zompist bboard

_________________
Blog:

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

That's a phrasing problem. I thought you meant some program that would make it difficult for people who want or need to move out from small towns to do so.

_________________
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!

For the last almost 70 years, it was mostly boringly predictable who would govern Germany after the election results wre announced (the exception being 1969, when the CDU thought they'd continue the first Grand Coalition with the SPD, but the latter teamed up with the FDP instead). This time is really different; we're now having our next round of drama.
For the last week or so, the CDU/CSU and the President have tried to talk the SPD into a renewed Grand Coalition (GroKo = Große Koalition). Then the Agriculture Minister (Christian Schmidt, CSU) voted for the prolongation of the certification of weedkiller glyphosat for 5 years in the European Council of Ministers, even though the SPD-led Environment Ministry was against it. According to the rules of procedure of the cabinet, Germany should have abstained, as the two ministries involved were not in agreement. Later it also transpired that the Chancellor's offfice had instructed Schmidt beforehand to come to an agreement with the Environment Ministry and had reminded him of the rules. So this looks either like Schmidt has openly both broken the rules and defied the Chancellor in order to please his clientele (the CSU is traditionally in the pocket of the commercial farmers' lobby), or like Merkel unofficially sanctioning his actions to please the CSU while communicating adherence to the rules officially. Both possibilities don't make her look good, and the SPD has made a big show about how that scandal erodes the trust needed to renew the GroKo.
But despite the public clamour, Schmidt and Barbara Hendricks (the Environment Minister) now have met and made up, the leaders of CDU, CSU, and SPD have met at the residence of the President yesterday, and it seems we're headed for a new GroKo. We'll wait for new scenes in that political theatre. The SPD has promised that it will put participation in the GroKo to a vote among its members; let's see how that plays out.

It might sound crazy, but would it be possible to have CDU-SPD coalition without CSU?

_________________
The conlanger formerly known as “the conlanger formerly known as Pole, the”.

If we don't study the mistakes of the future we're doomed to repeat them for the first time.

The Economist thinks there should be a new election in the hopes of producing a clearer result: . What do y'all think of that?

_________________
Blog:

But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!

@Sal: purely legally, they could do so, but that would mean blowing up their own party. While CDU and CSU formally are two parties, they go into the elections as one unit and are seen by voters and members as such. It's a bit as if the Scottish Tories had their own seat and a veto at the negotiation table when a government is formed - that would make work harder for Theresa May, but it probably wouldn't lead her to form a government without them. Ditching the CSU would weaken the CDU and would enrage a lot of its members. There is no good reason why they would do that.

Thank you for keeping people updated, H-W. I wasn't at all sure what to write about all the stuff that's been going on. And I agree that the new elections proposal from the Economist is nonsense.

Also, a new election could see further AfD gains due to all the chaos among the more mainstream parties.

_________________
ìtsanso, God In The Mountain, may our names inspire the deepest feelings of fear in urkos and all his ilk, for we have saved another man from his lies! I welcome back to the feast hall kal, who will never gamble again! May the eleven gods bless him!

We might have a lift-off. Sort of. In the new year, the CDU/CSU and SPD held extensive sounding talks, and those have ended with the production of a preliminary paper. We'll see if this leads anywhere.

Meanwhile, in some international media outlets, I've seen comments about how Germany has gone for months without a government. That's simply not true. Germany has only gone for months without a regular government - there's been an acting government for all that time.

This just in: the Guardian has published an titled "The Guardian view on Germany’s coalition deal: Merkel in the balance". Aaaaaargh! There is no coalition deal yet! There've only been sounding talks so far! The actual coalition talks are yet to come! And even if they produce a deal, it will still have to be ratified by the respective party institutions! Sigh.

_________________
did you send enough shit to guarantee victory?

And now it looks like there might be open rebellion in the SPD against the preliminary deal. There seems to be a lot of unhappiness in the base, and yesterday, a state SPD convention in Saxony-Anhalt voted against the deal.

_________________
did you send enough shit to guarantee victory?

The SPD will have a special convention to vote on the preliminary deal tomorrow, and it's not at all clear how the vote will go. There's a lot of unhappiness about the deal among the SPD's rank and file. The deal is especially unpopular with the Jusos or Young Socialists, the SPD's youth organisation, which is traditionally a good deal more to the left than the "adult" SPD. Ok, we'll see.

SPD special convention currently voting.

Voted with a fairly slim majority to enter formal coalition talks.

That doesn't mean that a CDU/CSU-SPD coalition is certain, though. Once the coalition talks have produced a formal coalition agreement, there'll still be a vote about that among the entire SPD membership. And given how close the special convention vote was, nothing is certain about that.

Now it is the time for Schulz, Nahles and the other SPD leaders to really get their shit together and reevaluate major parts of the pre-coalition talks agreement. If they don't, they're entering yet another government that won't implement anything the SPD campaigned for. Before the elections you heard them say abolishing private healthcare (I don't know how to properly translate Bürgerversicherung) was crucial for them and there won't be a coalition if the CDU opposes. This was dropped completely, just like fighting for job security and ending people getting trapped in endless temporary employment contracts, raising taxes for higher income groups, minimum wages and pensions and pretty much everything else, really.
I'm not an SPD voter and no matter whether I do or don't support these policies, this can't end well for them. They have been working against their own voter base (and as correctly noted, against their own youth organisation) and have done so for years, which ultimately lead to their disastrous election results (remember when something like 40% was a normal result? I certainly don't, I'm too young). And now it looks like they'll proceed with it like nothing happened. I am confused.