Tomorrow is the german election and since Germany is still the most powerful country within the EU, it's outcome is of importance for the EU and as a result of interest for any politic-interested person. Thus I will give my personal prediction with a little summary to each party.
Before I start I will give a very short summary:
- Everyone and every person can found a political party in Germany.
- For a party to get into the 'Bundestag', it needs to have at least 5% of the eligible votes. In the Bundestag they then get seats in relation to their amount of votes.
- The winning party needs to at least have 50% of the votes. If they are unable to reach that, they need to form a coalition with another party or multiple parties to reach a combined 50%.
- The Kanzler candidate is placed by the parties themselves
- The voter-turnout rate 2013 was at 71.5% with only 4 parties managing to reach the 5% milestone and 2 parties barely missing it with more than 4.5%.
The Parties - 2009 Result / 2013 Result / Current Polls / My Prediction
CDU/CSU - 33.8% / 41.5% / ~36% / 30-32%
The CDU has been the biggest party for decades in Germany. CDU stands for "Christliche Demokratische Union Deutschlands" which translates to "Christian Democratic Union of Germany".
The CSU is it's sister-party that is only active in the federal state of Bavaria and one of the biggest reasons of the ongoing success of the CDU as Bavaria is the most conservative state with the second most inhabitants. Yet, the CDU is losing around 5% based on official polls alone. That is, because they have been in power for 12 years and all their current election-promises are topics they have entirely neglected or are directly responsible for making those topics worse. Security, income, wealth, pension, quality of life in general all have declined.
Another problem is - and that is why I assume they will get even less votes - not only their failure on the refugee-topic, but their complete ignorance towards their voter-base. Their voter-base, as you can assume through the name, are mostly more conservative, aged people. Not only are these people slowly dying out, but more and more are becoming disillusioned, because the number of old-age poverty is drastically increasing and being completely ignored as a topic by the CDU. Furthermore at this point the CDU has as much to do with christianity at this point as they have to do with buddhism. None. They lost their roots entirely and are neither conservative, moderate right-wing nor christian-oriented anymore. Until now that was mostly ignored through the habit-voters, but it's reaching critical mass where it can't be ignored anymore.
And last but not least: Merkel and her trusted people are an issue. It's already a miracle she was voted 3 time despite her lack of enthusiasm, charisma and femininity, but until now that wasn't an issue nor did she had the media against her. At this point though her lack of enthusiams and charisma is perceived as lethargic and desinterested or in generous cases seen as being burned out. In addition to that the media isn't as favourable towards her anymore, either. Until 2 years ago, she was everyones darling in the media, but as those 2 years passed, more and more critical voices came out of the woodwork. And the same goes for her trusted people such as the defense-minister Von Der Leyen who managed to get the entire military against her.
Thus I assume they will - despite the polls - barely gain 32% as a maximum. Tendency is lower than that.
SPD - 23% / 25.7% / ~21% / 18-20%
SPD stands for "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands" which translates to "Socialdemocratic Party of Germany". It is the oldest still existing party in Germany and has been the second strongest for several decades. After Gerhard Schröders two legislations they have been constantly losing ground though. The last election had a small spike and they experienced the very same spike during this election's fight. And then they were losing it all for various reasons.
Their candidate Martin Schulz started pretty well despite his past as a failed mayor - leaving his former city basically bankrupt. He used the right topics and right words to get a small hype-wave going. But somehow he lost it all along the way and it turned into the opposite, leaving the SPD desperate for every voter and changing election-strategies multiple times in the last months.
Right now their desperate attempts are based on inequality of women such as the wage gap. The problem with this - in comparision to the US - is that women have been way more empowered in Germany for a very long time. For the simple reason that after the second world war they had to. There were no men doing those jobs and thus women had no choice, but to take them and as a result be empowered. Neither does their approach against the increasing right-wing seem to work well.
Their biggest problem though is a lack of identity at this point. During the last 3 elections they formed the "big coalition" with the CDU and didn't manage to push anything through of their own - except the lie that all the refugees are educated, potential workers. Which they clearly aren't. If anything, there are more illiterates than skilled workers. Thus I assume they will reach a maximum of 20%. tendency is lower than that.
