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German election neepery
Sep. 20th, 2005 10:04 amThe German federal election is supposedly a stalemate, with the two major parties almost equal in votes and seats, at about 36% of the seats each, with the opposition CDU/CSU [Christian Democrats/Christian Socialists] a smidgin ahead of the incumbent Social Democrats.
One might think this should give the CDU/CSU first crack at forming the government, but not so fast. It's not just that they did less well than expected in the polls, and the Social Democrats slightly better (though not as well as they did in the last election in 2002). It's that in a parliamentary system without a majority, the minor parties are key. (There's three of them in the Bundestag: the Greens, who were in the last government with the Social Democrats; the Free Democrats, who are vaguely libertarian-lite; and the Left Party, an alliance of ex-communists and dissident left-wing Social Democrats.) Any two of these three, allied with one of the two major parties, would make a majority.
So it's up to the major parties to woo them, and it doesn't have to be the larger party. The Social Democrats were the smaller of the major parties when they formed a government with the Free Democrats in 1969; they remained the smaller party in two of the three elections they fought as head of that government; and they stayed in office until the Free Democrats decided to switch allegiance to Helmut Kohl in 1982.
In most parliamentary systems, the incumbent government remains in office until it shows that it doesn't have parliamentary support. (In Britain, the country I know best, this policy descends from the 18th century when - despite the popular belief in a rigid system of Whigs vs. Tories - parliament actually consisted of a swirling mass of minority factions, and forming a government consisted of cobbling together enough of them to form a majority. Governments fell not when they lost an election - in those days they never did - but when, through loss of royal support or other reasons, enough of the factions defected.)
So I suspect it's Chancellor Schroeder's move.
One might think this should give the CDU/CSU first crack at forming the government, but not so fast. It's not just that they did less well than expected in the polls, and the Social Democrats slightly better (though not as well as they did in the last election in 2002). It's that in a parliamentary system without a majority, the minor parties are key. (There's three of them in the Bundestag: the Greens, who were in the last government with the Social Democrats; the Free Democrats, who are vaguely libertarian-lite; and the Left Party, an alliance of ex-communists and dissident left-wing Social Democrats.) Any two of these three, allied with one of the two major parties, would make a majority.
So it's up to the major parties to woo them, and it doesn't have to be the larger party. The Social Democrats were the smaller of the major parties when they formed a government with the Free Democrats in 1969; they remained the smaller party in two of the three elections they fought as head of that government; and they stayed in office until the Free Democrats decided to switch allegiance to Helmut Kohl in 1982.
In most parliamentary systems, the incumbent government remains in office until it shows that it doesn't have parliamentary support. (In Britain, the country I know best, this policy descends from the 18th century when - despite the popular belief in a rigid system of Whigs vs. Tories - parliament actually consisted of a swirling mass of minority factions, and forming a government consisted of cobbling together enough of them to form a majority. Governments fell not when they lost an election - in those days they never did - but when, through loss of royal support or other reasons, enough of the factions defected.)
So I suspect it's Chancellor Schroeder's move.
