Since I am originally from Baden-Württemberg the states elections which took place yesterday were very interesting for me even if I live in Berlin now. American expats might think German politics are not interesting but these elections were interesting. Something happened I would have never ever imagined. After almost 60 years of being in power the CDU (German Republican Party equivalent, well not really since I believe that German parties are all more leftwing than most of the US politicians) lost ethe elections. If it wouldn't be inaproppriate after what happened in Japan you could call it a political earthquake.
Now the state will have a Green-SPD government with a green ministerpräsident (govenor), also something very new since the green party never was that strong. It will be very interesting to see, what the new government will do. The controversy about the new train station in the state's capital Stuttgart, which is known as Stuttgart 21 project, will be a big challenge for them. The greens opposed the plans to build it and now they might have no other chance than building it.
The situation in the japanese nuclear power plant finally gave the greens the push of the voters to be that strong in the elections since they wanted to end the usage of nuclear power since decades. Both, Stuttgart 21 and the japanese nuclear catastrophy polarised German politics in a way I never experienced before.
Something you are used to from the US at least since Bill Clinton and which got even bigger with the whole tea party movement, might come to Germany, too. In the past they would fight in a parlamentary debate but at night members from different parties would go to have a drink together. This could be over now. Today the new Minister of the Interior got a bullet in his mail from a leftwing anarchist group as a warning sign. Were will that end?
There are some things we could and should do similar than the US but the polarisation of politics is definitely nothing we should adopt.
Was it that long ago when a member of the Left stabbed a mayor of a German town?
AntwortenLöschenThere's some polarization here that predates that in the US as well, I think.
I was pretty surprised at the results. BW has always felt like a pretty conservative state to me. Maybe HD is a particularly conservative corner of it.
AntwortenLöschen@ g in berlin: I don't know about the incident you wrote about. It is just something I notice when I watch american TV, read american newspapers or listen to my gf's mother (she campagned for Obama in 2008). You are a Republican or a Democrat and it seems that these two directions don't want to work together to do good for the country, they just want to harm each other.
AntwortenLöschen@ cn heidelberg: Funny, since the Greens were always strong in elections in Heidelberg. But in Baden-Württemberg everyone is more conservative even the more liberal groups of society.
haha, so we are more liberal than I think! It's just that whenever I visit a place like Dresden or Leipzig or Freiburg or Berlin I come back here and I just feel: mehhhhh.... HD is so stuffy/conservative.
AntwortenLöschenOf course, compared to the US, it's extremely liberal.