Posted on 09/24/2017 8:22:07 PM PDT by oblomov
Angela Merkel has won a fourth term, but official results have shown she'll have a "tough road" for coalition talks. While the CDU remains the largest party, the far-right AfD will be the third biggest political force.
With all 299 constituencies reporting, Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party the CSU came out ahead in Germany's national election on Sunday, with 33 percent of the vote. Rival Social Democrats (SPD) led by Martin Schulz tumbled to a mere 20.5 percent, while the Green and Left parties remained about the same as they did in 2013, each with 8.9 and 9.2 percent, respectively.
The only real success stories of the night were for the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). After failing to make the 5-percent hurdle to enter the Bundestag last time around, the FDP managed a 10.7 percent to cement its comeback.
As for the populist AfD, a remarkable showing of 12.6 percent means that Germany will have a far-right party in parliament for the first time in more than half a century.
Although these results mean the CDU will remain Germany's largest party, it still represents a substantial loss for the conservatives, who managed 41.5 percent in 2013. With a three-way coalition looking to be the likely solution to avoid a minority government, Merkel is about to begin a far less stable administration than in her past three terms.
"We had hoped for a better result," Merkel told a clapping but subdued crowd at party headquarters in Berlin. Later, she spoke of the "tough weeks ahead," for the CDU, and promised to recover votes lost to the AfD...
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
A big victory for the right in Germany.
And hopefully the AfD will be placed in charge of immigration & border security.
Yeah, I know...but let a guy have his dreams.
The Uniparties of Germany who ruled in “grand coalition” the CDU of Merkel and the SPD of Schulz were both rejected.
Yep, it’s disappointing that the Germans will continue with the leadership of the barren one.
The SDU socialists now stand behind any parliamentary coalition of the FDU and AFD, though in reality the FDU is only “pro-Business” and otherwise not so conservative, i.e. not likely to join the AfD on immigration issues.
Merkel of the Heckle and Jeckle buzzard.
> And hopefully the AfD will be placed in charge of immigration & border security. <
More likely Merkel is even now planning to ban the AfD on some pretext or another.
WTF?!?!
That hag represents the Right ?
When Merkel won last time it still took a month to build the grand coalition.
That was with the best result since the 1990s for CDU.
Welcome to the German political system.
Not at all... I meant the victory of the AfD
As it stands, can’t AfD get shut out by the other parties?
Met a guy from Hanover at the San Francisco airport today, they vote using color and the winners were black yellow and green - they are calling it the Jamaica Coalition
The coalition group will make up (assuming they reach an agreement) enough votes to pass agreed-upon legislature through the Bundestag.
The only two things that AfD really gets out of this minority membership deal now....is (1) a chance to openly question cabinet members and ministry directions; and (2) invitations to public TV chat forums to explain their view or position on things.
The big negative with the AfD is that beyond immigration and security....they don’t have other positions. It was brought up over and over last night on German TV...the AfD has no position over pension reform (true statement). But then you could ask any German....how many pension-reform episodes have occurred in the past twenty years and they just start laughing. Pension reform is mostly ‘nickles and dimes’ and no one takes this serious anymore.
I don't understand why AfD gets a “Right” wing label.
I do understand that nationalism and anti-immigrant policies are traditionally assigned to the Right.
On the other hand, most of AfD’s voters grew up in Communist East Germany (Yes, I know, Merkel did too, but only because her Lutheran Minister father moved the family there).
To my eye, it seems like “National Socialist” would be a more accurate label for the AfD.
Some notes from me late at night.
No more “Grand Coalition.” German politics as we have seen them may well have been shattered.
“Jamaica Coalition” exists currently as a theoretical exercise. IMO, the Union, SPD, the Greens, & FDP only share one thing: keep die Linke and AfD away from any real power.
So SPD becomes the official opposition. I suspect in part to make sure AfD doesn’t become the official opposition. But this leaves Merkel with some unpleasantness because the Free Democrats did not win enough seats to recast the typical coalition German politics has seen in the past.
Merkel has ruled out any coalition with AfD. That leaves forming the “Jamaica Coalition” as her only option. By no stretch of the imagination should one regard this as a given. She may get the coalition to form a majority government — but how long will it last?
That’s the 64,000 Euro question.
They’ll get that corrected right away by naturalizing the enemy invaders so they can vote for overthrow of Germany along with Merkel’s group in the next election.
Consider that in Germany the major parties already are leaning green with their policies. Showing the Greens they can govern with the Center Right and accomplish reasonable goals is a good thing in both the short and long term.
There really isn’t that much room for Germany to save itself even with a dramatic change in policy.
Germany’s modern culture of death and self-destruction(tiny families) for the last 50+ years pretty much garentee it will be a Muslim country within our life times having a completely different islamic culture just based upon its existing population.
Ironically a very much anti-semetic and fascist one, if source Islamic cultures and populations are any indication.
This will probably make Germany once again, at least for a few decades a huge threat to the world and Europe. Akin to the NAZIS of the 1930’s but such a threat will fall apart as its own fascist leaders begin compromising the military and culture to protect themselves from coups as they do in other Islamic countries.
Which political party do the German Turks and Muslims align with?
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