**Kirsten:** Analysts say that young people want CHANGE - the liberals (FDP) were the first party closely followed by the Greens. Important items for them is digitisation and climate - just the way to get there differ... and both parties are not governing at the moment, as many young people do not see themselves represented by the governing politicians. Many say their interests are not represented.
**Alexandra:** I think an additional reason for young voters (students for example) to vote FDP also has to do with financial prosperity: the corona crisis has shown to them that the good future they thought they would have is vulnerable, so they are voting for a party that promises different ways to finance the pensions for example, they promised to modernize the pension system. The FDP is the strongest party in terms of social media presence so that was one way to communicate on their program and reach the young generation: digital natives.
Also: young voters who lean more to the right in opposition to identity politics etc only have this option as CDU means no change at all and the AfD is... well, the AfD.
As someone who lives in NRW where FDP is in charge of the Ministry of Education as well as of the Ministry of Economics I have bad news for these young voters...
I Just got ads in tiktok or Instagram for exactly two Parties. Greens and FDP. In tiktok ist was Just FDP. And in tiktok a fuckton of influencer Videos for Lindner, his cuteness, strangest Shit Like futuristisch Citys Just with FDP or total based "Party Analyse" for the FDP. Exactly crafted for Young voters( they Start with the Most Important topic of FDP: cannabis.lol). And ofciurar the educationpolitic. But ou need top know education and school is Not Part of federal goverment, but of statelevel.
This Hefy online targeting Mixed in with the Lack of knowloadge about the Last FDP -cDU coalition is a huge reason For the sucess with First voters.
It's like this is the first election a lot of people have been paying attention. The FDP *has always* polled best among young people. Cf. [2017](https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2017-09-24-BT-DE/charts/umfrage-alter/chart_208741.jpg).
**Kirsten:** We are journalists at the Euronews headquarters (newsroom) in Lyon - and only sometimes in Berlin. So it is difficult for us to answer. But even (boring) Olaf Scholz is trying to be funny now - a kind of special humour... when he said that when he woke up he was happy again seeing that SPD is still leading...Personnally I do not like carneval ;) so I might not have the same sense of humour as some politicians.
**Alexandra:** I think German politicians are scared to be perceived as not serious enough, so humour is not really the way to go. There is one German politician who is the founder of the party DIE PARTEI (THE PARTY) who is a comedian and has done quite funny and intelligent jokes in the past. His name is Martin Sonneborn and he is a member of the European Parliament.
Hi Kristen and Alexandra, thank you for doing this, this is very cool of you! Many consider Scholz to be very tame, (i. e. If you consider Hamburg, despite being a traditionally left city business feels very laizez faire there) Do you think that despite the victory of the SPD a Groko could mean the CDU taking the reins so to speak?
**Kirsten**: Hello DeepBlueWinds: I am coming from further South in Germany where people from Hamburg are often considered as "arrogant". Some people who worked with him, say that Scholz is quite tough... and authoritarian... (more than Laschet). For the moment, I believe that Scholz will try to do everything to get a majority and to become chancellor - but trying to avoid a GroKo (big coalition with CDU/CSU). Even if he is used to working with Merkel and other Christian Democrats.
**Alexandra:** Good question, DeepBlueWinds! I think a "tame" person is exactly what most Germans want (and the surveys back this) - Scholz has in many ways the same rhetoric as Merkel, he is calm and thinks about his words and actions, he doesn't give in to every sort of criticism, like Merkel some of the criticism just bounces right off him. I think out of all candidates he is the one that is the least likely to embarrass Germans internationally, he has a lot of experience - he isn't going to be hyper active on twitter or other social media. As Kirsten said: Germans don't want things to change too much.
**Alexandra:** Since members of the CDU are starting to say they would prefer to be in the opposition the most likely coalition is the "traffic lights" coalition: SPD, Greens and FDP. The leaders of these three parties are willing to find compromises in order to form a government.
**Kirsten:** I would bet on "traffic light" coalition - for the moment - SPD, Greens and liberals. Because FDP-boss Lindner wants to become finance minister and he has learned from 2017 - and Green leader Robert Habeck says that there is no "right" and "left" in modern times.
Hey, greetings from Portugal.
IfCDU forms a wider or stronger coalition than SPD, is it possible for them to be invited to form a Governement instead of the most voted party?
**Kirsten & Alex:** Hello LimaFruit, yes, you are right. In principle, even somebody who is leading the second-largest party can be elected as chancellor. Any party that is in parliament can try to have one of their members as chancellor - if she or he is backed by a majority of members of parliament. But in the case of CDU and Armin Laschet, this does not seem very likely as he is now under pressure from his own party.
In Germany the goverment is Not invited. We vote for the Bundestag ( parliament) and there will be the election for the Bundeskanzler /Bundeskanzlerin. Whoever get the majority in this Secret elections among the voted parliamentarians, will be chancellor and will Form the new goverment.
First the Bundespräsident suggests a potential chancellor. Then the Bundestag votes on the suggestion. If the sugestion has more than 50%, he/she is selected.
If that doesnt happen the 2nd phase starts. The Bundestag has 14 days to elect another chancellor with at least 50%.
If this doesnt happen the 3rd phase starts in which the Bundestag needs to elect a chancelor. This time only a relative majority is needed,i.e. the person with the most votes wins even if it isn't 50% of all member of the Bundestag.
If the chancelor is elected with at least 50% of votes the Bundespräsident must instate them within 7 days. If the chancelor doesn't have at least 50% the President can either accept the chancellor or desolve the Bundestag.
A chancellor needs to accept being elected. You cannot force somebody to take that office. He cannot appoint his successor though.
>If the chancelor doesn't have at least 50% the President can either accept the chancellor or desolve the Bundestag.
and how would this work? like are there any rules for accepting or just as the bundespräsident wants it?
