NEWS: German Chancellor Schroeder Out, First Female Leader In

Originally posted by djohnsto77
I totally agree with subz there, you can't hold her responsible for any statements made while living in the former East Germany...she absolutely couldn't have come out with pro-American pro-business statements under that regime.

Nobody forced her to be part of the Government though. You can also be part of the Government without showing admiration for Stalin.

Originally posted by Hannah
hm at the moment nothing is clear here in germany...this election is really strange...the current government ( SPD + Greens ) have no majority, the challengers CDU/CSU + FDP have no majority too...votes are still beeing counted and Merkels party lead is melting according to some predictions...crazy and disapointing, a clear change would have been better.

I hope she wins. Just curious though since you say "here in Germany", I assume you are German, Does that mean even the Germans wanted to see her win knowing she is somewhat pro American.

If you look at the reactions of the five major political parties you can see that Schroeder has no chance of forming a coalition government.

The Social Democrat Party (SPD) (Schroeder) polled 34%
The Green Party (coalition partner with SPD) polled 8%

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The Christian Democrats (CDU) (Merkel) polled 35%
The Free Democratic Party (FDP) (Westerwelle) polled 10%

The FDP has ruled out forming a coaltion with the SPD.

"We hope that as the evening wears on, we will have enough to govern with the Christian Democratic Union ... if not we will remain in the opposition," Westerwelle told supporters shortly after voting ended.

German Election Results

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The only remaining political party of any size remaining is:

The Left Party (LP) (Lafontaine) polled 8.5%

All the political parties have rulled out a coalition with the LP.

A three-way left-wing coalition featuring the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left was ruled out by each of the parties, mainly due to the bad blood with the Left Party's chief candidate Oskar Lafontaine, a former SPD leader and finance minister who resigned early on in Schroeder's reign.

Merkel, too, refused to negotiate with the far left, saying she planned to "talk to all political parties, except the Left Party" in her attempts to form a governing coalition.

German Election Results

That leaves the only possible coalitions being:

CDU + FDP = 45% votes (Merkel)
SPD + GP = 42% votes (Schroeder)

CDU + FDP +SPD + GP + LP = 95.5% votes

[edit on 18/9/05 by subz]

Originally posted by curme


Besides the fact that Schroeder thought Bush was a jerk, why are you so happy he wasn't re-elected? What experience and policies do you think that Merkel will have to offer the German people, that was better than her predecessor's? Or is the fact that Schroeder didn't like Bush good enough reason for a head of a nation to be removed?

Besides the fact that the once vibrant German economy is in the toilet under his "leadership", I would like to see the first female German Chancellor. She has also shown a desire to mend fences with the US.

And on a side note, maybe Hillary can save us from being one of the last nations on the Earth who has never elected a female leader.

Maybe, but I think she's too vain to get out of politics for the good of the country.

The last I heard of this election, there was much concern that the lady might not be able to form a coalition to assume control of the govt.

Originally posted by Astronomer68
The last I heard of this election, there was much concern that the lady might not be able to form a coalition to assume control of the govt.

I agree and I think it is safe to say a recount will be called, then they will have to check the chads on the ballots etc etc, this could go on for at least another two weeks if not longer. I do hope you are wrong though.

Isn't Diebold of German origin?
There is concern that the results will not be known for days or even weeks.

This looks like the German version of the U.S. 2000 election, hold on...

Originally posted by djohnsto77
This looks like the German version of the U.S. 2000 election, hold on...

Kinda funny isn't it, having an election that looks like the 2000 US election when its between Shroeder and a Pro-US candidate?

Originally posted by Astronomer68
The last I heard of this election, there was much concern that the lady might not be able to form a coalition to assume control of the govt.

ACCORDING THE LATEST NEWS FROM GERMANY TODAY:
Results of the „Bundestags” Elections
Schröder wants to be chancellor.
Today after the „Bundestag“ elections, Union and SPD (Schröder) persist to take over the chancellorship.
As per today
CDU = 35.2 %
SPD = 34.3 %
FDP = 9.8 %
Left = 8.7 %
Green=8.1%
Other=3.9 %
The CDU prime minister of Hessen Mr. Roland Koch, is convinced Angela will be chancellor.

SPD Secretary Laus Uwe Benneter brought out Mr. Schräöders demand to take over.
But the present results after this night look slightly better for the Union.
Mr. Koch would be against a big coalition. He said, they would dood be good for big political decisions and actions.
SPD-Secretary Benneter said that there are many different possibilities for coalitions to establish a responsible government.
The final results for the distribution of mandates in the Parlament will be turned out on 2nd October.
A specialist for partie research, Mr. Franz Walter consider a continuation of Mr. Schröder as possible.


www.gmx.net...=000004724700013622761h0UCN.html

I think Angela will make it. Mr. Schröder is a great speaker, and did promise a lot. But the german people are disappointed and lot of them lost their trust in him.

