German elections roundup
Shorter German electorate: we are angry and disillusioned about the economic crisis caused by free market neo-liberalism. Therefore, we will vote for our very own free market neo-liberal party to be part of the government.
Shorter Martin Kettle and other British newspaper columnists: Angela Merkel is an extremely successful leader. It is a sign of how well she has done as Chancellor that her party got its lowest share of the vote since the Second World War.
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Overall, a terrible set of results. But two consolations:
1. The combined Left vote (SPD, Left Party and Greens) came to 48.2% on the constituency list and 45.6% on the party list vote. The results will hopefully encourage these parties to work together at a state level and consider a Red/Red/Green coalition in future.
2. Far from the economic crisis leading to a resurgence of the far right in Germany, the two main far right parties ended up in 8th and 10th places overall, and their combined vote was less than that of the Pirate Party.
posted by donpaskini @ 9:04 pm
2 Comments
2 Comments:
This result, as awful as it was, may turn out to be a positive for the SPD over the medium term - they're freed from the Grand Coalition, and the result was so bad that some radical re-thinking is clearly required. The worst possible result for them would have been if they'd done just a little bit better.
Anyway. A prediction. There's a very good chance that the next SPD Chancellor will be yet another former Prime Minister of Lower Saxony.
I think next year's UK election results will be very similar, but whereas the left parties in Germany gained from the SPD's collapse, in the UK it is likely to be UKIP and the BNP that benefit most from New Labour's impending disaster. As such, the situation in Germany is much healthier than it is here.
Igor Belanov
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