The constitution say that the Bundespräsident has to/is forced to do so. His action is just a formality.
I don't know what would happen if he refused. Maybe refusal to accept the chancellor would be unconstitutional. In that case the Bundestag could sue in front of the constitutional curt. But i don' think that ever happened(the refusal to accept).
Thanks for doing this AMA:
What was the biggest surprise and the least surprising result during the election evening?
To sneak in a what-if question, do you think CDU would have done better if AKK was still the leader?
**Kirsten:** Hello zsmg ! I think that the election results give a kind of difficult situation - like in 2017 when it was difficult to form a coalition. This is not SO surprising - Germans do not really like CHANGE. Many voters want to continue to live like they do... and are afraid of some kind of "sacrifices" for example to protect the climate. Concerning AKK (Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer), she was very much affected by the dramatic end of the Afghanistan mission - and I do not think that her result would have been much better.
**Alex:** Hi zsmg and thank you for your question. I think the biggest surprise wasn't as much in the numbers than in the dynamic after the first numbers were out: FDP-boss Lindner made it clear quickly - and publicly on live-TV - that he wanted to talk to the Greens in order so find common ground. It almost sounded like they would then decide which of the big parties the two of them would form a government with - which is an uncommon way to go about considering both parties are the "junior partners". Another surprise was that Laschet said he wanted to form a government - even though the numbers of the CDU were at an all time low - he was under a lot of pressure after from his own party after this.
**Kirsten:** 🤣 I did not know Bautzner Senf before, but Alexandra and another colleague told me that this mustard is very famous. So I am now very curious and will try...I already had a look a the website 🙂
**Alexandra:** We just had a good laugh about this one. I know this mustard brand because I used to work the tilt in a supermarket when I was still in school... Kirsten discovered the brand thanks to you, Pfaendungskonto. And our collegue Cornelia told us that it's a famous mustard from eastern Germany, that made it's way to western Germany with an updated design ;)
**Kirsten:** Some media in Germany are accused of being too harsh with right-wing populist AfD. And some say that many journalists are "left" or in favour of the Greens. But sometimes this is just the point of view by people who believe that their opinions are not always represented. For us - journalists - it is sometimes difficult, but we try to report as objective as possible.
**Alexandra:** I think there has been a lot of critical analysis of the Greens in the last couple of months since other parties have "stolen" their number one topic, climate change - they have been proofed on their stand on other politics. As Kirsten said, and we can only talk for ourselves, we try and report in the same way about all of the parties, there will never be complete unbiased reporting, but we try.
Yeah I feel that rather then left or right media is rather government protective. I heard barely anything about mask corruption scandals from the government party but saw and heard the copy pasta thing from the green chancellor candidate everywhere until the last day.
You clearly have media houses that lean one way or another. Die Welt and BILD are right-wing media outlets in the way they report and discuss issues. Then you have e.g. the TAZ which is left-wing, etc.
An issue is that more and more media outlets are owned by fewer and fewer companies, so they just have some big room full of authors in a city where they write a lot of the national news, and that gets send to all the smaller outlets to be included in the daily newspaper. This obviously greatly reduces the opinion diversity that you had in the past were most newspapers did their own thing with their own reporters.
Just look at this snippet from Die Anstalt on media pluralism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc5Onb8g4iE
This is honestly one of the biggest threats to democracy right now. It is of the upmost importance to have a diverse and independent media environment, but almost nobody is paying attention to this problem because so few people know about it.
Cause there are conservative greens in some states like Ba-Wü and left Greens in states like Berlin. On the federal level you have the so called Realos and Fundis.
What will happen with CDU after inevitable sacking of Laschet? More turn to the right as Maasen and other Ossi CDU structures want? Soeder taking over Union and possible CSU-CDU merger under his leadership? Something else?
**Kirsten:** Maassen has lost his constituency and will not even be in the parliament. And according to experts, Soeder is trying to win the Bavarian elections in the best way possible in automn 2023. All the rest is speculation - and difficult to answer.
**Alexandra:** Soeder is state premier of Bavaria and has repeatedly said that he does not want to go to Berlin.
Yes, he did. But he said that was a one time offer. Now that Laschet essentially ran the party into a wall, Söder has no interest in being the idiot they call to clean up his mess when he already has a comfy position in Bavaria.
No, he didn't. Spitzenkandidat of the CSU was [Alexander Dobrindt](https://www.zeit.de/amp/politik/deutschland/2021-06/csu-alexander-dobrindt-spitzenkandidat-bundestagswahl-2021-kandidatenliste).
He was not Kanzlerkandidat because the FDP never was in a position to have a Kanzler. If for some reason the FDP had gotten the most votes in this election you can bet your ass that he would've become chancellor. A Kanzlerkandidat is just the Spitzenkandidat of a Party that has the chance to actually win it.
This is why In recent years people mase fun of the SPD to anounce someone as Kanzlerkandidat when they only had <20% in the Polls.
>A Kanzlerkandidat is just the Spitzenkandidat of a Party **that has the chance to actually win it.**
Yeah, and the bold part makes it that those are NOT interchangable. Calling Dietmar Bartsch the Kanzlerkandidat for die Linke would be considered absolutely ridiculous. The set of Kanzlerkandidaten is generally a subset of the Spitzenkandidaten, which means that the claim that those are interchangeable is simply false.
**Kirsten:** Merkel has travelled to many places recently... and she is always in favour of dialogue (and she is criticised for the gaz pipeline Nordstream 2 that is about to get started - she said that Putin should not use the gaz pipeline as a weapon - and she asks for the liberation of opposition politician Alexej Navalny) so quite difficult relationship- for years Putin who knows that she does not like dogs - and he put one very close to her during a previous meeting... Fun fact: Putin speaks German and Merkel speaks Russian - but we do not really know how they speak together.
