{"id":4103,"date":"2016-03-13T18:42:38","date_gmt":"2016-03-14T00:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=4103"},"modified":"2016-03-13T20:12:36","modified_gmt":"2016-03-14T02:12:36","slug":"the-establishment-in-trouble-in-gemany-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2016\/03\/the-establishment-in-trouble-in-gemany-too.html","title":{"rendered":"The Establishment in trouble (in Gemany, too)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

In the first elections since last year\u2019s migration crisis in Germany, three states voted, with mixed results.<\/p>\n

According to Der Spiegel<\/a>, In Rhineland-Palatinate<\/a> (on the border with Belgium\/Luxembourg\/France, capital city Mainz, population 4 million), the CDU (Angela Merkel\u2019s party) lost votes since the last election in 2011, to be sure, but not dramatically \u2014 from 35.2% to 31.8%. \u00a0Their mainstream rival, the SPD, gained a smidge, from 35.7% to 36.2%. \u00a0The main movement, surprisingly, was a drop in the Greens from 15.4% to 5.3%, in combination with the gain among the upstart AfD, Alternative fuer Deutschland<\/a> (Altenative for Germany), which, having been founded in 2013 as a Euro-skeptic party and moved on to opposition to Merkel\u2019s migration policies, contested in the election for the first time and took 12.6% of the vote.<\/p>\n

Did voters really move from the Greens to AfD? \u00a0It seems unlikely. \u00a0Perhaps there were other reshufflings going on. \u00a0And interestingly, voter turnout increased from 61% to 70%.<\/p>\n

However, the SPD was in power already, having won a bare plurality in 2011, and, more importantly, having managed to have formed the majority coalition, in this case with the Greens. \u00a0According to Deutsche Welle<\/a>, they cannot do the same this year because of the electoral losses among the Greens, so they\u2019ll most likely form a coalition with the Greens and the Liberals (a small, libertarian-ish, pro-business party which is often a coalition partner) \u2013 a so-called \u201cTraffic Light Coalition\u201d due to the colors of the parties.<\/p>\n

In Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg, on the other hand, the rejection of the Establishment seems more obvious \u2014 the CDU dropped from 39% to 27%, and the SPD dropped from 23.1% to 12.7%. \u00a0Who gained? \u00a0The Greens \u2014 who were already a part of the governing coalition with the SPD, took the plurality of the vote, 30.3%, up from 24.2%, and AfD took 15.1%.<\/p>\n

Again, because of the SPD\u2019s losses, the Greens won\u2019t be able to maintain their existing coalition, and will presumably also look to a Traffic Light coalition. \u00a0But it\u2019s already remarkable that the Green\/SPD coalition existed in the first place, as that 2011 combination was the first time since postwar Germany came into being that the CDU didn\u2019t control that historically conservative state. \u00a0(The Reuters article linked to below attributes this to German nuclear power fears in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster just prior to those elections.)<\/p>\n

In Sachsen-Anhalt<\/a>, in the former East Germany, the results are the most dramatic. \u00a0The CDU again lost support, from 32.5% to 29.8%, but that\u2019s not particularly noteworthy compared to other movements: \u00a0the SPD dropped from 21.5% to 10.6%, the Left dropped from 23.7% to 16.3%, and AfD entered elections with a whopping 24.3% of the vote. \u00a0Turnout was up here, too, from 51% to 61 or 64% (the two national broadcasters differ here).<\/p>\n

So what do you make of this?<\/p>\n

The consensus of the English-language reporting is that Merkel got shellacked, badly, due to her migrant policies. \u00a0For instance, Reuters says, \u201cMerkel\u2019s party suffers drubbing in German state vote<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0But it\u2019s not that simple: \u00a0looking simply at the changes from 2011, in Rhineland-Palatinate voters moved from the Greens to AFD. \u00a0In Baden-W\u00fcrttemberg, both the Greens and AfD took votes from both CDU and SPD. \u00a0And in Sachsen-Anhalt, AfD primarily drew voters from the SPD and the Left, demonstrating that extremists from the Left and the Right aren\u2019t all that different, after all.<\/p>\n

As the BBC observes<\/a>, the politics of the migrant issue aren\u2019t black and white:<\/p>\n

The unprecedented success of the populist AfD shows just how vehemently some German voters disagree with Chancellor Merkel\u2019s pro-refugee stance. Many are conservative voters disenchanted with her centrist policies, and swayed by the robust populist narrative offered by AfD.<\/p>\n

So is this a blow to Mrs Merkel\u2019s leadership? Not necessarily. It was also a historic victory for the Greens, who support the chancellor\u2019s position on refugees.<\/p>\n

And during the campaign in Baden-Wurttemberg and Saxony-Anhalt the CDU candidates saw their voters fall away as they sporadically tried to undermine the chancellor\u2019s message and regain the populist ground from AfD.<\/p>\n

Remarkably in those states it was the CDU\u2019s left-wing opponents who backed Mrs Merkel\u2019s refugee policies most consistently \u2013 and tonight reaped the rewards for it. These results are proof that Germany is becoming increasingly polarised between voters who passionately support Mrs Merkel\u2019s pro-refugee stance and those angered by it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, the notion that the left-wing groups \u201creaped the rewards\u201d is due to the fact that both the Left (Linke) and AfD are pariah parties; that is, it is deemed out of the question for the CDU to form a coalition with the AfD, under any circumstance, in the same way as, in the other direction, the Left (former communists) were deemed to extreme for the SPD to join together with. \u00a0Which means that, even if the overall mood of the country shifted right, the electoral results won\u2019t show it.<\/p>\n

More than anything, it looks like the pro-immigrant policies of Chancellor Merkel, coming from a traditionally pro-business, socially-conservative (for Germany) political party, have shaken everything up, given that mainstream voters don\u2019t have an obvious alternative to turn to. \u00a0Perhaps there are significant realignments coming up, if German anger grows as the number of migrants does.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps not \u2014 as the closing of borders in Macedonia and elsewhere in the East, \u00a0and the hopes for a positive outcome to new agreements with Turkey, mean that future developments in the issue of mass migration are very much up in the air.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the first elections since last year\u2019s migration crisis in Germany, three states voted, with mixed results. According to Der Spiegel, In Rhineland-Palatinate (on the border with Belgium\/Luxembourg\/France, capital city Mainz, population 4 million), the CDU (Angela Merkel\u2019s party) lost votes since the last election in 2011, to be sure, but not dramatically \u2014 from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[17,345],"class_list":["post-4103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-germany","tag-merkel"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Establishment in trouble (in Gemany, too)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the first elections since last year's migration crisis in Germany, three states voted, with mixed results. 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