Federal elections in Germany

Germany goes to the polls on Sunday.

The federal elections in Germany are very different than the elections in the US.  With many discussions about jobs, alternative energy, Germany’s role in Afghanistan, climate etc.; the election campaigns are rather boring in comparison to the US.  Our parties also don’t get nearly as many donations as the political parties in the US. (the party of Chancellor Angela Merkel got by with “just” 1.1 Million Euro, the highest donations so far).

Another difference is that Germany is a parliamentary democracy with a multi-party system (two strong parties and some other third parties that are electorally successful)
The exact date of the election is chosen by the President and must be a Sunday or public holiday.

Right now, Germany has five parties that pass the 5 percent hurdle in a federal election. Two “large parties” that most often get between 25% – 35% of the votes each and three smaller parties.

Angela Merkel’s party is one of the “large parties” known as the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), also called “The Blacks.”   This party has held the office of chancellor the longest…together with their Bavarian sister party called the Christian Social Union (CSU).  It is said that both parties represent “Christian values” because both were heavily influenced by the Catholic Church at some point in the past.  I wouldn’t say that is still true today.

The party of former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and current Vice Chancellor Walter Steinmeier (who happens to be running for Chancellor in the upcoming election) is called the “Social Democratic Party Deutschland” (SPD) or “Social Democrats” or simply “The Reds.”  They claim to be “the party of the people” (and the working class).

The Free Democrats (FDP) are the German liberal party “Yellow” and they reject excessive state regulations.

Bündnis 90/die Grünen “The Greens” have their roots in the anti-nuclear and peace movements of the 1970s.  Environmental and gender equality issues are also at the top of their agenda.

And last, but not least, there are “The Lefts” (also called “Dark Red”).  The left party mostly gained its base from discontented former members of the SPD (Reds) in the Western states of Germany, while in the Eastern states it’s rooted in the former Communist Party of East Germany, the SED.
The Lefts claim to be the champion of social causes and the “little man.”  Unfortunately, this party still tries to gain points with Germany’s left-wing radicals.

I also should mention “The Browns.”   This color always points to right-wing extremists in Germany and there are small “brown” parties like the Republicans and the German People’s Union (DVU), for example.  Up to now, they haven’t been able to pass the 5 percent hurdle in the federal elections, but they have unfortunately found their way into some state parliaments.

The logical conclusion of this 5 parties-existence is that no party will get more than 50% of the votes.  That means every new government will be a coalition of at least two parties.  In the past, there have been some “preferred” coalitions…like “black/yellow” or “red/green.”

Four years ago, during the last federal election, none of the preferred coalitions received the majority of votes and were not able to govern.  That is the reason why the “grand coalition” (black/red – CDU/SPD) was built.   This coalition, however, has not really done much for the cause of democracy, because the government could rely on an over-sized majority in the German parliament (The Bundestag).  They also had to link the interests of the two large parties (with different ideologies) and ended up with some highly questionable compromises.  The opposition (yellow, green and the left) were each too small to play a role when it came to political decisions.

So it will be interesting to see what kind of coalition will govern for the next 4 years.  Many voters are fed up with the current political situation and turning away from this “grand coalition.”  According to the polls, the smaller parties are growing.

In Germany many voters are “swing voters” who vote “tactacilly” for or against a coalition. But there are also those who vote in party line by conviction and often are party-members themselves.

All German nationals over the age of 18 are eligible to vote, including most Germans resident outside Germany, and ligibility to vote is essentially the same as eligibility for candidacy.
Everyone over the age of 18 is automatically registered in a so called “voter registration” which is simultaneously a national register. Residents are required to report any change of address to register within a short time after moving (or the fact that they are homeless)

A few weeks before the federal election (or any other election, like local, state or EU) every citizen, over the age of 18 receives a polling (voting) card by mail and they then can choose to vote either by postal ballot or in their polling place. Each polling place has lists of all eligible voters resident in the neighborhood served by the particular station; the voter’s I.D. card is checked against these lists before they receive a paper ballot, like the ballots below…. this is a paper ballot- example in English

Voters elect the Members of the Bundestag directly, without electoral college.

And this is an original German paper ballot that was used during the 2005 federal election.

The German electoral system is based on slightly modified, so-called personalized, proportional representation. Each voter has two votes, the first of which is for a candidate in his or her constituency, the second for a state list of candidates put up by a particular party. The number of seats a party holds in the Bundestag is determined by the number of valid second votes it receives.

On March 3rd 2009 the highest German Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, Federal Constitutional Court) ruled that electronic voting machines like Nedap ESD1 and ESD2 are not permissible in Germany.

http://www.bundesverfassungsgericht.de/en/decisions/rs20090303_2bvc000307en.html

This btw. was the result of a lawsuit by physicist Ulrich Wiesner and his father Joachim Wiesner, a professor emeritus of political science.
The main argument against the voting machines in the eyes of the Court is that they conflict with the principle of transparency.

Voting machines are not illegal per se, but with these machines it wasn’t possible to verify the results after the votes were cast in 2005.

The Court said that the basic constitutional right to open and public elections was offended because a citizen/voter would require special (computer) knowledge in order to be able to check whether the whole election process was carried out correctly. So any machine to be used has to be able to let anyone to check whether his/her vote was correctly taken into account and the overall execution of the election process without needing any special knowledge.

I quote an important part of this ruling:
“In a republic, elections are a matter for the entire people and a joint concern of all citizens. Consequently, the monitoring of the election procedure must also be a matter for and a task of the citizen. Each citizen must be able to comprehend and verify the central steps in the elections.”

Btw. countries that use hand counted paper ballots only have one contest on the entire ballot. That is why their elections often are counted quickly and accurately, in most cases.

However… on Sunday there will be only paper ballots in the polling places in Germany.

The latest polls indicate that Sunday’s federal elections could prove to be a repeat of the country’s 2005 vote.
What would be a disaster, if you ask me.

It seems that the support for the coalition of Angela Merkel’s “black party union” and the free democrats now have only 46 percent of the vote. The “union” has fallen to 34 percent and the “Free Democrats” to 14 percent, according to the German Handelsblatt, which commissioned the poll from Info GmbH.
This percentage is no longer enough to secure the CDU/CSU-FDP coalition a win in Sunday’s vote.

Other polls indicate a similar loss.

If these numbers don’t change, Germany might have another “grand coalition” for the next 4 years, or a real “three party coalition” for the first time in it’s history.