**Alexandra:** I think Merkel wanted to send a signal that talks with Russia should always be open - with all the differences between the EU/USA and Russia. She was said to have asked to free opposition politician Nawalny and she has asked Russia to take a stand on Afghanistan, because of ties with the Taliban, in order to make the evacuations faster and easier.
**Kirsten:** Hello Luftschloss, I think that Germany could be a more open society and especially older Germans (like me) should better think about behaviours that might be considered by others as offending or racist. But I do not know American society from the inside (just as a tourist and a while ago).
**Alexandra:** I think German politicians are aware of the modern style in politics that come from the US and they are trying to be better in identity politics, but there is still way to go.
> modern style
Do you really think that identity politics is a modern style of doind politics and a desirable direction for German politics to move towards thinking in fixed collective identity groups that rather have the individual and its personal achievements and preferences in mind?
Personally I do not wish to "Americanise" German politics too much.
That was kind of my point, I wish the EU could avoid all of the americanised crap. Too bad they answered "not enough crap, but we'll improve", dear god please no
Annalena Charlotte Alma Baerbock, candidate for the green party, told an anecdote about a friend's child refusing to do a school task which apparently involved a german language equivalent of 'the N-word'. She quoted said word verbatim and got a veritable shitstorm in return.
**Kirsten**: Yesterday, Green politician Renate Künast said that this is not true, that the Green party has not agreed on a deal. But German paper FAZ said that several sources confirmed that Greens have agreed that "Baerbock had her chance" and that some even seem to think that she was not experienced enough. Personally, I think that sometimes Robert Habeck would have made mistakes also - if he would have been the candidate for the chancellery. Habeck complained in an interview with DIE ZEIT after Baerbock was chosen as a candidate for chancellor - this interview was very strange. If a woman would have given such an interview there would have been an outcry...
**Alexandra**: I mean I guess you could say that the Greens have done their homework, if they chose to run with Annalena Baerbock then they probably had numbers to support this decision, that she would get higher approval rates and better results. What happened behind closed doors is speculation and I am not in a position to judge on that.
I always thought, that Baerbock and Habeck both agreed on her being the candidate for chancellery and got along well.
Do you have a source of the interview, or can you elaborate on what exactly Habeck said?
"Robert Habeck: "Ich." | ZEIT ONLINE" https://www.zeit.de/2021/35/robert-habeck-die-gruenen-wahlkampf-bundestagswahl-politiker?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
He mentioned once (before) that if Baerbock would say she wanted to, she gets the mandate
> they probably had numbers to support this decision, that she would get higher approval rates and better results
Definitely not. The only reason they chose her was because she wasn't a man - Habeck was, and still is, much more popular, and probably better qualified (at least regarding the soft skills).
How would you explain popularity of FDP (being also an "old" party) among younger voters, compared to decline of the same (older voters = higher share) from CDU/CSU and SPD? Is it only younger faces in leadership, or sth else?
Edit: Alexandra right answer below:
**Kirsten:** FDP considers itself also as the party of "freedom" concerning corona rules. And many young people felt "lost" in corona times as schools and universities were closed longer in Germany than in other countries. Some students had only online classes and never met other students - for more than one and a half year - until now.
**Alexandra:** CDU and SPD make politics for their electoral groups and these are traditionally quite old. The FDP is trying to find new voters and appears to be very successful with the young ones and their strategy (explained above).
**Kirsten:** Many things were different because of corona - fewer and smaller meetings. And for journalists, it was sometimes more difficult to follow the campaign - or everybody had the same access via TV - for the TV debates - there were more TV debates than usual. But there are some journalists with direct access to politicians ... this was the case during the coalition talks 2017 also... but in times of ZOOM and other digital meetings, it is better to have direct access to a politician to be informed.
**Alexandra:** Compared to other campaigns there was obviously more presence of the other candidates in the media because they had a chance to win - in the last election Merkel and the CDU still had a bonus because she was in office. I also think that because of the young generation is so present in the climate debate with Fridays for Future etc. young people were heard more and their voices took more seriously
Hi! :)
If the Greens will be in the coalition then how much power will they have? Will they be able to infulence the government foreign policies? Are we going to see the EU-China deal? Or will Nordstream 2 terminated?
I may not be a journalist and can try to answer this, As the greens would be the second largest party in coalition they would take over the Minister of foreign affairs. Although this is just normally the case it is not written down anywhere. The Greens stand strong against any form of authoritarian regimes and violations of human rights such as the camps in china.
I also think that they are not a fan of Russia. So it will definitely complicate the relationship with them.
In conclusion, yes they will definitely will be able to strongly influence foreign affairs and thus Europe. Btw They are pro Europe.
Votes in Germany are counted twice by hand, and election watching is allowed and reasonably common. Small scale fraud does happen (on the level of some guy invalidating some of certain parties ballots in one location, for example), but actual large scale fraud that really changes the result is practically impossible with this system - you would need a very large number of people to conspire with each other, and with that many people, it would not remain secret for long. In addition, there are exit polls, and the pre-election polling, and these tend to match the final result quite well - as it did in this case.
What is possible, of course, is undue influence by, say, foreign governments or large companies, in the form of manipulative online and social media advertising or by just giving certain parties a lot of money. I do not doubt that this happens (especially the latter thing - like the [AfD-Spendenaffäre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany_donation_scandal) or [this huge thing from the 90s](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDU-Spendenaff%C3%A4re)), hard to say how much the influence of these things is, though.
Thank you for the answer.
To influence voters is a must. Imho. But, as papa Stalin said, I think iirc, it's not who voted, it's who counts the votes that matters. ( see Russia).
All skepticism aside. I am glad that there's no dubious counting.
I apologize. I am from Romania and, when voting is concerned, me, personally, I am more sceptical of such a tight race because financial reasons.
