Election Drama: Germany

This is an essay to kinda end the topic of the German election.

So last night, I sat and watched 2.5 hours of live public TV 'chatter' with two different forums.  Here were the journalists, and the six political parties.  It's safe to say that by the end....it was a miserable 2.5 hours to watch the bickering and arguments continue.  How Merkel can take the three associate partners (the CSU, the Greens and the FDP) and form a coalition government.....is beyond me.  It would take a painful amount of patience to sit and go through what amounts to 150-odd political positions and cabinet posts deals.

Then you come to the SPD's fall from grace.  For most of 2016, everyone led the general public on the idea that Sigmar Gabriel would be the guy running in 2017.  What you could note though.....throughout all of the 2015 and 2016....was continued interviews with Martin Schulz who was then the head of the EU in Brussels.  It wasn't just news programs that invited him in....even the entertainment show on public TV had interviews as well. It was more than obvious that the Party was preparing him for the big welcome and the position as Chancellor-candidate.

The switch from Gabriel to Schulz?  It came in late-December 2016, and the German news media came full-blast with interviews and peppy talk.  Everyone that talked....seemed thrilled.  In a matter of just ten days....a poll or two had occurred, and the SPD had suddenly climbed two or three points.  By the end of January...polls gave the SPD 29-percent.  By the end of February, the SPD were sitting at 31-percent and leading by one or two points over Merkel.

April came, and Merkel moved up five points....the SPD's Schulz was stalled at 30-percent.  May came, and there was a 12-point buffer between Merkel and Schulz.  The numbers were now locked in.  By late September, Schulz had hit most of rock-bottom with 16-point buffer between them.

Schulz fell because of three factors.  (1) He seemed to be some bureaucrat from the EU without much else than talk or promises.  (2)  He could not pick up the immigration topic.  On the handful of occasions that this did come up....he more or less was going to go the same route as Merkel. (3) When it was brought up about the coalition that the SPD would have.....early on, Schulz projected a SPD-Linke Party-Green Party team.  For a number of SPD members....having a seat at the table with the Greens was acceptable....but the Linke Party?  No.  People will be asked about this coalition topic and I think 10-percent of the traditional SPD-voters walked away to either the Green Party or FDP as an alternate situation.

If you were going to have the alternate-to-Merkel (Schulz) or Merkel herself......well, why vote for watered-down version of Merkel?

Now?  Schulz and the head members of the SPD say there is zero interest in partnering up with the CDU.  They want to be a real opposition member.

As for the Greens in the middle of this coalition business?  There are two factions of Greens.....the ones down in the states (Baden-Wurttemberg, Hessen, etc), and those at the national level (Berlin).  You generally get the impression that if you pulled just Greens from Hessen....this coalition business would be a simple task, and they'd be easy to work with.  The national folks have a different view of things.

After watching last night....I'd say that there is a 25-percent chance that this coalition-building exercise will fail.  The CDU will be given a fair amount of time (up to six weeks) to get the talks done.  If they reach the 2nd week of November without a done-deal?  Another election will likely occur....maybe in mid-January.

Oh, and as for all those votes for the AfD?  That came up last night.  They actually got 980,000 votes from the CDU (2013 voters).  470,000 voters came from the SPD (2013 voters).  40,000 voters came from the Greens (go imagine that trend).  400,000 voters came from the Linke Party.