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German Federal Election 2017

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  • German Federal Election 2017

    Since the Merkel-vs-Schulz debate is on right now let's start a thread on that...

    Election is due in three weeks on September 21st.

    Current prognosis amalgated from last five surveys, all taken during last week:
    • CDU - 37.8% - 236 seats (-59)
    • SPD - 23.4% - 146 seats (-36)
    • Left - 9.2% - 58 seats (-3)
    • AfD - 9.2% - 58 seats (+58)
    • FDP - 8.4% - 53 seats (+53)
    • Greens - 7.5% - 47 seats (-13)
    • Others - 4.5% - 0 seats

    So, yeah. You need 299 seats for governing. No majority for CDU/FDP. No majority for SPD/Left/Green. So, we're gonna get yet another Grand Coalition. And, surprise, surprise, the relative strength of the CDU vs SPD hasn't changed in the slightest. Seriously. 38% of seats of a Grand Coalition going to the SPD. Both now and with the above result.

    The TV debate on right now is pretty sedate for that reason. It's pretty much the Grand Coalition government defending itself on either side against the questions from the hosts. Some minor points where they disagree, but that's more standard politics they're hawking at each other: Schulz sees a failure in Merkel not decisively shutting down Erdogan; Merkel blames the SPD for not being able to deport North Africans.

    Question just now was whether Trump could do anything about North Korea. Immediate response from Schulz: "No". Followed by a 5-minute diatribe which basically ends in the statement that "we should only talk to sane people in Washington. Those exist - not in that government, but they exist". Merkel sees points of cooperation with the USA, although when asked could pretty much only name IS.


    There's a total of 34 parties on the ballot, plus individual candidates from 8 further parties. Besides the 6 well-known parties above with chances to get into parliament, there's the following 36 others:
    • Mainstream: FW (conservative-alternative), Pirates (greenish-alternative), ÖDP (green-conservative), Greys (slightly left senior citizens), DU (slightly left "urbanists")
    • Non-mainstream Left-wing: MLPD (maoist-stalinist), DKP (stalinist), SGP (trotzkist)
    • Non-mainstream Right-wing: NPD (nazis), Rechte (radical neonazis), DM (conspiracy theorists), ADD (pro-Erdogan), PDV (libertarian), Volksabstimmung (national conservative)
    • Single-issue: Tierschutzpartei (animal welfare), Tierschutzallianz (animal welfare), BP (Bavarian separatist), BGE (calling for a unconditional basic income), DIB (calling for direct democracy), GF (Alzheimer research)
    • quasi-Religious: Menschliche Welt (hindu), BüSo (LaRouche cultists), Humanisten (...humanist), V³ (vegans)
    • joke parties: PARTEI, B*, MG


    individual candidates: Bündnis C (religious - christian fundamentalist), Violette (religious - sufist), Family Party (conservative mainstream), Einheit (radical conservative), Frauen (single-issue feminist), Mieterpartei (single-issue anti-gentrification - i think), New Liberal (social-liberal alternative, deny that they are a FDP split), Independents (alliance of independent candidates, conservative, previously allied to Family Party).

    Those first three in the mainstream section above - as well as PARTEI and Tierschutzpartei - are the only ones with remote chances at above 0.5%.

  • #2
    P.S. The whole campaign so far is just as sedate and boring as this debate. Politically, absolutely nothing happens in it.

    About the only thing that has happened is that Partei successfully executed a long-prepared undercover cyber attack on AfD today, taking over 31 groups on Facebook with 180,000 members previously used as a right-wing echo chamber. And that AfD sympathizers and other neonazis are guerilla-interrupting about every CDU public address these days, including beating up CDU sympathizers.

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    • #3
      One week to go, prognoses from the last week - small parties are rising:

      CDU - 36.6% - 229 seats (-66)
      SPD - 22.4% - 140 seats (-42)
      AfD - 10.5% - 66 seats (+66)
      Left - 9.6% - 60 seats (-1)
      FDP - 9.1% - 57 seats (+57)
      Greens - 7.4% - 46 seats (-14)
      Others - 4.4% - 0 seats

      While the above only leaves one viable coalition option (Grand, i.e. the current one), some coalition options only need small moves to become viable:

      CDU-FDP : need another 2% from other parties
      SPD-Left-Green : need another 8.5% from other parties

      Usually you get some sort of conservative rallying in the week ahead of the coalition (established parties fortifying their position) and there's always the option the CDU uses (emptying out senior citizen homes and "helping" them cast their votes... for them) - so the CDU-FDP rightwing option looks somewhat likely. I've seen some statistical predictions that predict CDU-FDP with a 85-90% probability.

