Given that the German Chancellor is, practically speaking, the most powerful European politician, a discussion of tomorrow's election seems in order. After the war, a 5% parliamentary threshold was brought in to avoid a plethora of parties being elected, and only six are in contention to reach that bar tomorrow:
Christian Democrat Union: Centre-right conservatives led by Merkel, similar to Fine Gael. Will remain the largest party, but their coalition partner remains up in the air.
Free Democrats: Classical liberals, more like the PDs than the UK's Lib Dems, struggling to reach 5%.
Greens: Tend to yo-yo in terms of election results, currently around 10%, usually in alliance with the Socialists
Die Linke: A mixture of ex-East German Communists and ex-Socialists from the West, still struggling to be accepted by the other left-wing parties.
Social Democratic Party: Standard Labour/Socialist party, won't win, but likely to form coalition with Merkel.
Alternative for Germany: UKIP-esque Eurosceptics, could reach 5%, which would throw a spanner in the coalition arithmetic.
So, the CDU won nearly, but not quite half the seats, so no change likely towards the bail-out countries in the coming year, but the Socialists probably face the most interesting decision. They lost 10-15% of their vote the last time they joined up with Merkel, so will be reluctant to do the same again, but unless the Greens go into government, they'll still face a major challenge to reclaim votes fromthe two other left-wing parties.
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