Originally posted by shots
I hope she wins. Just curious though since you say "here in Germany", I assume you are German, Does that mean even the Germans wanted to see her win knowing she is somewhat pro American.

yes i'm german. why do you say "even" the germans ? i don't get it.
45% have voted for the combination of CDU/CSU + FDP ( CDU/CSU 35.2% FDP 9.8% ) , who wanted to draw a clear line under the 7 years of schroeders government and a new start in economy, reforms and international relations / policy ( turkey question, US, etc. ) and these are "even" german voters.
President Bush and the Iraq war are not very popular that's true, but that doesn't mean that most people ( other voters too ) hate the USA or the citizens no matter what some people want to imply, at least in my personal experience since we don't have polls about who hates who.

but who cares, in general with this result it's simply crazy, no traditional coalition has a majority. both merkel and schroeder want to become chancellor. merkel has a slightly bigger representation in the bundestag, schroeder insists on remaining in office and his SPD buddies are argumenting that technically they are the most voted party, because they say the CDU / CSU are two seperate parties ( wich does not matter, they have a bigger representation in the bundestag and the SPD simply has not ).

so..since no traditional coalition has a majority, there are only a few posibilities left. minority governments...unlikely and difficult to get reforms through, a big-coalition ( SPD + CDU/CSU ) unlikely with two leaders, who want to become chancellor and of course noone will step back. even if one does, they would probably spend the next 4 years argueing about nonsense instead of getting the necessary reforms through.
and my favourite, the new "Jamaica" coalition : CDU/CSU + FDP + Greens. favourite because schroeder would be out of office, but Greens and Free Democrats in one coalition will get nasty ( unthinkable 24 hours ago )

[edit on 19-9-2005 by Hannah]

Originally posted by Hannah


yes i'm german. why do you say "even" the germans ? i don't get it.

Sorry just bad sentence structure on my part I was just trying to imply that I understood even most germans wanted her in office.

Originally posted by shots
Sorry just bad sentence structure on my part I was just trying to imply that I understood even most germans wanted her in office.

no problem, it's true that according to all predictions the CDU/CSU was in a clear lead, getting smaller but still enough. the real surprise of this election is that both big parties are so close towards each other when it got serious, noone would have expected this a day before.

Originally posted by Hannah


no problem, it's true that according to all predictions the CDU/CSU was in a clear lead, getting smaller but still enough. the real surprise of this election is that both big parties are so close towards each other when it got serious, noone would have expected this a day before.

Can you perhaps clear up one point. I heard some mention of one part of the vote that will be finished in the first part of October. Could you explain what that is about? Just caught parts of it off the news no real details that is why I ask.

The name of the city, province or whatever it was started with a D if that helps. could have been Dresdin (sp?) and pretty sure it was not Dusseldorf (sp?)


[edit on 9/19/2005 by shots]

Originally posted by shots
Can you perhaps clear up one point. I heard some mention of one part of the vote that will be finished in the first part of October. Could you explain what that is about? Just caught parts of it off the news no real details that is why I ask.

The name of the city, province or whatever it was started with a D if that helps. could have been Dresdin (sp?) and pretty sure it was not Dusseldorf (sp?)

Yeah apparently Dresden hasn't voted yet:

In any case, final arrangements will have to wait for the result of the Dresden by-election planned for October 2nd. Some odd peculiarities of Germany's election law opens the scant possibility of three additional seats for the SPD as a result of the Dresden election, in which case both the CDU/CSU and the SPD would hold 225 seats in the new Bundestag.

medienkritik.typepad.com...

Originally posted by djohnsto77

Yeah apparently Dresden hasn't voted yet:

In any case, final arrangements will have to wait for the result of the Dresden by-election planned for October 2nd. Some odd peculiarities of Germany's election law opens the scant possibility of three additional seats for the SPD as a result of the Dresden election, in which case both the CDU/CSU and the SPD would hold 225 seats in the new Bundestag.

medienkritik.typepad.com...

Thanks DJ. Wonder why the election did not finish there yet? Is this a fly in the oinment? Sounds fishy to me that if they were voting it would just stop to be continued at a later date.

Originally posted by shots
Thanks DJ. Wonder why the election did not finish there yet? Is this a fly in the oinment? Sounds fishy to me that if they were voting it would just stop to be continued at a later date.

the election in this particular district was set back because of the sudden death of a candidate from the NPD in order to give his replacement time to do some campaigning...fairness or whatever...

The delayed vote is scheduled to take place on Oct. 2 and became necessary after a candidate running on the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) ticket died suddenly of a stroke while campaigning. In order to give her replacement candidate time to campaign, the election was put off by two weeks.

service.spiegel.de...

Originally posted by Hannah

the election in this particular district was set back because of the sudden death of a candidate from the NPD in order to give his replacement time to do some campaigning...fairness or whatever...

Ok understood what is taking place there. Could you please explain how or if this could effect the overall results of the election. I.e. are both of the other candidates on the very same ballot in that area.


You have to excuse my ignorance here since I am not aware of how your election process woriks.

[edit on 9/19/2005 by shots]

Originally posted by shots

Originally posted by Hannah


yes i'm german. why do you say "even" the germans ? i don't get it.

Sorry just bad sentence structure on my part I was just trying to imply that I understood even most germans wanted her in office.

Surely if most wanted her she would have won by a majority or a super majority?

They have a parliamentary system where the members of parliament form an executive government based on the majority party or a coalition of parties that form a majority in the Parliament...it's quite different than in the U.S. where we have a separate election for President. The election for these members of Parliament was delayed due to the death so the makeup of Parliament (and the abilities of the parties to form a coalition majority government) still isn't certain.