done, I believe, since the days of Adenauer.
Last time round, this might not have been a serious issue. Their usual government partner - the notably more conservative still FDP - won 15% of the vote in 2009. The problem being since that they were not capable of persuading the CDU/CSU to agree to the tax cuts that they promised their voters, and spent most of the four years looking like a party that was totally at odds with itself. Down from 15% to 4.7% in four years. Less than 5% of the vote, say goodbye to the Bundestag.
The new conservative party, the AfD, which was pushing an agenda for getting Germany out of the Euro also got that percentage. A one-issue bucket party - do not expect them to go much further.
Along with the Pirate party (only 2.2% of the vote - their rise in the regional parliaments in the past couple of years failed to go anywhere in the national elections, which given the emptiness of their agenda should not be a surprise), they also failed to qualify for the Bundestag.
In fact only four parties did. Apart from the CDU/CSU, the SDP (Social Democrats), the German Green Party (die Grünen - whose vote also collapsed from where they were when in the regional elections even quite recently to 8.4%, when 16-17 looked possible only a few weeks ago), and die Linke (the offshoot of the former East German Communist Party with a few renegades who left the SDP as it was no longer radical enough).
To rule, the CDU/CSU will have to form an alliance with one of these three. Natural allies they are not, any of them. The thought of the CDU/CSU and die Linke forming an alliance is hysterically funny. Even if they were the two parties to gain votes at this election (the public will usw). Won't happen .... This year, next year, in the next decade, in the next century .....
And while those with short memories can recall the Grand Coalition of 2006-2009 (CDU/CSU and SDP), that looks for the moment unlikely as both Steinbrück and the party leader, Sigmar Gabriel (from the opposite populist wing of the party to Steinbrück) have both ruled it out. Stress though "for the moment". There is also the fact to remember that with the 2006-2009 government, the two parties finished almost neck and neck, so there was a fairly equal division of representation. That will not be the case this time as there is summat like 15% difference in the vote and the SDP would be the junior partner. Stress again "for the moment".
As for die Grünen, if they had polled their likely number of votes (in the 12-13% category), then maybe they would agree. As it is they would get very little that they wanted, and would find themselves a bit like the Liberal Democrats in the UK at the moment - forced to support a government whose philosophy they do not like and lose support among their base. Yes, of course they could refuse to agree once in a while when it mattered, which would probably force a general election where they could get hammered even worse than this time.
So ....
Here we are in limbo.
A minority government is not likely. Another election? The CDU/CSU would like the idea, and maybe the FDP might get 5% this time - so somebody is going to have give way.
Expect to hear "for the good of the country" uttered a few times in German, and a bit of humble pie being eaten, somewhere along the line. Some times one slice of bread is better than none at all, even if you would like the full loaf.
The one other alternative, some of you might have worked out, would be a coalition between the SDP, die Grünen and die Linke. Well as much as 8.6% of the voters may like the idea of die Linke in power, hardly anyone else in the country does, and there may be a few rewards for even considering the idea next time round as well - and not rewards of a positive nature.
So on with the political horse-trading. This might take some time, so don't hold your breath. The world will not fall apart in the mean time. Even when the world's powerful economies hold an indecisive election, the world continues to turn. And some of us have become cynical enough to believe that the world will not improve no matter what happens. Things could get worse? They probably will, it is only how quickly that is the question that is currently in play!
Postscript (January 2nd, 2022). I think that referring to the AfD now as a conservative party would be polite, to say the least. Ultranationalist and everything that involves is where they lie these days, as well as being Covid (and vaccination) deniers😲, which sums them up!
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