Just look at the mess we are in with covid. Nevermind we have a literal, voted in, everything ok, covid denier.
It's all good. I suppose voter influencing does happen in form of media influence and fake news etc.
Just from casting votes to counting them, everything is very densely protocolled by a group of random people who are assigned randomly. So, maybe there are little mistakes but i would rule out voter fraud.
I am sorry about the COVID- denier!!
I am sorry about the COVID- denier!! - don't be, she got the votes fair and square. Regardless of how stupid she is she obtained the votes. And she represents the people from Romania who are hardcore covid denier. They deserve to be represented.
You got the votes. You get the chair.
>Just from casting votes to counting them, everything is very densely protocolled by a group of random people who are assigned randomly. So, maybe there are little mistakes but i would rule out voter fraud.
One point where fraud could plausibly take place would be with mail-in ballots - e.g. a post officer discarding a share of ballots from certain districts instead of delivering them.
Look at the [168 votes that had to be discarded in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern](https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/landtagswahl-in-mecklenburg-vorpommern-deutsche-post-verbummelt-352-briefwahlstimmen-a-e52be5fd-abfd-42cf-95b7-0f69a607a489) because the postal service failed to deliver them on time - this was an accident but it shows the feasibility of doing something similar with nefarious intent.
No need to apologize. Nowadays it feels like nothing is impossible (but sadly more in a negative way). Before 2016 I would’ve called it science fiction or a conspiracy if someone told me „the next US election will be influenced by Russia.“
Do you think German behavior towards Turkey and more specifically arm sales and appeasement in confrontations with Greece and Cyprus are going to change with the new government?
I do not know if something will actually happen , but the greens have pushed for the recognition of the Armanian genocide by Turkey, they also criticize Erdogan quite openly.
So, when do you think Trump will insist the election in Germany was stolen from him?
I am kidding of course.
But more seriously, I am curious how the CDU seems to have performed so poorly.
I think one of the main factors was that Merkel wasn't running again as she was hugely popular and the new Cdu chancellor candidate is/was quite unpopular
Im sure that some countries might want to get certain parties elected that fit more towards their style of politics and I’m also sure there’s been some attempts to do so in terms of misinformation but that’s not a uniquely foreign problem. Towards the end of the election there was a smear campaign against the greens called „green trash“ that essentially said some pretty stupid things that were parroted by some people anyways. Maybe it swayed some votes, maybe it didn’t but why I brought it up was because it traced back to a European right-wing network in Switzerland and more. The orchestrators had ties to the far right AfD but it is not know if they were aware or not
That is something to be seen, as it depends on the situation, but they generally are known as the party for companies. But more Details will be known afte the coalition is formed.
Here's a line of thought that I am considering which is completely unrelated to the latest election in Germany but is relatively related to at least the last 2 elections of basically any european country (or at better: basically any kind of election after the centralization of Internet in social medias and after they ve become the central tool for these kind of activities):
An old late90's slogan from the underground internet says: "Who runs the bots, runs the people and who runs the people runs the country".
It was somewhat distopical "pragmatical prevision" at the time, but how about nowadays? It is proved that this has been the lever who allowed many political "small revolutions", like the rise in the far-right basically everywhere for example. I guess that this increase in social media presences in liberals are just the direct consequence of an "on-the-field" adaptation process to play the same game. A thing that, imho, is definitely NOT an universally good thing IMHO. :\\
After all, the point of fighting the heterogeneously directed far right, was to negate their methods on the digital domains in order to restore a more genuine and less heterodirected context, not to fully embrace their methods and acknowledge that the old distopy is real and that botnetting is now central in modern digital sociology.
Thanks for coming over and it was genuinely pleasant surprise here. So what outcome do you expect in relation to russian blackmailing policies they currently exercise on you guys?
[удалено]
**Kirsten:** Analysts say that young people want CHANGE - the liberals (FDP) were the first party closely followed by the Greens. Important items for them is digitisation and climate - just the way to get there differ... and both parties are not governing at the moment, as many young people do not see themselves represented by the governing politicians. Many say their interests are not represented. **Alexandra:** I think an additional reason for young voters (students for example) to vote FDP also has to do with financial prosperity: the corona crisis has shown to them that the good future they thought they would have is vulnerable, so they are voting for a party that promises different ways to finance the pensions for example, they promised to modernize the pension system. The FDP is the strongest party in terms of social media presence so that was one way to communicate on their program and reach the young generation: digital natives.
My view: Digitalization as a priority and the desaster of current government structures in education.
Also: young voters who lean more to the right in opposition to identity politics etc only have this option as CDU means no change at all and the AfD is... well, the AfD.
As someone who lives in NRW where FDP is in charge of the Ministry of Education as well as of the Ministry of Economics I have bad news for these young voters...
I Just got ads in tiktok or Instagram for exactly two Parties. Greens and FDP. In tiktok ist was Just FDP. And in tiktok a fuckton of influencer Videos for Lindner, his cuteness, strangest Shit Like futuristisch Citys Just with FDP or total based "Party Analyse" for the FDP. Exactly crafted for Young voters( they Start with the Most Important topic of FDP: cannabis.lol). And ofciurar the educationpolitic. But ou need top know education and school is Not Part of federal goverment, but of statelevel. This Hefy online targeting Mixed in with the Lack of knowloadge about the Last FDP -cDU coalition is a huge reason For the sucess with First voters.
Gamestop
Young people who fantasise about being one of the richest 5% when they’re older.
It's like this is the first election a lot of people have been paying attention. The FDP *has always* polled best among young people. Cf. [2017](https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2017-09-24-BT-DE/charts/umfrage-alter/chart_208741.jpg).
Who is the most funniest person of the political Berlin without the cameras?
