Wednesday, September 14, 2005
BUNDESTAGSWAHL 2005 / GERMAN ELECTION LOG: RISING UNCERTAINTY
Although the campaigning here in Berlin is in its decidedly hot phase, I've been somewhat distracted by other stuff including the piece on Middle East democratisation and a review of a book on EU enlargement. The essay I had started about the German elections is shelved as the results now look entirely open. In conversation last night -ok, not the most reliable sourcing here ;)- I learned that the polls had shifted so much that only a grand coalition would be possible. Given that all concerned parties are ruling this out categorically I'm not sure what to make of the possible developments. I still think a grand coalition would be a bad solution, though it's hard to see it going any other way at the moment. That said, we may not even know the result on the polling day, i.e. this Sunday, because, due to the death of a Neo-Nazi candidate, Dresden will not be voting until two weeks after. Even if the interim results are released on Sunday, it may be so close that the Dresden vote might be decisive. All in all that means that the previous certainty about the next German government is gone. I was actually going to use this space to sketch out future prospects for British-German cooperation, but given the circumstnaces and my limited time resources I will obviously limit this for now, especially given that these politicians are all pigs really . . .
Although the campaigning here in Berlin is in its decidedly hot phase, I've been somewhat distracted by other stuff including the piece on Middle East democratisation and a review of a book on EU enlargement. The essay I had started about the German elections is shelved as the results now look entirely open. In conversation last night -ok, not the most reliable sourcing here ;)- I learned that the polls had shifted so much that only a grand coalition would be possible. Given that all concerned parties are ruling this out categorically I'm not sure what to make of the possible developments. I still think a grand coalition would be a bad solution, though it's hard to see it going any other way at the moment. That said, we may not even know the result on the polling day, i.e. this Sunday, because, due to the death of a Neo-Nazi candidate, Dresden will not be voting until two weeks after. Even if the interim results are released on Sunday, it may be so close that the Dresden vote might be decisive. All in all that means that the previous certainty about the next German government is gone. I was actually going to use this space to sketch out future prospects for British-German cooperation, but given the circumstnaces and my limited time resources I will obviously limit this for now, especially given that these politicians are all pigs really . . .
Labels: Germany