Die Linke - 11.9% / 8.6% / ~9.5% / 10%
"Die Linke" translates to "the lefts". As the name implies it's a socially left-leaning party. They are a party that originated from combining the PDS with a small splitting of the SPD. The key problem with Die Linke is that they still have too much socialist mindsets since the PDS originated of the DDR's SED - which was pretty much the only party there as the other smaller parties were just controlled opposition. Yet, die Linke is the only one of the older, bigger parties who speak out on certain political unpleasant topics such as poverty in age, the active wars Germany supported the USA with, etc. Additionally they already started appealing to younger people during my school-time which now reaps some fruits. Thus I think they have a reasonable shot to get around 10 % with +/- 2%.
FDP - 14.6% / 4.8% / ~10% / 7-8%
The FDP stands for "Freie Demokratische Partei" which translates to "Free Democratic Party".
They used to be the 3rd powerful party in Germany during the 2009 election and then dropped a whole 10% and not even making it into the Bundestag. The reasons for that would take too long to explain - but you can be assured they did some major fuck-ups to achieve that.
Their official motto is about liberalism and freedom. Considering how much percent they lost, you can already see how successful they were about that. The short answer: They weren't. Instead they sold themselves out to lobbyists and ignored their voters. In the federal states where they formed a coalition with the CDU, they sold themselves out and showed they have no backbone, either.
Yet, they did recover a little and thus will probably reach around the 7% mark. At least this is what it seems like. I still see a good chance for them to fail completely again this year and don't think the polls are in any way accurate.
Die Grüne - 10.7% / 8.4% / ~8% / 6-7%
Die Grüne translates to the "The Green". It's every nations token green party. And like in pretty much every nations green party - they turn out to be major hypcorites and sell-outs.
They were on a major high last year and managed to reach 30,3% in Badem-Württemberg - which is the 3rd biggest federal state in Germany.
So what went wrong considering they reached 30,3% there and the current polls just a year later are around 8% nation-wide? The short answer is: Everything.
They proved like so many green-parties everywhere that they are all promises without backbone nor substance. When the time came, they sold out their promises and just did what every self-interesting person does.
Die Grüne are like a pacifist-party who says they are against war, but once they are in power, they are the first to push for it. Leaving all their previous voters disillusioned.
Furthermore their election-promises are just empty phrases. They talk about all these needed things, but are inable to provide actual concepts for a solution.
And all that ignoring is their pedophile past and other very shady things about them. Thus they will reach a maximum of 7% with a tendency to do even worse.
AfD - n.E. / 4.7% / ~11% / 14%+
Now we are getting to the most controversial party currently in Germany and the biggest dark horse. Founded less than a year before 2013's election and barely missing a spot in the Bundestag while shortly after reaching a little over 5% for the EU-parliament election.
AfD stands für "Alternative für Deutschland" which translates to "Alternative for Germany". It is the only bigger right-wing oriented party in Germany as all other bigger parties are rather left-leaning and/or liberal oriented. Hence, even the CDU which should be a conservative party - isn't. Thus it was a natural result that a stronger right-wing party would eventually emerge. And they did. After decades of anything patriotic being looked down and equalised with right-wing extremism there has been a change in the last years. Possibly starting with the football world cup 2006 in Germany where people eventually started showing the german-flag and being proud of it rather than ashamed and feeling like a potential nazi. Since then it just developed further.
While germans are pretty open-minded and willing to share their wealth, it backfires the moment when it's not sharing wealth anymore, but being stripped away of wealth. The refugee-crisis is just the cherry on top of a long list of failing politics that treat germans as disposable worker-bees. On the surface it looks all great, but that is being bought at a high price. The price of only keeping things going well short-term, but ruining everything long-term. And that is where the AfD got powerful. They realised that development and hit the right nerve. They talk about the refugee crisis and how refugees get more welfare than germans. They talk about more and more older people being poor. They talk about the need for higher birthrtaes, border-control, support of police, etc.
Obviously that is just talk and it can be once again empty words, but it is boiling underneath the surface and people are willing to take that risk and wanting a change since the status quo is going downhill. And despite all media-propaganda equalising the AfD with nazis and right-wing extremists, they still kept growing and growing in such a short time-span.
