As the smoke is settling in Thuringia and it appears marginally likely that the Linke Party will form a coalition government with the CDU Party (under some stringent settings)....you are left with this odd 'taste' in your mouth.
There was this absolute rule in CDU circles for the past thirty years.....no political coalition situations with the Linke Party (far-left). Now? It appears abandoned.
So in March of 2021....there's a state election in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (the German state to the far NE of the country.....which starts just east of Hamburg and extends to the Polish border).
The likely winner of this election? No real polls out at this point, and it's a long way away....but in 2016....the AfD Party (the far-right folks) won 2nd place with 21-percent of the vote. They've improved their public agenda business since then.
My humble belief is that they could take around 32-percent in this election. The Greens, SPD and Linke Parties will likely take near 12-to-15-percent each. And the CDU will be lucky to walk away with 20-to-24 percent of the vote.
So would the AfD folks form a government with the CDU in that case? The general no-alliance-with-the-AfD rule? Once you open up the box and say it's possible to align with the Linke Party.....it opens up broad questions.
It's already going to be discouraging for some CDU folks to find a logical middle-ground with the Linke....but to find another logical middle-ground with the AfD? It's just going to frustrate a bunch of moderate CDU-type voters. I could see a quarter of them standing there for the October 2021 national election and just saying that the CDU Party is not something they can support.
Settle back for an adventurous period approaching this Mecklenburg election.
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While traveling in South Africa last week, Merkel announced that the Thuringia parliamentary election result was "unacceptable" and had to be canceled. Just like that.
Her most important words were that the Thuringia parliamentary election was "unforgivable" (unverzeihlich), and that it "must be reversed" (muss ruckgaengich gemacht werden).
So, Merkel says that German people can vote for the AfD, but under no circumstances will it be permitted to govern, to participate in a government, or even to to participate in electing a government.
Preserving Freedom, the Rule of Law, and democracy is not for sissies.
I'll make three observations:
1. Back in the October 2019 period after the election, I could have mathematically told you (100-percent chance) that no real government could come out of the numbers, because of the coalition-building required. I'll also go and say that over the March 2020 election in Mecklenberg, the very same problem will occur.
2. Frankly, whatever wisdom or advice Chancellor Merkel offers....doesn't really matter. Working-class Germans would have said that five or six years ago. She's played all the cards in her hands, and the poker game is basically over.
3. Finally, while the intellectuals and Merkel can grumble about the AfD folks....there's probably five to seven things that they could do....which would take the voter-support that AfD stole from the CDU and SPD parties....changing the landscape politically, and stop all of this political division. They have zero interest in taking those steps....so the 'adventure' likely continues on. That's really the sad part of the story. AfD is a two-agenda political party, and it's not rocket-science over taking out voter-support and pushing them back down to a 3-percent vote situation in a national election.
I should note....on my prediction side, I'm predicting the Green Party wins in 2021, and Germany gets four years of a Green Chancellor.
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