Germany Voted

The Reichstag in Berlin, seat of the Bundestag (parliament) (©Joerg Carstensen/dpa)

The early federal election is history. As always, there were winners and losers, but the biggest winner was democracy. 82.5% of those eligible to vote cast their ballots, which means voter turnout was 6.1% higher than in the last federal election.

  

The number of parties that stood in the federal election shows the fragmentation of German society.
 Click on the graphic to enlarge

Here is the preliminary official final result.

The parties of the last federal government, which broke up last November on the day President Trump was elected, were punished.

The once-great People's Party SPD only received 15.6% of the votes, the worst result in its long democratic history. The Greens could limit their losses, but the big election losers were the Liberals (FDP). They lost 7.1% of their voters and are no longer represented in the Bundestag, with only 4.3% of the votes cast. The party leader, Christian Lindner, has already announced his departure from politics. As an expectant father, he would like to take more care of his family in the future.

The election winners are on the right and left edges of the party spectrum. The right-wing AfD more than doubled its vote share, and the left-wing Die Linke, which was thought to be dead, is entering the Bundestag with a share of the vote well above the five percent hurdle.

An analysis of the election shows that both parties were particularly successful with young voters due to their activities on social media channels. Young people are correctly worried about their future and thus often believe the populist and financially unfounded promises of both the right and the left without reflection.

Five parties are represented in the new Bundestag. The government will probably be a black-red coalition, but it does not deserve the name GroKo (Great Coalition) since it has only a majority of 26 seats in the new Bundestag. At its peak, the GroKo's majority-to-opposition ratio was 503/127. 

At the penultimate federal election in November 2017, when the AfD won 12.3% of the vote, my blog ended with: Germany moved to the right. It is time for the democratic parties to fight back.

My appeal must have borne fruit because in 2021, the party, which the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution has classified as right-wing extremist, lost 2%.

This time, however, the AfD more than doubled its vote share to 20.8% and, with 152 seats in the new Bundestag, announced a strong opposition, "We will drive them before us."

The future government has been warned that if it cannot resolve Germany's reform backlog, the AfD could win an absolute majority in the 2029 election.

Indeed, Germany faces many problems, and the change of front by the American president has exacerbated them. There are 

- the high social benefits, not least because of the continuing migration; therefore, 

- the need for easier and faster deportations of bogus refugees and criminals, 

- affordable health care, including nursing care for the aging population, 

- reasonably priced housing with increased climate protection requirements for new buildings, 

- the climate crisis and renewable affordable energies, 

- the stagnating economy in the face of more difficult export opportunities, 

- the strengthening of the Bundeswehr (military) due to the threat from the east and the
  quasi-termination of the American protective shield, and 

- therefore pursuing closer cooperation in the European Union, including the United Kingdom.

Where to start?

All of this costs a lot of money, and with no economic growth in sight, it can only be achieved by taking on new debt. But Germany's hands are tied by the debt brake enshrined in the constitution. This can only be changed with a constitutional amendment requiring a 2/3 majority in the Bundestag.

Quo vadis Germany?

On the map of Germany showing voter majorities, the east of the republic is dominated by blue (AfD), with islands of purple (die Linke). In contrast, the West is dominated by black (CDU/CSU) with a few red (SPD) and green splotches, including Freiburg.

In my street, campaigners anticipated the election result when hanging up posters.

So, how was the result of the election in Freiburg in Constituency 281 with three strong candidates?

Chantal Kopf defended the Green direct mandate with 32.5% and gained 3.7% compared to 2021.

The result of the "second vote" (Zweitstimme) for Constituency 281, which determines the strength of the individual parties in the Bundestag, shows that many voters split their votes to ensure that Chantal regained the direct mandate.

Compared to the overall result, the FDP remained below 5% in Freiburg, too; the AFD only reached 10.4%, but Die Linke achieved an astonishing 13.9% of the votes. Could Bernie Sanders' constant criticism of social inequality in the US have rubbed off in Freiburg?

This time, I will close my election blog with the modified leitmotif of the Communist Manifesto, "Representatives of all parties of the center unite in the fight against populism and right-wing extremism."

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