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Deutschland Hat Gewählt — the Results at the Moment
It is approximately 8:15 PM as I write and the results from the German elections are starting to crystalize. They are:
SPD: 27.4%
CDU/CSU: 27.1%
Die Grünen: 15.4%
FDP: 12.6%
AfD: 11.8%
Die Linke: 5.5%
Other: 8.5%
The source for those numbers is the ARD/ZDF summary of exit poll results. there are other results being reported by Die Welt, Stern, Fokus, and other media outlets but the numbers only vary by a couple of percentage points. The two leading parties are again the traditional parties, though the CDU is booking some of its worst results ever. The Greens did historically well but not as well as their rhetoric or the polls indicated. The FDP is looking like the kingmaker party at this moment with either the Jamaika or “Ampel” (traffic light) coalition of SPD, Greens, and FDP now being in serious discussion. However, a return to the Grand Coalition or the Deutschland coalition (SPD, FPD, CDU) also seems quite possible. The good news: Die Linke may yet fall short of the 5% mark and be tossed out of the Bundestag. The Alptraum coalition is certainly not an option now. Hurray.
I will post updates if anything significant develops.
UPDATE:
It’s now 6:30 Monday morning and here are the results from a more detailed count:
You might need to magnify to read it, but the upshot of the results is that in “Erste Stimme” i.e. “First Choice” votes, the CDU was well ahead of the SPD — seven points ahead. Where they are nearly tied is in “Zweite Stimme,” i.e., “Second Choice.” How this translates into the razor-thin lead the SPD in the overall category I do not understand and will have to research. But the big changes since last night are these:
Predicted total number of seats for the SPD has dropped from 210 to 206.
The total seats for the Greens dropped slightly to 118, the FDP is stable at 92 seats.
The AfD did as well as the Greens in the First Choice category, the FDP and Die Linke were essentially no one’s first choice. In even better news, Die Linke are holding on to their seats in the Bundestag by a hair’s breadth. It is still possible for that hair to snap. Pray that it does as more results are finalized.
And @saintaugustine, no, no Wahlbetrug shenanigans. One precinct in Berlin ran out of ballots and Armin Laschet put his ballot in the box backward so that the camera crews could and did show pictures of his actual vote live on tv and then in stills all over the net all day long. The election commission decided to ignore it though. And the press could have done the same, but anything to make Laschet look either oily or dumb.
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It will be interesting to see if one party wins in the first-past-the-post part of the elections but the other party wins in the party-list part of the election. Will the losers be soar losers and just how large will the Bundesrat be this time.
The Bundestag is going to gigantic. The experts are talking about 740 representatives, which will make it the 2nd largest parliament in the world.
I trust there are no machines with internal modems involved. Or reports of shutting down the count while a water main leak is dealt with. I hope there were no late-arriving flash drives with 50k votes from the warehouse with no chain of custody.
[Grumble, grumble.]
Can a minority government be formed in Germany as it can in Britain or Canada?
Please do – thanks.
You sir are an Existential Threat to Our Democracy. How dare you question the election of the Most popular President. Evah.
Sarcasm implied?
I’m so sorry. So sorry. Biden is great. All hail Zuckerberg!
Zuckerberg = Friend of Pete.
It’s too bad that the other parties have ruled out a coalition with the AfD. Based on these numbers, it looks like CDU/CSU plus FPD plus AfD could form a narrow majority, entirely on the conservative side.