Deutschland entscheidet (Germany Decides)

Over the past week, we have learn more about German politics than we knew about Australian politics (well, maybe not quite...). In case you missed it, Germany had an election last weekend, and the result has got everyone in Germany talking.

The problem is - no one won the election. The election was particularly close, and neither of the main coalitions have a majority. Unlike Australian politics, there are 5 significant parties in Germany, and none of them are in as close a coalition as the Liberal/National coalition (ie they often backstab each other). This means that the 5 parties must now negotiate with each other to form a new coalition that will have a majority.

What makes German politics fun, is that each party has its own colour.

CDU/CSU - Black (a bit like the Liberal/National coalition).
SPD - Red (a bit like the ALP).
Greens - Green (like the Greens).
FDP - Yellow (economic rationalists).
The Lefts - RED (communists).

OK, I know there's two red parties, but that's not my fault. The lefts are new, and since they're communist, they have to be red!

OK, now the fun starts.

The two biggest parties are the Black and Red, each with around 35% of the votes. They both have smaller partners (Black with Yellow, Red with Green) of around 10% each, and there is the RED party with around 10%.

So the traditional Black/Yellow or Red/Green coalitions are not strong enough to form Government. What happens now?

The obvious solution is that one of the coalitions accepts the RED party into their coalition, and form government. Sorry, won't work - both main coalitions made it very clear they will not talk to the REDS. They are the bad guys at the moment.

OK, so there is an impasse. What's the solution? The coalitions will need to mix up. Three options have been put forward:

The traffic light coalition (ampel). Red, Yellow, Green - get it? Traffic light? So this requires the Yellow faction to betray their Black partners. They already said they will not do this.

The Jamaica coalition. Black, Green Yellow is the Jamaican flag. This requires the Greens to betray their Red partners. The greens are open to this, and this seems a likely possibility.

The GRAND coalition. Wait for it - the Black and Reds get together and form government, each ditching their respective coalition partners. The closest parallel I can think of is like the ALP right faction and Liberals getting together to form goverment and ditching the rest of the ALP and the nationals. Can you imagine that? Well, the leaders of the Reds and Blacks refuse to consider the grand coalition unless they themselves get to be the Chancellor. There can only be one Chancellor, so that's a problem.

So - are you confused? Don't worry, when a German was explaining to Nathan, he said "Don't worry if you're confused... we're confused, and we're German"!

There was a funny caricature of the three potential Jamaica coalition leaders dressed as Jamaicans. Here's a link - hope it still works!
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20050922&hn=24325