09-14-2005, 09:17 AM
Angie Merkel, huh? Well...
She's a conservative and she leads a party that calls itself "christian". That's why I'm not going to vote for her.
Schr?der (the current Chancellor) is disliked by leftists because he's cutting the welfare system. He is disliked by rightists because he doesn't cut enough.
Personally I'm in a kind of dilemma. I do like some of the economic reforms envisioned by Merkel's christian-democrats (CDU) and their small coalition partner, the liberals (FDP; in U.S. English: the libertarians). But when it comes to topics such as the environment, immigration and gay rights, I support the Greens, the small coalition partner of Schr?der's social-democrats (SPD).
This year's elections are a total mess anyway. First Schr?der dissolved parliament (indirectly because he doesn't have the right to dissolve it directly) and brought the elections one year forward.
Then PDS (successor of SED, the former East German communist party) joined forces with WASG (a new party of social-democrats frustrated with the welfare cuts) to form "The Left", led by former PDS head Gregor Gysi and former SPD politician Oskar Lafontaine (who resigned from all political offices three years ago because he disagreed with Schr?der).
In the polls, the Left is taking away votes from the social-democrats, and a few from the christian-democrats, too. In the end, it might be the Left's fault that we get a coalition of the two big parties SPD and CDU, because neither SPD-Greens nor CDU-FDP will have a majority as a coalition.
In one constituency (out of 299), one of the candidates died recently. That's why this constituency (the southern half of Dresden) will have to vote two weeks later than the rest of the country. Some parties are preparing to sue the Federal Election Supervisor if the results of the other 298 constituencies are published before Dresden I has voted. And the rest of the country wonders whether it is possible and necessary to keep the result secret for two weeks.
Oh, and in my constituency, there's also a weird situation. Normally the SPD candidate (Elke Ferner) would have the best chances to win?also because no one knows the CDU candidate (Anette H?binger). But now Oskar Lafontaine (who was Mayor of this city 1974-'85 and Premier of this state 1985-'98) is the candidate for The Left. His taking away votes from the SPD might lead to one more directly won seat for the CDU (see here for a short explanation of our "personified proportion vote" system).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_fede...tion,_2005
By the way: If you're interested what a ballot looks like, here's a sample of the ballot for my constituency in PDF:
http://www.wahlen.saarland.de/medien/inhal...hlkreis_296.pdf
For those who understand German, here's the official tool that can help you decide which party to vote for.
http://www.wahlomat.de/
The "Wahl-O-Mat" (elect-o-matic) is published by the Federal Center for Political Education.
She's a conservative and she leads a party that calls itself "christian". That's why I'm not going to vote for her.
Schr?der (the current Chancellor) is disliked by leftists because he's cutting the welfare system. He is disliked by rightists because he doesn't cut enough.
Personally I'm in a kind of dilemma. I do like some of the economic reforms envisioned by Merkel's christian-democrats (CDU) and their small coalition partner, the liberals (FDP; in U.S. English: the libertarians). But when it comes to topics such as the environment, immigration and gay rights, I support the Greens, the small coalition partner of Schr?der's social-democrats (SPD).
This year's elections are a total mess anyway. First Schr?der dissolved parliament (indirectly because he doesn't have the right to dissolve it directly) and brought the elections one year forward.
Then PDS (successor of SED, the former East German communist party) joined forces with WASG (a new party of social-democrats frustrated with the welfare cuts) to form "The Left", led by former PDS head Gregor Gysi and former SPD politician Oskar Lafontaine (who resigned from all political offices three years ago because he disagreed with Schr?der).
In the polls, the Left is taking away votes from the social-democrats, and a few from the christian-democrats, too. In the end, it might be the Left's fault that we get a coalition of the two big parties SPD and CDU, because neither SPD-Greens nor CDU-FDP will have a majority as a coalition.
In one constituency (out of 299), one of the candidates died recently. That's why this constituency (the southern half of Dresden) will have to vote two weeks later than the rest of the country. Some parties are preparing to sue the Federal Election Supervisor if the results of the other 298 constituencies are published before Dresden I has voted. And the rest of the country wonders whether it is possible and necessary to keep the result secret for two weeks.
Oh, and in my constituency, there's also a weird situation. Normally the SPD candidate (Elke Ferner) would have the best chances to win?also because no one knows the CDU candidate (Anette H?binger). But now Oskar Lafontaine (who was Mayor of this city 1974-'85 and Premier of this state 1985-'98) is the candidate for The Left. His taking away votes from the SPD might lead to one more directly won seat for the CDU (see here for a short explanation of our "personified proportion vote" system).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_fede...tion,_2005
By the way: If you're interested what a ballot looks like, here's a sample of the ballot for my constituency in PDF:
http://www.wahlen.saarland.de/medien/inhal...hlkreis_296.pdf
For those who understand German, here's the official tool that can help you decide which party to vote for.
http://www.wahlomat.de/
The "Wahl-O-Mat" (elect-o-matic) is published by the Federal Center for Political Education.