A fascinating night over in Berlin. The outcome of the German elections seems to be not far off a dead heat, at least in terms of the seats, for both main parties. Both Schroeder and Merkel are claiming to be the next Chancellor. Whatever the final outcome, this is surely an amazing result for the German left, or at least an incredible failure for the opinion polls (the last opinion polls had the SPD a full nine points behind). Together, parties of the left (the SPD, the Greens and the Linkspartei) have received over 50% of the vote.
According to Der Spiegel, the final result may well depend on a technicality, a follow-up vote in the south-eastern city of Dresden (because of the death of one of the candidates, as happened in Staffordshire South at the last British general election).
Overall, the CDU/CSU actually seems to have done worse than in 2002, being well over 3% down (the SPD has lost over 4%).
Der Spiegel goes on to say that a red-red-green coalition is the one favoured by the figures, although Schroeder has repeatedly said that he would not enter government with the Linkspartei, made up of disaffected SPD-members and the ex-communist PDS. More likely politically is a grand coalition of the two main parties, although Schroeder, whose hand is now considerably stronger than predicted, has said he would only enter such a coalition if he were to remain chancellor. He must feel confident. The Frankfurter Allgemeine quotes him as saying: 'No one but me is in a position to build a stable majority.'
Participation is 79%, a rather humbling percentage compared to the feeble UK effort last spring.
Latest results, courtesy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine's rather snazzy website, are here.
It's good to see that with all the unemployment in eastern Germany the NPD didn't cross the 5% barrier.
Posted by: Ian | 19 September 2005 at 12:11 AM