The first exit polls for the German federal elections are out
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BSW completely depends on their (Co-) party chairwoman and name giver Sahra Wagenknecht who is simply unwilling to bear gouvernmental responsibility. And she is considered to be a russian mouthpiece.
Merz ruled out to form a coalition with BSW and I don't see any sane person who would try to sway this decision.
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They have repeatedly made it clear that for them to even consider a coalition, the other parties would have to agree to stop all support for Ukraine and make peace with Russia with a full normalisation of relations. Sarah Wagenknecht won't budge on that, and that makes any coalition talks with them unfeasible for the other parties.
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Can someone please explain this for a non-German. I know there was a large concern with the AfD, but what do the results mean so far?
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Without divine intervention we will get Friedrich Merz as chancellor, the guy who just one month ago was fine with working together with the Neo Nazi party Afd.
So even if a coalition between CDU and Afd isn't happening, our chancellor is kinda Trump light. Mostly in it for himself and his industry buddies, no political experience and not used to doing compromises. And if somebody criticizes him, he cries like a little baby how unfair we are treating him for calling him a fucking fascist sympathizer.
So I expect a shitty time, but it looks like CDU and Afd can't rule alone and the party that is responsible for the whole fiasco, the liberal FDP, got kicked out of the parliament, so at least that is a silver lining.
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Germany will probably get a centrist-right (CDU/CSU) government with a centrist-left junior partner (SPD).
Centrist-right is far left in US terms.I expect stagnancy in German politics for the next 4 years. -_-
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Söder pretty much declared the Greens their main enemy. I don't think there'll be a coalition of CDU/CSU and Green in the Bundestag until CxU declares a new main enemy (why not AfD?).
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As a foreigner in Germany, CDU is not centrist at all. Maybe you should consider how your definition of "center" changed in the last years. CDU is a right wing party, CSU even more, leaning into populist views, Afd is extremist.
I wish SPD was left. Most of its policies of the last years were pretty much the same as right wing parties.
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CDU was always center-right and SPD center-left. In the last years SPD slowly drifted to center. Some still consider them center-left.
You should check on the definition of extremist. The AfD ist far-right, yes, but not extremist (yet).
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That may be true. I dont know what effect would be more important. We will never know.
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BSW is basically the United Russia party of Germany. And they will not get any seats in parliament according to the current projections.
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CDU/CSU are basically what Republicans have been a couple years ago. They are very much far right, just not facist.
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Aside from what the others have said, there is also a 2nd exit poll, with slightly different estimations. If reality will match this one, the BSW will get into parliament. They are a splinter party of the leftists, taking a most of the tankie nutcases with them.
They won't be in government or important opposition, but if they make it, the 2 centrist parties alone don't have enough seats. This means they need a 3rd party to form a government, and they have no good options. The preferred party would be FDP, but they are estimated to not make it. The greens would normally be up to it, but CDU/CSU campaign has mostly run on getting the greens out of government. And the Leftist, BSW and AFD are all too extreme for the very pensioner friendly CDU/CSU.
There is a chance we simply won't have a stable government and will have to redo this election, but from most to least likely:
- Reality is closer to the first poll, boring centrist government, AFD can try again in 4 years
- The CDU will make some meaningless concessions to the greens and the greens will fall for it
- The CDU will completely destroy any trust and form a government with AFD
- There won't be any stable government and a new election is called.
- Any Leftists in Government
- There won't be a stable government, our president still elects a chancellor, we will have 4 weeks of a minority government and then someone triggers new elections.
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Worst possible outcome right now: BSW gets just enough votes to make it into parliament.
This results in an unstable government, since CDU/CSU and the expected partner SPD don't have enough seats, with no one willing to help form the government. New elections are called shortly after.
BSW can destroy parliament by simply existing (well, the voters who put us in this situation with so much AFD), and the only hope is that we throw out all their votes when they don't reach 5%. I don't think it's likely, but it is possible.
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The shit neo-Nazi filled AfD gained a lot of ground. WTF.
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The CDU always has contained everything from centre-left to far-right, as long it's compatible with democracy. Their right wing is about en par with Reagan, their left wing with, dunno, Harris, status quo liberals in general. They're not about to abolish public healthcare, gutting unemployment benefits OTOH is up their alley. Social conservatism wise they tend to brake a lot, but aren't prone to be regressive, like wanting to roll back gay rights or something. Or, differently put, they won't be any more conservative the EKD which is absolutely fine with reverends having gay sex in the vicarage as long as it's monogamous.
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Söder understands the difference between electoral rhetoric and Realpolitik and so do CSU voters. And theatrics. He can go "I'll keep an eye on those breaknecks, make sure they don't convince the CDU of anything stupid", occasionally make noise, and keep it at that.
The "main enemy" thing is absolutely true, of course, just have a look over the border to BW. But that's about state, not federal, politics, and as long as the CSU keeps ruling Bavaria they're happy.
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Thanks guys for answering. As a Dutch person I don't know all the details.
I guess it's really good you guys have a 5% threshold. Here in the Netherlands, things are just too chaotic without it.
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If Elon Musk is showing up at their events telling them not to be ashamed of their history, then they are absolutely extremist.
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Right, that makes sense. So I suppose it's indeed the threshold and parties have more differing opinions.
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I mean, CDU/CSU and SPD have a majority with 45% of the votes, and 14% of the votes did not result in seats. That doesn't sound like an improvement to me. (Compared to the Netherlands - still beter than FPTP systems.)
