Democracy

Thank the EU, I have been able to vote in communal and EU elections since moving to Germany in 1990. I have not been able to vote in my homeland (UK) elections at any level since at least 2005. This year since being granted German citizenship, I can now vote at regional and national elections. And the great thing is that my votes all count (given I don't vote for any of the extreme wings or somewhat dubious parties eg "Vegans" as a party has to get at least 5% of the vote to sit in any of the parliaments).

And today I got two chances, one for the Bavarian State elections and one for the Swabian regional (one of seven in Bavaria) elections. And in each case, I got two votes - one for a specifically named first-past-the-post candidate (Direct candidate) who make up 50% of the seats and one for a party who then allocate the seats to their choices according to a pre-prepared list, according to the percentage of the total vote they got. Bavaria has a slightly different added bit of democracy: one is able to place a cross against the individuals on this second list so that a particular candidate is pushed higher up the list than the party's own suggestion.

The Swabian regional body/parliament is only responsible for a limited number of areas such as mental health (run such hospitals), arts, culture, youth, development of the area in things like tourism and cultural exchange with other countries areas. They don't raise any taxes simply getting a pot from the state Bavaria which they distribute.

And I ended up voting for three parties. On the Swabian vote, I voted Labour (ie socialist) for a nurse from Memmingen who was standing as a Direct candidate and randomly picked out the Green candidate living closest to me. In other words, I voted for the candidates I thought most likely to be good for social, environmental, youth and cultural matters that concern me.

In the State elections where finance, education, law & order, housing ... in fact everything important except defence, foreign policy and some central taxes (VAT) .... I voted for the Direct candidate of the CSU who I think does quite well at looking after local interests and my second vote was for the Greens. In this case, I voted conservative to reflect the good job they have done for decades for Bavaria in financial and security matters (as do 75% of all Bavarians) and Green so as to improve the environmental and social (notably education and housing) record.

The Swabian regional vote results won't be known for a few days but are really not of great interest. The state results that were announced as a prognosis within 5 minutes of the election booths closing, as usual, were 95% correct. Around 12 million voted (75% turnout) and the CSU conservative party who have dominated since 1946 (apart from 1954-7) took a big knock and lost the overall majority and the Greens had a massive success becoming the second biggest party. The Right-wing nazty party AfD got into parliament for the first time with 10% of the vote, not surprising in our modern populist/hate/fear times but at least 90% of voters didn't vote for them.

Initially, it looked like only a coalition between CSU Conservatives and the, slightly left of Labour, Greens could form a coalition (no party is prepared to work with AfD). However within a few hours as the counts came in the percentage points just changed by 1% or 2% giving the Greens a tick less and a slightly right of CSU party, the rural, farming, catholic/christian, former CSU voters who think Islam-is-destroying-our-tradition, FW "Free Voters", got a tick more. This now allows the almost certain coalition of CSU & FW. The CSU and Greens do not see eye to eye on many things but could and would if forced to.

The number of seats finally allocated is a bit fluid according to the somewhat complicated rules of proportional representation. Initially, it was for 180 seats, 91 of which are Direct "first past the post" and the rest according to % of the vote. The CSU Conservatives won 85 of these, the Greens six and the rest none. In a UK style system, we would have had another 5 years of authoritarian rule!

But luckily here the proportional representation kicks in - the total of all votes, both from the crosses on the Direct candidate list and from the second Party list are added together and then the remaining seats divided out proportionately. In total 205 seats were awarded and the CSU instead of having 80% of the seats now only has 42%. Here the Wiki results in English.

The press, particularly in the  UK & USA picked up that the CSU (sister party of Mrs Merkel's CDU) losses were a slap in the face for Angela. In fact, it was the reverse.  The CSU who are in the national government in a coalition with Mrs Merkel have been giving her a hard time in Berlin over immigration mainly because they wanted to show strength and ward off the potential move to the AfD. What they did was raise interest in the AfD who were dead in Bavaria and at the same time get a large number of their followers annoyed and who then moved further to the left - the Greens. And they paid the price in Bavaria for their games.

Merkel will be tested in the Hesse (Frankfurt area) state elections in two weeks. I'm not aware of any real complaints against her policies. Yes, the "humanitarian" 2015 immigrants welcome decision was questionable but there wasn't a single days time to get prepared. The million were knocking on the door in the cold and rain and large numbers of EU states were refusing to take any responsibility. 

Nobody has ever accused her of putting her "hand in the till" nor any nepotism. She U-turned on her views on atomic power, a sign of her willingness to listen to and embrace change, she has been a great supporter of trying to get a reasonable UK Brexit deal that doesn't fly against the key principles of the EU, she has done her best to help Greece despite being depicted as the new Hitler there. What she hasn't been able to do is get to grips with redistribution of wealth, an issue around the world that nobody seems to have a workable answer for - I exclude the left-wing radical lot. She is simply suffering from having done an excellent job over too many years in making Germany as strong as it is. People in their well-off boredom are looking for some excitement again.

In international terms, she has always tried to be a fair conciliatory voice but as we know from the Brexit War, as soon as she is seen to be anywhere in the vicinity of a UK newspaper "journalist", the cries of Hun and Nazi are printed on the front page. Same applies everywhere else as soon as German soldiers are sent to help out anywhere on UN missions. Interesting that the UN Security Council standing members are from such fair and reasonable countries as the UK, Russia and USA. 

As a new immigrant citizen, I am more than happy with the Bavarian election results and would like to see the same happen nationally. Sound financially, strong on security, environmentally aware, socially fair and in all matters showing understanding for fears and acting with humanity and reason.

Some countries could learn about democracy from Germany - it was ironically the British & US occupying forces who introduced the system in 1946.

The Blip is of the postal vote "package" for the two elections. A lot of paperwork but then again democracy requires a bit of thought and work.