The first exit polls for the German federal elections are out
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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.)
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Voting for conservatives makes planes fall out of the fucking sky
do they want planes falling out of the fucking sky because that's how they get planes falling out of the fucking sky
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I disagree, it's definitely an improvement to the infinite amount of parties we have.
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I mean, you could just not vote for the fringe parties then?
(Oh, you already don't do that? So it's other people's votes you want to cancel? See what I mean - arguing for a threshold is essentially arguing for less democracy.)
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It's not about cancelling anyone. It's about not having to wait 200-300 days to get a new government after every election.
I have often voted for very small parties and they never make it into the coalition. I really wouldn't mind if they didn't make it into Parliament either.
It's not like the BSW or FDP voters really lost that much - their parties would be doomed to be opposition anyway. Their voters knew that was a likely outcome based on the polls. And next election they might reach the threshold.
But the country as a whole gains efficiency.
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It's not as bad as some polls suggested, but it's pretty fucking bad.
There are few options for coalition-building that don't involve the far-right AfD as the other parties have promised. Meanwhile the far-right and conservative right hold an absolute majority between them, giving them options to approve a lot of heinous shit as they've shown they are willing to do in line with their xenophobic rhetoric.
The upsides are that the Left successfully reinvented their profile and made major gains after being pronounced dead (for the 8th time), the Greens didn't lose as much as the anti-woke anti-education narratives suggested, and the neoliberals are fully out after torpedoing their own government coalition.
