FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Since the FDP is classical and not social liberal, it was essentially a center-right wash. Even counting the far-left Left party, which the center-left refuses to deal with, they wouldn't have a majority. I was sort of hoping for an FDP-SDP-Green coalition, but the FDP has probably drifted too far to the right for that to be stable.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125408986029244655.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_world
Center-Left Party Faces Staggering Loss
By MARCUS WALKER
BERLIN -- The Social Democratic Party of Germany scored its lowest result in a national election since the fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933, highlighting the decline of one of Europe's oldest parties and a longtime pillar of German democracy.
The center-left SPD was set to win only 23% of the national vote on Sunday, according to exit polls and early vote counts, down sharply from an already-disappointing 34% four years ago and its worst result of the postwar era.
The SPD's decline exemplifies the crisis for Europe's once-mighty center-left parties, which are in disarray in the U.K., France, Italy, Poland and other countries amid divisions over how to balance social protections and business freedoms in an era of rising global competition. "There's no getting around it. This is a bitter day for Germany's Social Democrats," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD's heavily defeated candidate for chancellor.
Angela Merkel's centrist course and the upstart Left party, which has eaten into the SPD's working-class base thanks to its pro-welfare, antimarket and pacifist rhetoric.
The SPD is paying a heavy price for its own boldness in trimming Germany's welfare state and partially deregulating the labor market under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Those pragmatic moves lost the SPD many of its traditional working-class voters, and have left the party deeply split between centrists and left-wing traditionalists.
Associated Press German Chancellor Angela Merkel of the CDU waved during the election evening at the CDU headquarters in Berlin on Sunday.
Germany's oldest party has been squeezed between conservative Chancellor The Social Democrats' roots go back to workers' movements in the 1860s. The party became one of the main supporters of the Weimar Republic, Germany's volatile democracy between 1918 and 1933. After World War II the SPD became one of the two dominant parties in the German Federal Republic, along with the conservative Christian Democratic Union. The SPD accepted capitalism and West Germany's alliance with the U.S., but also rebuilt German relations with Moscow and Eastern Europe.
Under Chancellor Schröder, an SPD-Green government tried to modernize Germany's stagnating economy with major overhauls including slashing long-term jobless benefits. The changes helped to bring down German unemployment to around 3.5 million today from five million in 2005, but they also undermined the SPD's popularity.
The German election raises questions over whether the SPD can lead a national government again, unless it seeks a rapprochement with the populist Left. Together the two parties would be contenders to win Germany's next elections together with the left-leaning Greens.
Many Social Democrats are loath to cooperate with the Left's firebrand figurehead Oskar Lafontaine, a former SPD leader who defected in protest of his former party's embrace of market-oriented change.
The Left's success at grabbing a record 12% of the vote meant the SPD had little hope of winning Sunday's election. The SPD's current leadership, including its candidate for chancellor, Mr. Steinmeier, has ruled out an alliance with the Left at the national level, even though the two parties share power in some of Germany's 16 states. After Sunday's vote, however, many observers expect a new generation of SPD politicians to push for so-called red-red cooperation, a reference to an alliance between the SPD and the Left party.
The next man to watch in German politics, some analysts say, could be Klaus Wowereit, the charismatic mayor of Berlin. Mr. Wowereit, 55 years old, who was the first openly gay mayor of a big German city, already runs Germany's capital as head of an SPD-Left regional government. "Wowereit has the populist talent to lead a left turn by the SPD, and he has experience with a red-red state government in Berlin," said Tilman Meyer, a political scientist at Bonn University.
For Germany, the likely building of bridges between the SPD and the Left could return the country to a more polarized left-right politics, after four years of a dominant centrist consensus under Chancellor Merkel.