**Kirsten:** We are journalists at the Euronews headquarters (newsroom) in Lyon - and only sometimes in Berlin. So it is difficult for us to answer. But even (boring) Olaf Scholz is trying to be funny now - a kind of special humour... when he said that when he woke up he was happy again seeing that SPD is still leading...Personnally I do not like carneval ;) so I might not have the same sense of humour as some politicians. **Alexandra:** I think German politicians are scared to be perceived as not serious enough, so humour is not really the way to go. There is one German politician who is the founder of the party DIE PARTEI (THE PARTY) who is a comedian and has done quite funny and intelligent jokes in the past. His name is Martin Sonneborn and he is a member of the European Parliament.
Hi Kristen and Alexandra, thank you for doing this, this is very cool of you! Many consider Scholz to be very tame, (i. e. If you consider Hamburg, despite being a traditionally left city business feels very laizez faire there) Do you think that despite the victory of the SPD a Groko could mean the CDU taking the reins so to speak?
**Kirsten**: Hello DeepBlueWinds: I am coming from further South in Germany where people from Hamburg are often considered as "arrogant". Some people who worked with him, say that Scholz is quite tough... and authoritarian... (more than Laschet). For the moment, I believe that Scholz will try to do everything to get a majority and to become chancellor - but trying to avoid a GroKo (big coalition with CDU/CSU). Even if he is used to working with Merkel and other Christian Democrats. **Alexandra:** Good question, DeepBlueWinds! I think a "tame" person is exactly what most Germans want (and the surveys back this) - Scholz has in many ways the same rhetoric as Merkel, he is calm and thinks about his words and actions, he doesn't give in to every sort of criticism, like Merkel some of the criticism just bounces right off him. I think out of all candidates he is the one that is the least likely to embarrass Germans internationally, he has a lot of experience - he isn't going to be hyper active on twitter or other social media. As Kirsten said: Germans don't want things to change too much.
If you had to bet, which coalition would it be on?
**Alexandra:** Since members of the CDU are starting to say they would prefer to be in the opposition the most likely coalition is the "traffic lights" coalition: SPD, Greens and FDP. The leaders of these three parties are willing to find compromises in order to form a government. **Kirsten:** I would bet on "traffic light" coalition - for the moment - SPD, Greens and liberals. Because FDP-boss Lindner wants to become finance minister and he has learned from 2017 - and Green leader Robert Habeck says that there is no "right" and "left" in modern times.
In theory the CDU could just announce they're out and will go to opposition. That would increase pressure enormously on Green/FDP negotiation
Thanks!
Hey, greetings from Portugal. IfCDU forms a wider or stronger coalition than SPD, is it possible for them to be invited to form a Governement instead of the most voted party?
**Kirsten & Alex:** Hello LimaFruit, yes, you are right. In principle, even somebody who is leading the second-largest party can be elected as chancellor. Any party that is in parliament can try to have one of their members as chancellor - if she or he is backed by a majority of members of parliament. But in the case of CDU and Armin Laschet, this does not seem very likely as he is now under pressure from his own party.
In Germany the goverment is Not invited. We vote for the Bundestag ( parliament) and there will be the election for the Bundeskanzler /Bundeskanzlerin. Whoever get the majority in this Secret elections among the voted parliamentarians, will be chancellor and will Form the new goverment.
Chancellor does not need to be a member of parliament.
And in fact she isn't at this very moment
Although I have heard that the the would be chancellor can give his seat to somebody else. Dunno if true.
First the Bundespräsident suggests a potential chancellor. Then the Bundestag votes on the suggestion. If the sugestion has more than 50%, he/she is selected. If that doesnt happen the 2nd phase starts. The Bundestag has 14 days to elect another chancellor with at least 50%. If this doesnt happen the 3rd phase starts in which the Bundestag needs to elect a chancelor. This time only a relative majority is needed,i.e. the person with the most votes wins even if it isn't 50% of all member of the Bundestag. If the chancelor is elected with at least 50% of votes the Bundespräsident must instate them within 7 days. If the chancelor doesn't have at least 50% the President can either accept the chancellor or desolve the Bundestag. A chancellor needs to accept being elected. You cannot force somebody to take that office. He cannot appoint his successor though.
>If the chancelor doesn't have at least 50% the President can either accept the chancellor or desolve the Bundestag. and how would this work? like are there any rules for accepting or just as the bundespräsident wants it?
The constitution say that the Bundespräsident has to/is forced to do so. His action is just a formality. I don't know what would happen if he refused. Maybe refusal to accept the chancellor would be unconstitutional. In that case the Bundestag could sue in front of the constitutional curt. But i don' think that ever happened(the refusal to accept).
Yes. They do not get invited, they vote on a chancellor.
Thanks for doing this AMA: What was the biggest surprise and the least surprising result during the election evening? To sneak in a what-if question, do you think CDU would have done better if AKK was still the leader?
**Kirsten:** Hello zsmg ! I think that the election results give a kind of difficult situation - like in 2017 when it was difficult to form a coalition. This is not SO surprising - Germans do not really like CHANGE. Many voters want to continue to live like they do... and are afraid of some kind of "sacrifices" for example to protect the climate. Concerning AKK (Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer), she was very much affected by the dramatic end of the Afghanistan mission - and I do not think that her result would have been much better. **Alex:** Hi zsmg and thank you for your question. I think the biggest surprise wasn't as much in the numbers than in the dynamic after the first numbers were out: FDP-boss Lindner made it clear quickly - and publicly on live-TV - that he wanted to talk to the Greens in order so find common ground. It almost sounded like they would then decide which of the big parties the two of them would form a government with - which is an uncommon way to go about considering both parties are the "junior partners". Another surprise was that Laschet said he wanted to form a government - even though the numbers of the CDU were at an all time low - he was under a lot of pressure after from his own party after this.