They achieved their first big goals such as making left-wing extremism seen as just that - extremism. Something that is ignored in Berlin and Hamburg for example and put a blind eye on, they managed to achieve in Saxony-Anhalt where they reached 24,3% (which was 10% more than the polls before) during last years election while only being 5 % behind the biggest party, the CDU. They achieved that despite CDU undergoing the AfD and doing a 3-way coalition rather than doing a coalitiong with the AfD to reach the necessary 50%. And they reached it in the most important federal state of the newer time. Saxony-Anhalt is the federal state where the movement for the fall of the wall started.
Naturally the AfD is also with it's flaw. There is a lot of inner fighting for power and leadership, they can be too right-winged and such. Yet, they keep growing which shows the disappointment in the current politics. The party speaks to those that are affected the first of all these negative developments. They speak to the worries of the upper lower-class and the lower middle-class. The same reasons why the Brexit and Trump won which in Germany is a similar loose cannon - leaving anything above 14% possible.
Other smaller parties:
DM - n.E. / n.E. / n.E. / max 2%
DM stands for "Deutsche Mitte" which translates to "German Middle" and is lead by Christoph Hörstel. His entire theme is about more ethics and openness in politics and he had a pretty good start with his new party - until his past as well as the way he handles the party came out. After a little spike, the party lost a lot of potential members and voters as Hörstel leads it like a cult-leader who benefits financially himself the most from it.
MLPD - n.E. / n.E. / n.E. / max 2%
MLPD stands for the "Marxist-Lenin Partei Deutschland" which translates to "Marxist-Lening Party of Germany". A party that exists for quite some time, but went for a little push this year. Needless to say what their aim is
What is important though is their election-posters which call out for being more radical, another red October and such. A dangerous party. And a comparatively wealthy one as well. Comparatively, because in relation to the number of their members, they have the most prosperity. Pretty ironic considering they represent a socialist party.
DKP - n.E. / n.E. / n.E. / max 1%
DKP stands for "Deutsche Kommunistische Partei" which translates to "German Communist Party". It's pretty much the same as MLPD, just less radical, smaller and less wealthy.
NPD - 1.5%. / 1.3%. / n.E. / 2%
NPD stands for "Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands" which translates to "National-Democratic Party of Germany". The longest lasting and most known right-wing party in Germany. Way more extreme than the AfD and appealing mostly to the lower class. They got their funding removed by the german supreme court this year - resulting in them not getting any government funding anymore and only living by their members donations. Questionable by the supreme court in a democracy, but most likely will not make much of a difference.
Still they will probably not get above 2% since the more moderate right-wings will all vote the AfD and thus take voters away from the NPD.
Piratenpartei - 2.0% / 2.2% / n.E. / max 2%
Originally founded against the data preservation laws they had a pretty good start, but eventually were corrupted very fast and not much is left of what made them appeal originally. The name "Piratenpartei" aka "Pirate-Party" is just a farce at this point.
Die Partei - n.E. / n.E. / n.E. / ???
"The Party" is the name of the political party founded by the satiric magazine "Titanic". How much of this is a joke and how much is serious is difficult to say. Same goes for their chances. That being said, 2016 they reached between 1-2% in a few federal state elections.
Final Words:
It's boiling underneath the surface and everyone who pays attention knows. This election is for Germany and for Europe of upmost important since it shows the direction of where Europe will be going. The increasing right-wing and nationalistic view is no secret - even though there is always the danger of going from moderate right-wing and nationalism to extremism. Yet, with all the incredibly liberal and left-wing politics of the recent decades from the EU nations and the EU itself, it was a matter of time that it is going to backfire and tomorrows election will once again show that.
Furthermore I think that the turnout-rate will be slightly higher and especially male voters will increase. In Germany the gender-difference is close to zero in the electionalready, bar the demographic of 60+ years. People that are dying out and thus will start creating a change and shift since men do vote different than women. And most importantly: They vote more nationalist, capitalistic and right-wing than women do.
Additionally the more right-winged federal states such as Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg Vorpommern and Thüringen had below average voter turnouts in the last elections and there is a good chance this is going to increase as well.
Or in short: Tomorrows election will hit many people by surprise. Either because of their ignorance or because they have been too arrogant to see the signs. And this Take here will show, if I am right about it or completely misinterpreted the signs myself.
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