      SPD-Left-Green are pretty much out of the run politically with that 8.5% margin.

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      • #4
        Last prediction before sunday's election:

        CDU - 36.3% - 227 (-68)
        SPD - 21.9% - 137 (-45)
        AfD - 10.6% - 66 (+66)
        FDP - 9.7% - 61 (+61)
        Left - 9.4% - 59 (-2)
        Greens - 7.6% - 48 seats (-12)
        Others - - 0 seats

        amalgated from all publicized surveys this week.

        Hence predicted result: Grand Coalition under Merkel. Again.

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        • #5
          Disagree with Trump for bonus votes : D

          does this work for all candidates or only Angie

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          • #6
            Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
            does this work for all candidates or only Angie
            AfD is pretty pro-Trump - in fact their campaign in managed by the same guys that did Trump's campaign. The picture attached below is a satirical spoof based upon this connection.

            However since Trump ain't controversial enough they've also additionally hired the guy who spiced up among others Ted Cruz's campaign. And UKIP, for that matter.
            Attached Files

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            • #7
              P.S. Angie's position with regard to Trump is pretty moderate-favourable by German standards. The Left for example calls him "a risk to humanity".

              And there's a SPD candidate up north somewhere on the coast who campaigns with this poster:

              ... which most people even locally considered fake until he confirmed it. Not because of the axe. But Because the guy is a former wrestler and people would have expected an approach angled more towards that.
              Last edited by kato; 22 Sep 17,, 20:50.

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              • #8
                haha, well Afd is an exception of the bunch

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                • #9
                  This easy for her ?

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                  • #10
                    The one thing Merkel excels at is marginalizing her minority partners in a coalition government.

                    Hence why SPD leadership doesn't really want another Grand Coalition, preferring the opposition bench, and why the FDP's chairman has set out a number of red lines already that he would want assured in a coalition treaty. Both have also announced that they'd leave it up to a vote among their full party member caucus whether to go into a coalition with the CDU.

                    In other news:
                    https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...ing/676142001/

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                    • #11
                      Still, Forbrig added the German election may be less susceptible to outside influence for three reasons: Voters watched alleged Russian meddling take place in the U.S. and French elections, which has led to high levels of awareness; Germany's multi-party electoral system makes it more difficult to predict how messages and information targeted at one group might impact others; and Germany's media is, Forbrig said, generally more "balanced and calm" and lacks "shrill voices" compared to its counterparts elsewhere. Further, its media is still viewed as a trusted source of information — not always the case in President Trump's Washington.
                      The hackers can't figure Germany out, can the pollsters ?

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                      • #12
                        We'll see this evening. Poll booths open in 13 minutes.

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                        • #13
                          The current German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier waiting to cast his vote, with his wife next to him:

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                          Did the usual photo op later dropping his vote into the urn though.

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                          • #14
                            Merkel, probably with some thought taken for the color combination of her outfit today:

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                            Her husband Joachim Sauer in the background in black.

                            Guy with the beard is Rüdiger Reich, who has been heading voting office 208 in Berlin-Schöneberg for every single election since reunification. Merkel has been voting there since (at least) 2005, though for local or state elections she usually mails in her vote instead.

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                            • #15
                              2 hours to go.

                              Voter turnout by 2 pm was 41.1% compared to 41.4% in the last election. Overall, cities and urbanized areas report higher turnouts while the countryside reports lower turnouts this time.

                              Originally posted by Double Edge View Post
                              The hackers can't figure Germany out, can the pollsters ?
                              There's some reports that a concerted action by Russian twitter bots in favour of the AfD started yesterday.

                              Someone also managed to book an ad on Google that leads to pro-AfD propaganda appearing at the top of results when googling for "Merkel" from German IPs. Moderately sure that's technically illegal by German law.

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