German Politics Thread

[Raphael]

Well, that bunch is still xenophobic and pro-Putin, only with left-wing social and economic policies. Not really more appetizing than the AfD.

It's as if someone had set out to prove horseshoe theory right.

[WeepingElf]

Well, that bunch is still xenophobic and pro-Putin, only with left-wing social and economic policies. Not really more appetizing than the AfD.

It's as if someone had set out to prove horseshoe theory right.

Yes.

[Raphael]

Looks like early new elections. The coalition has finally failed. More when I get around to typing it.

[Raphael]

OK, since the 2021 election, Germany had been governed, at the federal level, by a Traffic Light Coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD, political color red), the Greens (political color, you guessed it, green), and the Free Democrats - continental European classical liberals, that is, basically a kind of watered-down libertarians - (FDP, political color yellow). You might have noticed that one of those three things is not really like the two others.

The coalition never really worked - it had only been agreed to because it was seen as the least bad of the mathematically possible options. Especially the FDP under the leadership of Finance Minister Christian Lindner had a habit of agreeing to compromises within the coalition and then, later, arguing publicly against the very compromises they had previously agreed to. The core voters of the SPD and the Greens were angry about the compromises these parties had agreed to with the FDP, and the FDP core voters were angry about the compromises that party had agreed to with the other two parties. Everyone was angry about inflation and Ukraine. All three parties saw their popularity collapse, both in polls and in state elections.

Lindner's latest public counter-proposal to policy plans he himself had already agreed to was too much for Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He fired Lindner. His plan is to pass a number of urgent bills, then follow procedures to dissolve the legislature early in January, and have new elections in March. I don't know if he will be able to do things that way.

[Ares Land]

Thanks for the heads up. I'll be following this with interest.

Is there any chance this slows down the rise of the AfD?

[Ares Land]

Oh, I hear apparently Scholz is talking about some sort of deal with the CDU to keep things going?

[Raphael]

Oh, I hear apparently Scholz is talking about some sort of deal with the CDU to keep things going?

Yeah, temporarily, so that the timetable I described above doesn't get rushed.

Is there any chance this slows down the rise of the AfD?

Not that I can see.

[Raphael]

Apparently opposition CDU leader Friedrich Merz wants to have the early election already in January. That probably means that it will be done that way.