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With German Elections Looming, Merkel Will Need A Coalition To Govern
With less than three months before the German elections take place, Chancellor Merkel's party is still, by a wide margin, the most popular with voters. However, based on the latest polls, Goldman Sachs notes that Chancellor Merkel would need a coalition partner to form a government. Her current coalition partner, the FDP, has weak support, making a so-called 'Grand Coalition' with the Social Democrats still the most likely outcome - if Europe can just hold itself together for a few more weeks that is.
Via Goldman Sachs,
An Update on the German Elections
Chancellor Merkel's CDU/CSU doing well in the polls - but a coalition partner would be needed
The latest polls continue to show Chancellor Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU as by far the most popular party with voters. Its share of votes ranges, depending on the polling institute, from 38% to 43%. The opposition SPD comes in second by a wide margin, ranging from 22% to 26% in the polls. The Greens are in third place with 13%-14% of votes, while the Left Party is in the fourth spot (6% to 8%). Chancellor Merkel's coalition partner, the FDP, is running in fifth place, with polls showing its support at between 4% and 6%.
It is noteworthy that in the poll readings of the past couple of months the opposition has failed to gain momentum as the election campaign has increased in intensity. As the previous two elections have shown, poll readings can still change significantly, but it is difficult to see how the SPD could catch up with the CDU/CSU in a meaningful way. Some of the lacklustre performance of the SPD may reflect a further move of the CDU/CSU to the left. The election platform of the CDU/CSU, for example, now includes the introduction of a minimum wage and a cap on rent increases. Chancellor Merkel has more or less openly said that she is willing to adopt positions of the opposition that prove to be popular. While not everybody in her party is happy with this rather pragmatic approach - and it remains to be seen how much will be implemented in practice - this strategy has proven to be quite successful at the polls.
Another noteworthy point in reading the latest polls is that the newly founded anti-Euro party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), has failed to gain any traction and is still polling at between 2% and 3%. There appears to have been no rise in anti-European sentiment among the general public and, according to different polls, a large majority of Germans opposes a reintroduction of the Deutschmark.
As strong as the results for Chancellor Merkel's party look, she would still need a coalition partner to be able to form a government after the September elections. Exhibit 2 shows the various potential coalition combinations that we view as possible from a political perspective. Owing to the mechanics of the German election system (parties polling less than 5% of votes do not enter the Bundestag), winning 46% of the total of votes cast can be enough to command a majority in the Bundestag (although additional aspects of the electoral system make it difficult to give an exact number ex ante).
The polls suggest that a 'Grand Coalition' between the CDU/CSU and SPD is still the most likely outcome, although a continuation of the current coalition has become more likely recently as the FDP seems to be stabilising at the 5% threshold. On the latest poll results, a Grand Coalition would command a strong majority in the Bundestag, and potentially even a two-thirds majority that would allow a change of the constitution.
In the past, the FDP has occasionally benefited from strategic voting from CDU/CSU voters who 'lend' their vote to the FDP to help it pass the 5% hurdle. But if the CDU/CSU polls around the 40% level, such strategic voting would simply become a zero-sum game among the centre-right parties.
A so-called black-green coalition between the CDU/CSU and the Greens would also have a comfortable majority of seats in parliament, judging by the latest polls. However, we view such a coalition as fairly unlikely given the differences between the two parties in important areas.
Leading figures of the SPD have ruled out a coalition with the Left Party, making a three-party coalition between the parties on the left of the political spectrum rather unlikely. That said, a Grand Coalition with the Conservatives could increase tensions within the SPD significantly and we would not rule out that the party could reconsider its stance after election day. Lastly, there is the possibility of a 'traffic-light' coalition (to reflect the colours used by German parties) of the SPD, Greens and FDP. While all three parties have considered such a coalition in the past, we view a 'traffic-light' coalition as unlikely in this election, even if it were the only option for the SPD to avoid a Grand Coalition and for the FDP to stay in power.
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I know the answer! Say what the people want to hear, then when you are elected do the exact opposite.
Quite right
Merkel knows the wheels are about to come off the euro-bus, and she is promising the moon to Germans to get elected
Merkel sez, Moar German welfare benefits ! Tax cuts too ! ... with no clue as to who will pay for these things or how
For the German anti-euro crowd, Merkel's people are even leaking that she is getting sick of the euro, too, and she is ready to maybe think less of the EU and more of a 'Germanic north' concept with Scandinavia and so on ... with a deal for Russia for cheap energy !
Yeah, hope and change in a 3rd term for Merkel !
Would really like to see some countries leaving the euro and Deutsche Bank have a derivatives collapse before the German election day ...
