Well so much for people telling us that Merkel and the CDU were fading while Schultz and the SDP were going to beat the CDU.

In today's Saarland election

• the ruling CDU state premier, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, managed to increase her majority; projected is a majority of 40.4%, up five points on the last elections in 2012.
• The much vaunted SDP; a projected share of 30.4%, down 0.2% percentage points.
• Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), sneaked into the state parliament for the first time with 5.9% but fell short of its leadership’s high expectations, gaining only three seats.
• Convincing vote in which 70% of the Saarland’s population turned out to vote, up from 61.6% five years ago.
• A continuation of the current “grand coalition” between the CDU and SPD, is therefore the only possible outcome of Sunday’s vote!!

Source

Source (German language)

You forgot to mention the greens and FDP both failed to clear the 5% threshhold. So the political landscape in Germany is a-changing.

One musn't forget that the Saarland is the home of Oscar Lafontaine who was its governor back in the days when he was still the SPD's poster child. Saarland is often considered a SPD stronghold although CDU have also governed it intermittently throughout its history.

This may be the reason Die Linke did so well. Lafontaine quite the SPD some time ago and joined this former East German reformed ex-communist party.

The AfD co-leader Frauke Petry announced this week via a video message on her Facebook page that she would not run as her party’s candidate in the September elections.
This withdrawal amounts to Petry deserting the stage for a far right takeover.

Source

Doubt this will benefit AfD in the forthcoming elections.

A poll by the Forsa Institut this month showed oconservative Merkel had 43 percent support, compared to 32 percent for Martin Schulz, the chancellor candidate for the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD). But that lead extended to 47 percent against 29 percent among those aged 18 to 21, the poll showed.

Source

Another term for Merkel is looking likely.

Petri at least had some personality. The other AfD leaders are all interchangeable no name types, none of whom make much sense.

I am surprised the SPD are putting all their hopes behind Schlutz. His policies are populist but he lacks the charisma to actually be a populist. Listening to him makes me feel as if he just stepped out of some 1990s timewarp and hasn't yet realised he is in 2017. He very much represents all of what is wrong about the SPD and nothing of what is right about them. Serious myopia going on there.

With Merkel being so vulnerable and unpopular, you would have thought it would be child's play to find somebody who could take her down.

According to Swiss newspapers today Alice Weidel a leading AfD candidate in the German elections currently lives in Biel for "tax reasons".

Source

So much for "Mut zu Deutschland.".

LOL.

I wanted to vote for AfD in the previous elections - but the candidate for my constituency, while he lived in Germany, was working for UBS in Zurich (corporate accounts).
And I thought: "Na, that's a bit too much".

The extremist "coup" that ousted the founder took place later.

I'm certainly not going to vote for them in the next election.

But these two can't be the only cases, I'm dead sure.

Now even Merkel is jumping on the bandwaggon and saying there was a massive cover-up over the events in Cologne.

Source:

https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...ction-campaign

Not long ago people who were suggesting this were being called conspiracy theorists, and the news sources reporting it were stamped fake news. How times can change.

Mais non...really?

It didn't take long. How convenient to change the way data is worked with. Make people believe it's the data that changes. Annoying if it was not dangerous.

Impressive hypocrisy - even for "Multi-kulti has failed" Merkel...

According to Bild.de, Merkel's party is steadily increasing her lead now 7 points over the SPD.
AfD, FDP, Greens and Linke all hovering below 10% but over the 5% threshold.

See picture below

Attached Thumbnails

 

No surprise. I picture the German voter as follows:"What? We have to vote? AGAIN? We just did, no? Is the last one still available? Ah okay then, I vote for that one. I don't really care who I rant about the next 4 years .... it is four years, no?"

Happy to see the Schulz flash-in-the-pan already burning down.

It was surreal anyway.


See here for example:

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschl...mst-wurde.html

That diagram is interesting for other reasons too.

Of course the whole left right spectrum thing has largely been debunked, so the order in which you arrange parties on a left to right scale doesn't really matter in any objective way, but can tell us a lot about the subjective view of the person doing the arranging.

But in the past the FDP was also put between CDU and SPD and the greens were put to the left of the SPD. This diagram shows that both parties have slipped right by one position.

The only thing that surprised me was that this didn't happen much sooner. I can't imagine how any semi switched on person failed to see what a fraud he was, or what the party leadership were thinking when they pushed him forward.

German voters are a bit daft - but in the end, everybody gets the politicians they deserve

does that mean that south European countries deserve Merkel?

Poor South European countries...if only Merkel wasn't around. Then everything would have been good there.

Why is it so difficult to accept they need budgetary and fiscal responsibility. I don't want to praise Merkel but really, some realistic reflections would be in order.
Blaming everything which doesn't work in a country on Merkel and the Germans is very dishonest.

This is the EF.

You know, it is a very British thing to blame everything on the Germans.

We make an exception for the royal family of course

Yes, and it is contagious...

Schulz effect has well and truly worn off. Get ready for the coronation.

Germans are masochistically obedient people.