German elections and newspapers.
It is fun to read about the German elections in the Italian newspapers. Because I begin to have an impression, that is, that newspapers in Italy write the articles a few days earlier, based on polls and projections, and then try to adapt the articles written to the reality that emerges from the numbers.
First of all: the CDU is no longer Merkel's party. For the simple reason that she stepped down from office years ago, and the CDU has another secretary. I am sorry that it is so difficult for the Italian newspapers to learn his name, however we are already TWO secretaries ago, but things work like this: when a party changes secretary, the secretary is another person. Otherwise following the same logic you should say "Renzi's PD" to indicate that of Letta.
However, I inform you that the current secretary is called Armin Laschet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Laschet
I realize that Laschet is a strange name for a German, perhaps for this reason it is difficult for Italian journalists, and it is true: since it comes from a place near Aachen, which in Italian is Aachen, and Aachen is the city of Charlemagne (which the Italians believe to be in France) is so close to the borders that the name seems to be French. Let's say Belgian, but I have no desire to end up in the ethnic diatribe of the canteen of the Brussels parliament, which people believe to be a nation.
Anyway yes, now you will have to get used to saying "the CDU of Laschet". Although Markel was almost unknown to most people at first, so maybe it's a matter of time. But guys, if Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer remained, then I wanted to see you.
Second point: Merkel cannot lose these elections, because she is not running. He decided three years ago to quit politics at the end of his term. So he can't lose. If you don't play, you can't lose. It seems to me a simple reasoning.
Anyway, let's move on: the things to note in yesterday's election are the following:
- greens still grow. I know this will entice the Italian left which considers the greens as "one of them", but this is not the case. First of all because the German Greens are competent, and secondly because they have a prepared and pragmatic political class. They could not stay closed in the same room with those who call themselves "green" in Italy (in practice a lobby that protects the villas in the countryside of the rich) for more than half an hour, before an armed confrontation breaks out.
- Green leader confirmed in Baden-Württemberg. Interesting, but the forecasts of an alliance between SPD, FDP and Verdi can perhaps stand up locally, but not nationally.
If you look at the last elections:
You quickly discover that a 4% decline is nothing compared to the decline suffered in the last elections. The problem that the Italian press (which is now sovereign and aims to clear Salvini customs) is that AfD has lost 4%, and for AfD this means (being isolated and without allies) becoming (= remaining) the usual irrelevant Patanazi party which appears, on average every 10 years, on the German political scene. The usual Republikaner, in short: they are born, they cause a scandal, they take their 10%, then they alarm when they are on 13%, finally they go to jail or close because their leader is a porno star and turns an interracial. LOL. (really happened)
But let's get to the point: why is an alliance between SPD, Verdi and FDP at national level impossible? For ideological reasons: at least two parties (Greens and FDP) are not together. This is why the “Jamaica” majority had already failed in the last elections.
In fact, the Greens have rather ideological welfarist economic positions, while the FDP is a conservative party of an ultra-capitalist and turbo-liberal mold.They cannot be together on a national scale, and they manage to coexist on a local scale only when the battleground is not 'local.
What do I mean? I mean that if we want to change the general trend of German welfare, at the local level we can do little without infuriating families. And therefore a welfare / turbocapitalism or state / private discussion is ONLY possible at the national level. Using this pretext it is possible to bring them together locally, but not nationally.
In Baden-Württemberg it works because there is a truly atypical leader who manages to steal votes from the CDU while leading a party more to the left than the SPD. But it is a purely local issue, and not extendable.
But secondly, the SPD also has a veto against the Greens, who are more to the left. In fact, its leader has just said that he can't wait to take the place of the CDU in government: the trouble is that the Greens have more votes than the SPD, so he could not be the majority party.
But the interesting thing is the celebration of an electoral punishment (the story of the masks, although not yet clarified – there is not even the police investigation because it was not illegal) caused immediate punishment: the Germans have the finger on the trigger with politicians.
On the contrary, the catastrophic collapse of AfD is hardly mentioned in the Italian press: losing 4 points out of 16 is MUCH more serious than losing 4 points out of 26, to name one. And there is no mention of HOW this debacle came about.
So I'll do it.
The factors that weighed on AfD are the following:
- there are four secret services in Germany. One is dedicated to preventing the Nazis from returning. It announced that it had placed the AfD under observation, the first step in banning it. (other right-wing parties have been outlawed in the past). AfD appealed to a court saying “eh, but you can't do it to a party registered in the next elections, it's against democracy”. This works, but the German citizen does not want to vote for a party that could disappear in prisons the day after the next elections. Furthermore, the AFD's observation allows to investigate its financing.
- The government has closed the bank accounts of several Russian disinformation newspapers, most notably the German version of Russia Today. This, combined with a series of actions on Facebook (which is rarely used here), has greatly reduced the ability of the Russians to influence the elections. If we consider that the tightening dates back to a few weeks ago, the strategy worked. Since the newspaper is still up, but it cannot be financed by advertising because it has no accounts in Germany, the cauldron "who finances you?" Will open soon, and the Finanzamt, the local financial police, will move. , who has about the powers of a secret service: he infiltrated his men inside a Lichtenstein bank to get out the names of the account holders, for one thing.
It is difficult to know what will happen in the next elections, for several reasons:
- the Germans are progressive in the local but are conservative in national politics.
- the conservative side has not grown, ie the CSU has not increased its chances of proposing Söder as chancellor, unless Laschet makes serious mistakes in the coming months.
- the Germans are quite cross-eyed when they vote. It means that they usually scatter the votes so that, in practice, only a coalition government can exist.
In these conditions, apart from the good news on the AfD, which the Italian press does not report because it is a sovereign press and is licking Salvini's (or perhaps Meloni's) ass in advance, the Länder are constantly fluctuating.
The problem is that, objectively, since there is a system of constructive distrust (you can only bring down a government if you elect another in its place with the votes of the parliament, there are no crises in the dark), local elections do not affect the government very little. Sure, the SPD could withdraw its ministers and leave the government, the GroKo (grand coalition) but the result would be to be accused of irresponsibility during the pandemic.
I do not understand, honestly, the exultation of certain newspapers. Sure, Spiegel will sound the trumpets of victory, but the San Martin Schultz lesson should have vaccinated foreign journalists who read Spiegel.
Or not?