This is purely anectodal, but I went to a party on Sunday (in the States) with some people I hadn't seen for a couple of years. Many devout Red Teamers and Blue Teamers. All but one have seen the light and vow never to vote for either team again, they realize the "lesser of evils" concept is not valid, etc. Words only, but it tells me that there is a pea under all of those mattresses and people are starting to feel it.
perhaps they have a yearning for a "starken Fuhrer" that would rise from the ashes of a mysterious Reichstag fire.
Angela does the Euro while fucking Germany in the ass?... film at 11.
The only thing left for her to do is swallow.
it says something about the intelligence and gulliblity of the average German- like it does with Obowelmovement and a lot of Americans-that this stasi bitch remains popular.
The story about Merkel that I can't seem to forget, is about how in the early 1980s in the old East Germany, when Merkel was ditching her first husband who had been supporting her through PhD school, Merkel moved out while he was at work, and even took away his refrigerator ... apparently a difficult item to buy in the old Communist days
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Have seen people asking if Merkel, like US Secretary of State John Kerry (whose family name was actually 'Kohn'), has also 'forgotten' she is Jewish like Kerry 'forgot' his father was Jewish from a family of Jews coming from Prague.
Merkel kept her first husband's family name along with his refrigerator, but she was born Angela Dorothea Kasner, daughter of a pro-Communist Christian Lutheran minister, Horst Kasner, tho 'Kasner' being a common Jewish name as well.
Merkel's mother was Herlind Jentzsch from the 'Galicia' that is the border area of Poland and Ukraine, also a possibly Jewish name, and in any case, about one-sixth of Polish citizens before 1940 were Jewish.
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Merkel has been denounced for deporting German-speaking immigrant Romani ('Gypsy') children to poor and desperate places like conflict-torn Kosovo, the 'Gypsy deportations' appearing a little too Nazi-like for some of her critics, including some Jews
Voting. LOL. Who's counting those votes?
Diebold. No, NSA, I didn't just say "die bold."
well played, sir
It's pronounced "Dee Bold". It helps confuse the sheep.
Merkel calls US spying on Germany 'completely unacceptable'. How about 7 years to return Germany their gold? I guess that's acceptable to her.
I wonder how the book sales about her Communist Party past, schooling and work with Moscow, and her father turning dissatisfied citizens into the Stasi is working out for her......
Probably helping her increase her lead.
"In these uncertain times, Germany needs a strong leader" :-)
In the past, the FDP has occasionally benefited from strategic voting from CDU/CSU voters who 'lend' their vote to the FDP to help it pass the 5% hurdle.
And that's exactly what's going to happen again.
To make the FDP clear the 5% hurdle (lower than that and you get zero seats in the house), which I believe it itself has no chance of taking, the CDU will ask its voters to consider voting FDP.
At the last federal election in 2009 the FDP even got 14.6% of the votes as too many CDU loyals lent their vote to the FDP to get rid of the Grand Coalition. Together CDU/CSU/FDP will likely have a majority once again, especially if the AfD misses the 5% hurdle.
However in my opinion the AfD will pass the 5% (but for sure not with the numbers a German reader declared and posted by Mish), and then the outcome might lead to a Grand Coalition as the only workable majority.
Merkel sold her Countrymen down the Central Bank River without a paddle. What a "Sour Kraut!"
It's a shame there is no real right-wing capitalist party in Germany.
The FDP is the closest thing to that but Germans despise pure Laissez Faire Capitalism and love their Sozialstaat
Well minus those which hate it. (Den Sozialstaat). But you're right most Germans love state and being "servants" of the state. Ask Merkel and Schäuble, they do love this job. Making lifes of millions more miserabel that's the land of plenty for the delefefs.
I proposed the same some half year or a bit more ago. I think it was after Steinbrück was "elected" to challenge Merkel. Well CDU 40 somewhat, FDP open (from 3 - 8 %) may be, the greens about 12-18 % and the SPD between 22 - 28 %, Linke around 5 (sorry we Germans are that stupid, but get over it we're - well at leat most of us). What is left?
Great coalition. Which means we tax payers (yes a few from us still are) are in for a brutal ride. We'll get squeezed, malinged, dupes and robbed. That's the simple truth of our "representatives".
Well you know thereis an old german? sayin: Ein Unglück kommt selten allein. (it's not that great in english: It never rains but it pours) The english is too weak to express Unglück which means disaster... So our election will be at least as worst as you last election of your "fantastic" president....
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...a large majority of Germans opposes a reintroduction of the Deutschmark.
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Really?
Quite sure about this?
Did you BitcHeZ miss this tag line at the top????
Via Goldman Sachs,
An Update on the German Elections
The Germans right now are fat, bored and content with what they have, they will vote for the Status Quo, the last thing a German would do it to rock the boat he is sitting in
Well now I'm quite slim, more than angry and hardly content, so am I disqualified to be a German?