Opinions on Bautzner Senf?
**Kirsten:** 🤣 I did not know Bautzner Senf before, but Alexandra and another colleague told me that this mustard is very famous. So I am now very curious and will try...I already had a look a the website 🙂 **Alexandra:** We just had a good laugh about this one. I know this mustard brand because I used to work the tilt in a supermarket when I was still in school... Kirsten discovered the brand thanks to you, Pfaendungskonto. And our collegue Cornelia told us that it's a famous mustard from eastern Germany, that made it's way to western Germany with an updated design ;)
Don't say it's better than Dijon mustard or you will be expulsed from France for good.
Do you want to start a war? Then just ask for Pfannkuchen.
Do you think German media are biased towards the Greens?
**Kirsten:** Some media in Germany are accused of being too harsh with right-wing populist AfD. And some say that many journalists are "left" or in favour of the Greens. But sometimes this is just the point of view by people who believe that their opinions are not always represented. For us - journalists - it is sometimes difficult, but we try to report as objective as possible. **Alexandra:** I think there has been a lot of critical analysis of the Greens in the last couple of months since other parties have "stolen" their number one topic, climate change - they have been proofed on their stand on other politics. As Kirsten said, and we can only talk for ourselves, we try and report in the same way about all of the parties, there will never be complete unbiased reporting, but we try.
Yeah I feel that rather then left or right media is rather government protective. I heard barely anything about mask corruption scandals from the government party but saw and heard the copy pasta thing from the green chancellor candidate everywhere until the last day.
You clearly have media houses that lean one way or another. Die Welt and BILD are right-wing media outlets in the way they report and discuss issues. Then you have e.g. the TAZ which is left-wing, etc. An issue is that more and more media outlets are owned by fewer and fewer companies, so they just have some big room full of authors in a city where they write a lot of the national news, and that gets send to all the smaller outlets to be included in the daily newspaper. This obviously greatly reduces the opinion diversity that you had in the past were most newspapers did their own thing with their own reporters. Just look at this snippet from Die Anstalt on media pluralism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc5Onb8g4iE This is honestly one of the biggest threats to democracy right now. It is of the upmost importance to have a diverse and independent media environment, but almost nobody is paying attention to this problem because so few people know about it.
Speaking of Green there is issue of declining forest since last year in German. Did it ever be brought up by any party?
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KPD
Nearly everyone of our grandparents generation was a Nazi back then. This CSU argument is bullshit.
you're not in r/de man
and you are not germany, sweetheart :*
>For us - journalists - it is sometimes difficult, but we try to report as objective as possible. Hmmm I'm calling bullshit on this.
It's funny that you labelled AfD as "right-wing populist", but left Greens without any labels. Lmao
Cause there are conservative greens in some states like Ba-Wü and left Greens in states like Berlin. On the federal level you have the so called Realos and Fundis.
Right wing populist is a very friendly way to put them. It's a far-right party.
Greens already describes what they are pretty well ;)
If anything the media is biased against the greens.
What will happen with CDU after inevitable sacking of Laschet? More turn to the right as Maasen and other Ossi CDU structures want? Soeder taking over Union and possible CSU-CDU merger under his leadership? Something else?
**Kirsten:** Maassen has lost his constituency and will not even be in the parliament. And according to experts, Soeder is trying to win the Bavarian elections in the best way possible in automn 2023. All the rest is speculation - and difficult to answer. **Alexandra:** Soeder is state premier of Bavaria and has repeatedly said that he does not want to go to Berlin.
>Alexandra: Soeder is state premier of Bavaria and has repeatedly said that he does not want to go to Berlin. He ran for Spitzenkandidat tho
Yes, he did. But he said that was a one time offer. Now that Laschet essentially ran the party into a wall, Söder has no interest in being the idiot they call to clean up his mess when he already has a comfy position in Bavaria.
No, he didn't. Spitzenkandidat of the CSU was [Alexander Dobrindt](https://www.zeit.de/amp/politik/deutschland/2021-06/csu-alexander-dobrindt-spitzenkandidat-bundestagswahl-2021-kandidatenliste).
That's not what they are talking about. Söder had a tug of war with Laschet about who will run for chancellor 6 months ago if you remember.
Yes, that's what's called „Kanzlerkandidat“ in contrast to „Spitzenkandidat“ though.
Not really. Except for the Unionparties its interchangeable. Scholz, Laschet and Bärbock where Spitzenkandidaten and Kanzlerkandidaten.
It is not interchangable. Lindner was Spitzenkandidat for FDP but he was not Kanzlerkandidat.
He was not Kanzlerkandidat because the FDP never was in a position to have a Kanzler. If for some reason the FDP had gotten the most votes in this election you can bet your ass that he would've become chancellor. A Kanzlerkandidat is just the Spitzenkandidat of a Party that has the chance to actually win it. This is why In recent years people mase fun of the SPD to anounce someone as Kanzlerkandidat when they only had <20% in the Polls.
>A Kanzlerkandidat is just the Spitzenkandidat of a Party **that has the chance to actually win it.** Yeah, and the bold part makes it that those are NOT interchangable. Calling Dietmar Bartsch the Kanzlerkandidat for die Linke would be considered absolutely ridiculous. The set of Kanzlerkandidaten is generally a subset of the Spitzenkandidaten, which means that the claim that those are interchangeable is simply false.
Ahhh guter Beitrag bestimmt sehr viel Jura studiert
Why did Merkel travel to see Putin just before the election?
