Ten Political Things About Germany That You Might Want to Know

This is a old essay that I freshened up....stuff that a non-German might want to know.

1.  The Chancellor and the President have unique and different jobs.  The President is chosen only by the Bundestag (the Parliament), not by the people.  The Chancellor is chosen by their party as the chief candidate, and you (as a voter) will cast for the party mechanism, and their Chancellor candidate.  The President is mostly around for ceremonial functions, funerals, awards, and non-political things.  The President can only run for two terms (five years each).  The cycle for the President has nothing to do with the normal campaign period.  The President is mostly non-political.  

The Chancellor is running the coalition, and can be political in nature. The President can be fired by the Bundestag (on a vote situation).  The Chancellor can be fired by their party.

2.  If a national law is noted as 'wrong', the German Supreme Court can issue a two-year directive that the Bundestag has to correct a law, rather than throwing it totally out.  In the directive, they will tell them precisely how the wording has to reflect, and then leave it to them to figure the final product out.

3.  The sixteen German states have a fair amount of control over the running of the country.  But they can only figure their budget out, via the money that comes down to them from the federal tax revenue 'machine'....using a device called the 'key' which takes statistical data and splits up the revenue pot into sixteen differing sums of money.  In recent years, Bavaria, Hessen and Baden-Wuerttemberg have hinted that the 'key' is flawed and that their states are putting more money into the pot, and they should have a bigger 'take' coming back to them.

4.  When Germans say there's a left and right in the political spectrum....do not make the mistake of thinking its similar to a US version of left and right.  The two political parties making up the chief sum of votes from 2017....figure around 55-percent total....figure into the spectrum.  The SPD is left-of-center, and the CDU-CSU Party is mostly center-center (even though they will tell you they are right-of-center in open discussions). 

5.  In a typical national election (held each four years), there are roughly forty parties in the running, and usually only six to seven that matter (getting 90-to-95 percent of the national vote.  If you get five-percent or more.....you get seats in the Bundestag.  If you get 4.99-percent, you get no seats.

6.  A coalition is typically the winner party staging discussions with one to two parties....then building a partnership up for the coalition.  The true offerings here?  The cabinet seats and departments, and agreement on future votes.  In the end, your party may end up watering down the promises made in a drastic way, and trigger serious negative views among your voters.  This method kinda prevents them from open insults like you'd see in the US. 

7.  You can conduct non-violent protests in any fashion, as long as you register the protest with the local police department, and ensure some open streets/roads are there for ambulance and fire crews to react.  If you violate local rules....it's up to the local court to decide your judgement.

8.  The national constitution is changed on a frequent basis, and was designed that way after WW II.

9.  Public TV was written into the national constitution. It cannot be sponsored or managed by the political establishment.  It is monitored and controlled by a governor's board, and taxed via a TV-media tax to the public.

10.  State elections are every five years and they are not connected to each other.  So you could have two state elections this year, six next year, one the year after, etc.