Allying with the Left would require the SPD to accept that it no longer monopolizes the working-class cause. It also would throw up difficult policy choices, from how to finance Germany's welfare state to how to disengage from the war in Afghanistan. The Left has won votes by calling for Germany to bring home its 4,200 troops in Afghanistan. The SPD is committed to the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, but has begun to debate a timetable for exit. That has put pressure on Chancellor Merkel and makes German support for a possible intensification of the U.S.-led effort less likely.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125408986029244655.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_world
Center-Left Party Faces Staggering Loss
By MARCUS WALKER
BERLIN -- The Social Democratic Party of Germany scored its lowest result in a national election since the fall of the Weimar Republic in 1933, highlighting the decline of one of Europe's oldest parties and a longtime pillar of German democracy.
The center-left SPD was set to win only 23% of the national vote on Sunday, according to exit polls and early vote counts, down sharply from an already-disappointing 34% four years ago and its worst result of the postwar era.
The SPD's decline exemplifies the crisis for Europe's once-mighty center-left parties, which are in disarray in the U.K., France, Italy, Poland and other countries amid divisions over how to balance social protections and business freedoms in an era of rising global competition. "There's no getting around it. This is a bitter day for Germany's Social Democrats," said Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the SPD's heavily defeated candidate for chancellor.
Angela Merkel's centrist course and the upstart Left party, which has eaten into the SPD's working-class base thanks to its pro-welfare, antimarket and pacifist rhetoric.
The SPD is paying a heavy price for its own boldness in trimming Germany's welfare state and partially deregulating the labor market under former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Those pragmatic moves lost the SPD many of its traditional working-class voters, and have left the party deeply split between centrists and left-wing traditionalists.
Associated Press German Chancellor Angela Merkel of the CDU waved during the election evening at the CDU headquarters in Berlin on Sunday.
Germany's oldest party has been squeezed between conservative Chancellor The Social Democrats' roots go back to workers' movements in the 1860s. The party became one of the main supporters of the Weimar Republic, Germany's volatile democracy between 1918 and 1933. After World War II the SPD became one of the two dominant parties in the German Federal Republic, along with the conservative Christian Democratic Union. The SPD accepted capitalism and West Germany's alliance with the U.S., but also rebuilt German relations with Moscow and Eastern Europe.
Under Chancellor Schröder, an SPD-Green government tried to modernize Germany's stagnating economy with major overhauls including slashing long-term jobless benefits. The changes helped to bring down German unemployment to around 3.5 million today from five million in 2005, but they also undermined the SPD's popularity.
The German election raises questions over whether the SPD can lead a national government again, unless it seeks a rapprochement with the populist Left. Together the two parties would be contenders to win Germany's next elections together with the left-leaning Greens.
Many Social Democrats are loath to cooperate with the Left's firebrand figurehead Oskar Lafontaine, a former SPD leader who defected in protest of his former party's embrace of market-oriented change.
The Left's success at grabbing a record 12% of the vote meant the SPD had little hope of winning Sunday's election. The SPD's current leadership, including its candidate for chancellor, Mr. Steinmeier, has ruled out an alliance with the Left at the national level, even though the two parties share power in some of Germany's 16 states. After Sunday's vote, however, many observers expect a new generation of SPD politicians to push for so-called red-red cooperation, a reference to an alliance between the SPD and the Left party.
The next man to watch in German politics, some analysts say, could be Klaus Wowereit, the charismatic mayor of Berlin. Mr. Wowereit, 55 years old, who was the first openly gay mayor of a big German city, already runs Germany's capital as head of an SPD-Left regional government. "Wowereit has the populist talent to lead a left turn by the SPD, and he has experience with a red-red state government in Berlin," said Tilman Meyer, a political scientist at Bonn University.
For Germany, the likely building of bridges between the SPD and the Left could return the country to a more polarized left-right politics, after four years of a dominant centrist consensus under Chancellor Merkel.
Allying with the Left would require the SPD to accept that it no longer monopolizes the working-class cause. It also would throw up difficult policy choices, from how to finance Germany's welfare state to how to disengage from the war in Afghanistan. The Left has won votes by calling for Germany to bring home its 4,200 troops in Afghanistan. The SPD is committed to the U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan, but has begun to debate a timetable for exit. That has put pressure on Chancellor Merkel and makes German support for a possible intensification of the U.S.-led effort less likely.