Leadership of the Greens will hold a joint speech 30 minutes after Merkel, FDP' chief Roesler will follow an hour after them.
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Another German President Going Down
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Originally posted by Doktor View PostHis health suddenly worsened or he did it for political reasons.
Originally posted by Doktor View PostHave you noticed your post #?
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Kohl is still "under investigation", right?
Maybe Wulff is hoping for such "efficiency" in his case, too.
I must say that if he is hoping for that, then he is delusional as he is not Kohl ;)No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
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- Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere has announced he won't be available as a candidate.
- Klaus Töpfer, another possible CDU candidate that might appeal to the opposition (former environmental minister under Kohl), will be prevented by the FDP opposing him as a candidate.
- Wolfgang Schäuble and Ursula von der Leyen will not be acceptable to the opposition. Both SPD and Greens have publicly stated that they won't accept any current federal cabinet member (which also shoots down de Maiziere anyway).
Possible candidates - other than Gauck - could be [Norbert Lammert], president of the lower house (CDU) or [Andreas Voßkuhle], president of the Supreme Court (independent, nominated by SPD for current post).
Voßkuhle would have to ask interim president Seehofer to dismiss him from his office first though - since he may not be elected to any other constitutional organ while being part of the Supreme Court. Lammert would just have to declare he's stepping down; both him (as president of the lower house) and Seehofer (as president of the upper house) "appointed after election" by anyone, just elected to their respective offices.
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Both Lammert and Voßkuhle have followed de Maiziere in turning down a possible candidacy. Supposedly the two were the favourites of FDP and CSU.
There are some vague claims that Gauck won't be running either.
Possible names being traded right now:- Jutta Limbach (SPD)
- professor of civilian law
- former president of the Federal Supreme Court (1994-2002)
- unlikely due to age (78)
- was on the name list for possible candidacy in 2004
- Richard Schröder (SPD)
- protestant theologist (note: strong anti-atheist, pro-religious-protection)
- former judge at the constitutional court of Brandenburg state (1993-2009)
- CEO of the (nonpartisan) German National Trust
- member of the federal National Ethics Council
- was on the name list for possible candidacy in 1998
- Hans-Gert Pöttering (CDU):
- only constant member of the European Parliament since its first direct election in 1979 (i.e. for 33 years now)
- former chairman of the European People's Party (1999-2007)
- head of the (CDU) Konrad Adenauer Trust
- Wolfgang Huber (independent, SPD member until 1993)
- protestant theologist, former bishop (1993-2009), reformist
- member of the federal National Ethics Council
- was on the name list for possible candidacy in 2010
- Klaus von Dohnanyi (SPD)
- active SPD politician at state and federal level since 1969
- current head of federal minimum wage commission
- unlikely due to age (84); nephew of Dietrich Bonhoeffer
- former CEO of Infratest survey institute (one of the two leading polling institutions in Germany)
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- Jutta Limbach (SPD)
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Also, the Hannover district attorney has formally launched criminal proceedings against Wulff today.
The federal parliament administration already declared yesterday that it considers Wulff no longer immune against criminal investigations (and hence the application to remove it by the district attorney now void).
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FDP board wants Gauck now. CDU and CSU against.
If the SPD and Greens and now FDP voted for Gauck that would still be only 612+-1 votes for him - or in other words, not enough for an absolute majority in the 1240-seat Federal Assembly.
Current Federal Assembly makup:- CDU : 395 to 397 votes* / 31.85% to 32.01%
- SPD : 329 to 330 votes* / 26.53% to 26.61%
- Greens : 146 to 147 votes* / 11.77% to 11.85%
- FDP : 136 votes / 10.97%
- Left : 125 votes / 10.08%
- CSU : 91 votes / 7.34% (Bavarian Conservatives)
- FWV : 10 votes / 0.81% (Free Voters Union, conservative)
- NPD : 3 votes / 0.24% (Neonazis)
- Pirates : 2 votes / 0.16%
- SSW : 1 vote / 0.08% (Party for Danish Minority in Germany, left-leaning)
* one seat to be decided by luck of draw between CDU and SPD in NRW, one between CSU and Greens in Baden-Württemberg.
The current government coalition holds 622 to 624 votes, or in other words only 50.16 to 50.32% of the assembly - which is not enough to push through a candidate of their own as there's no faction discipline requiring representatives to vote for the candidate of their party.
The NPD always has their own candidate who only gets their votes. The Pirates are pondering whether to field a candidate of their own, the Left definitely will field a candidate against Gauck if he runs. Köhler needed the votes of the Free Voters Union to win in 2009. In theory each member of the assembly can field their own candidate, which of course isn't used; the maximum we've had were 8 candidates in 1954, the minimum was one candidate (with no opposition) in 1989.
The Federal Assembly makeup is decided as following:- the size of the assembly is always twice the size of the Bundestag, i.e. 1240 this time after two MPs of the original 622 left the Bundestag without replacement (Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, CSU and Julia Klöckner, CDU).
- half the seats (620) go to the members of the Bundestag, the other half (620) goes to representatives of the states.
- the seats are distributed between states based on population; e.g. Baden-Württemberg has 9.48 million Germans out of 74.55 million Germans* in Germany (12.7%), and therefore gets 79 out of 620 seats (12.7% = 78.8 -> 79).
- the states then distribute the seats to parties in accordance with their strength in the state parliaments; e.g. in Baden-Württemberg the SPD holds 35 out of 138 seats (25.4%) and therefore gets 20 out of 79 seats (25.4% = 20.07 -> 20).
- who each party (at state level) sends is up to them; apart from the state leadership of the party this regularly includes distinguished other persons, e.g. church officials, artists, a couple celebrities here and there.
* foreigners don't count, which distorts this quite a bit from actual population numbers.Last edited by kato; 19 Feb 12,, 17:26.
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