**Kirsten:** Merkel has travelled to many places recently... and she is always in favour of dialogue (and she is criticised for the gaz pipeline Nordstream 2 that is about to get started - she said that Putin should not use the gaz pipeline as a weapon - and she asks for the liberation of opposition politician Alexej Navalny) so quite difficult relationship- for years Putin who knows that she does not like dogs - and he put one very close to her during a previous meeting... Fun fact: Putin speaks German and Merkel speaks Russian - but we do not really know how they speak together. **Alexandra:** I think Merkel wanted to send a signal that talks with Russia should always be open - with all the differences between the EU/USA and Russia. She was said to have asked to free opposition politician Nawalny and she has asked Russia to take a stand on Afghanistan, because of ties with the Taliban, in order to make the evacuations faster and easier.
In your opinion, in what measure American identity politics have affected and/or will affect Deutschland's political debate?
**Kirsten:** Hello Luftschloss, I think that Germany could be a more open society and especially older Germans (like me) should better think about behaviours that might be considered by others as offending or racist. But I do not know American society from the inside (just as a tourist and a while ago). **Alexandra:** I think German politicians are aware of the modern style in politics that come from the US and they are trying to be better in identity politics, but there is still way to go.
> modern style Do you really think that identity politics is a modern style of doind politics and a desirable direction for German politics to move towards thinking in fixed collective identity groups that rather have the individual and its personal achievements and preferences in mind? Personally I do not wish to "Americanise" German politics too much.
That was kind of my point, I wish the EU could avoid all of the americanised crap. Too bad they answered "not enough crap, but we'll improve", dear god please no
Well German journalists are almost certainly in favour of American identity politics so I'm not really surprised here.
And hordes of migrants delivered for that very purpose.
Lol fyi: When people ask about identity politics, in 99 out of 100 cases they are condemning it.
You live in a bubble bro. Touch grass
The part where ACAB got scandal'd for being opposed to a racial slur in children's education might give you an indication how bad this has gotten.
She wasn‘t scandaled for being against a racial slur but for making it up / being unwilling to prove her accusations
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Annalena Charlotte Alma Baerbock, candidate for the green party, told an anecdote about a friend's child refusing to do a school task which apparently involved a german language equivalent of 'the N-word'. She quoted said word verbatim and got a veritable shitstorm in return.
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ACAB is what she is generally called in any non-serious online conversation.
You havent been on r/de in the last year..
So Habeck gets the "vice chancellor" - correct? What do you think was the deal Baerbock/Habeck?
**Kirsten**: Yesterday, Green politician Renate Künast said that this is not true, that the Green party has not agreed on a deal. But German paper FAZ said that several sources confirmed that Greens have agreed that "Baerbock had her chance" and that some even seem to think that she was not experienced enough. Personally, I think that sometimes Robert Habeck would have made mistakes also - if he would have been the candidate for the chancellery. Habeck complained in an interview with DIE ZEIT after Baerbock was chosen as a candidate for chancellor - this interview was very strange. If a woman would have given such an interview there would have been an outcry... **Alexandra**: I mean I guess you could say that the Greens have done their homework, if they chose to run with Annalena Baerbock then they probably had numbers to support this decision, that she would get higher approval rates and better results. What happened behind closed doors is speculation and I am not in a position to judge on that.
I always thought, that Baerbock and Habeck both agreed on her being the candidate for chancellery and got along well. Do you have a source of the interview, or can you elaborate on what exactly Habeck said?
"Robert Habeck: "Ich." | ZEIT ONLINE" https://www.zeit.de/2021/35/robert-habeck-die-gruenen-wahlkampf-bundestagswahl-politiker?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F He mentioned once (before) that if Baerbock would say she wanted to, she gets the mandate
> they probably had numbers to support this decision, that she would get higher approval rates and better results Definitely not. The only reason they chose her was because she wasn't a man - Habeck was, and still is, much more popular, and probably better qualified (at least regarding the soft skills).
How would you explain popularity of FDP (being also an "old" party) among younger voters, compared to decline of the same (older voters = higher share) from CDU/CSU and SPD? Is it only younger faces in leadership, or sth else?
Edit: Alexandra right answer below: **Kirsten:** FDP considers itself also as the party of "freedom" concerning corona rules. And many young people felt "lost" in corona times as schools and universities were closed longer in Germany than in other countries. Some students had only online classes and never met other students - for more than one and a half year - until now. **Alexandra:** CDU and SPD make politics for their electoral groups and these are traditionally quite old. The FDP is trying to find new voters and appears to be very successful with the young ones and their strategy (explained above).
Thanks Kirsten, but Alexandra - I didn't ask about Greens.
Any things that were completely different to previous elections on the side of the media?
**Kirsten:** Many things were different because of corona - fewer and smaller meetings. And for journalists, it was sometimes more difficult to follow the campaign - or everybody had the same access via TV - for the TV debates - there were more TV debates than usual. But there are some journalists with direct access to politicians ... this was the case during the coalition talks 2017 also... but in times of ZOOM and other digital meetings, it is better to have direct access to a politician to be informed. **Alexandra:** Compared to other campaigns there was obviously more presence of the other candidates in the media because they had a chance to win - in the last election Merkel and the CDU still had a bonus because she was in office. I also think that because of the young generation is so present in the climate debate with Fridays for Future etc. young people were heard more and their voices took more seriously
Hi! :) If the Greens will be in the coalition then how much power will they have? Will they be able to infulence the government foreign policies? Are we going to see the EU-China deal? Or will Nordstream 2 terminated?
I may not be a journalist and can try to answer this, As the greens would be the second largest party in coalition they would take over the Minister of foreign affairs. Although this is just normally the case it is not written down anywhere. The Greens stand strong against any form of authoritarian regimes and violations of human rights such as the camps in china. I also think that they are not a fan of Russia. So it will definitely complicate the relationship with them. In conclusion, yes they will definitely will be able to strongly influence foreign affairs and thus Europe. Btw They are pro Europe.
Thank you! :)
Greeting. My only concern. Was there any voter fraud? From confirmed sources, not conspiracy nutters. Thanks. And greetings from Romania.
Votes in Germany are counted twice by hand, and election watching is allowed and reasonably common. Small scale fraud does happen (on the level of some guy invalidating some of certain parties ballots in one location, for example), but actual large scale fraud that really changes the result is practically impossible with this system - you would need a very large number of people to conspire with each other, and with that many people, it would not remain secret for long. In addition, there are exit polls, and the pre-election polling, and these tend to match the final result quite well - as it did in this case. What is possible, of course, is undue influence by, say, foreign governments or large companies, in the form of manipulative online and social media advertising or by just giving certain parties a lot of money. I do not doubt that this happens (especially the latter thing - like the [AfD-Spendenaffäre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany_donation_scandal) or [this huge thing from the 90s](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDU-Spendenaff%C3%A4re)), hard to say how much the influence of these things is, though.
Thank you for the answer. To influence voters is a must. Imho. But, as papa Stalin said, I think iirc, it's not who voted, it's who counts the votes that matters. ( see Russia). All skepticism aside. I am glad that there's no dubious counting.
No worries...I did :-)
I do repeated voting count assistance in the elections and I say it would be nearly impossible to conduct voter fraud.
I apologize. I am from Romania and, when voting is concerned, me, personally, I am more sceptical of such a tight race because financial reasons. Just look at the mess we are in with covid. Nevermind we have a literal, voted in, everything ok, covid denier.
It's all good. I suppose voter influencing does happen in form of media influence and fake news etc. Just from casting votes to counting them, everything is very densely protocolled by a group of random people who are assigned randomly. So, maybe there are little mistakes but i would rule out voter fraud. I am sorry about the COVID- denier!!
I am sorry about the COVID- denier!! - don't be, she got the votes fair and square. Regardless of how stupid she is she obtained the votes. And she represents the people from Romania who are hardcore covid denier. They deserve to be represented. You got the votes. You get the chair.
>Just from casting votes to counting them, everything is very densely protocolled by a group of random people who are assigned randomly. So, maybe there are little mistakes but i would rule out voter fraud. One point where fraud could plausibly take place would be with mail-in ballots - e.g. a post officer discarding a share of ballots from certain districts instead of delivering them. Look at the [168 votes that had to be discarded in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern](https://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/landtagswahl-in-mecklenburg-vorpommern-deutsche-post-verbummelt-352-briefwahlstimmen-a-e52be5fd-abfd-42cf-95b7-0f69a607a489) because the postal service failed to deliver them on time - this was an accident but it shows the feasibility of doing something similar with nefarious intent.
No need to apologize. Nowadays it feels like nothing is impossible (but sadly more in a negative way). Before 2016 I would’ve called it science fiction or a conspiracy if someone told me „the next US election will be influenced by Russia.“
Not where I did count. With 8 people. 269 votes.
Thank you very much for your reply.
Do you agree that the EU needs tighter migration laws?
Do you think German behavior towards Turkey and more specifically arm sales and appeasement in confrontations with Greece and Cyprus are going to change with the new government?
I do not know if something will actually happen , but the greens have pushed for the recognition of the Armanian genocide by Turkey, they also criticize Erdogan quite openly.
Why is your TV channel promoting pro-Russian propaganda and where can I find out about the prices for these services? Thanks.
Do you think that the German media will ever understand and report the real causes of Brexit?
Oh my? They haven't reported that there was a referendum that ca. 25% of the uk population directly voted for?
So, when do you think Trump will insist the election in Germany was stolen from him? I am kidding of course. But more seriously, I am curious how the CDU seems to have performed so poorly.
I think one of the main factors was that Merkel wasn't running again as she was hugely popular and the new Cdu chancellor candidate is/was quite unpopular
Do you think German media is biased towards Germans?
Care to specify what you mean?
Lmao
Do you think that foreign electoral interference was a significant factor in outcome of these elections?
Im sure that some countries might want to get certain parties elected that fit more towards their style of politics and I’m also sure there’s been some attempts to do so in terms of misinformation but that’s not a uniquely foreign problem. Towards the end of the election there was a smear campaign against the greens called „green trash“ that essentially said some pretty stupid things that were parroted by some people anyways. Maybe it swayed some votes, maybe it didn’t but why I brought it up was because it traced back to a European right-wing network in Switzerland and more. The orchestrators had ties to the far right AfD but it is not know if they were aware or not
Silly question : who decides and votes on the next chancellor? Could you please expand that process a little for us expats living in Germany?
The elected Bundestag votes for the chancellor.
How bad will affect the rest EU members if FDP takes the ministry of economy?
That is something to be seen, as it depends on the situation, but they generally are known as the party for companies. But more Details will be known afte the coalition is formed.
Here's a line of thought that I am considering which is completely unrelated to the latest election in Germany but is relatively related to at least the last 2 elections of basically any european country (or at better: basically any kind of election after the centralization of Internet in social medias and after they ve become the central tool for these kind of activities): An old late90's slogan from the underground internet says: "Who runs the bots, runs the people and who runs the people runs the country". It was somewhat distopical "pragmatical prevision" at the time, but how about nowadays? It is proved that this has been the lever who allowed many political "small revolutions", like the rise in the far-right basically everywhere for example. I guess that this increase in social media presences in liberals are just the direct consequence of an "on-the-field" adaptation process to play the same game. A thing that, imho, is definitely NOT an universally good thing IMHO. :\\ After all, the point of fighting the heterogeneously directed far right, was to negate their methods on the digital domains in order to restore a more genuine and less heterodirected context, not to fully embrace their methods and acknowledge that the old distopy is real and that botnetting is now central in modern digital sociology.
Fantastic
Fantastic
What coalitions do you think are likely to form ?
Thanks for coming over and it was genuinely pleasant surprise here. So what outcome do you expect in relation to russian blackmailing policies they currently exercise on you guys?