Posteamos dos notas de opinión sobre los resultados electorales de Alemania después de las elecciones generales del domingo pasado. La primera es de Matthew Jamison para el sitio web Strategic Culture Foundation:
Título: The Rise of ‘Alternative for Germany’
Texto: With the Federal German Parliamentary elections coming to a close something quite remarkable has just happened in post-WWII Germany. For the first time since 1949 when the Bundestag was created after the defeat of the Nazi regime, and free and fair elections were held, the Christian Democrats and their sister party the Christian Social Union suffered their worst result while a nationalist grouping known as the Alternative for Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) has made a stunning electoral and political break through becoming the third largest party and significantly this 2017 German Parliament will contain for the very first time since the days of the 1930s overt German nationalists.
Mrs. Merkel has just led her governing party of the CDU/CSU to its worst electoral result ever. How did this happen? It really all has to do with Mrs. Merkel's decision to open German doors and allow in almost 1 million undocumented refugees, economic migrants and others in the summer of 2015. What some (even myself) saw as a great humanitarian and noble endeavour I am afraid was actually clearly in retrospect a huge mistake and very irresponsible. The key issue is not regarding whether or not to offer refuge and sanctuary to fleeing refugees from war torn countries.
There is no dispute about that. Rather it is about proper legal process and fundamentally security as well as sheer mathematics. They should never have been taken in without being properly vetted, documented and screened. And a near million was far too much all in one go. The German people are an extremely liberal, welcoming, tolerant, cultured, and socially enlightened people but you can only push them so far before their good nature is seen to themselves to be taken advantage of. It is a similar situation in the UK after the former communist Warsaw Pact members where admitted to the EU in 2004. The British Prime Minister back then Tony Blair did not put in place temporary controls unlike other Western EU members and there has just been one all mighty free for all with the UK immigration system in a complete mess and UK borders flung wide open not just to EU members but also to the Middle East and Africa without the proper checks, controls and regulations in place. This 2017 Federal German Parliamentary election has completely upended the traditional post-1945 order in German domestic politics. For the first time since before 1945 six parties will be in the German National Parliament and again for the first time since 1949 the CDU/CSU suffered its worst election result.
Mrs. Merkel still did win and pulled off a fourth victory. Seen in the context of a long serving Leader and Governing Party this is still a strong achievement after 12 years in power and in the face of a backlash against the naive policy of Open Doors. Yet as many analysts and commentators are stating, it is a pyrrhic victory, very much a hollow one and could lead to significant constitutional gridlock given that the SPD will not form a Grand Coalition with Merkel's CDU/CSU members and she may well have to stitch together some dubious, incoherent "Jamaica" coalition.
If Mrs. Merkel is to survive for the rest of her term and the rise of the AfD checked, she will have to listen very closely to the 14% who voted for AfD. One has a feeling that the Merkel era is starting to draw to a close. It may be wise before the 2022 Federal German Parliamentary election for the Christian Democrats to have a new candidate for Chancellor and Leader of the CDU in place. If the SPD are not careful having suffered one of their worst Federal Parliamentary election results ever, AfD could replace them as the main opposition party in German national politics. This significant and dramatic change in German politics is taking place against the backdrop of the greatest upheavals and changes in Europe since the end of the Second World War and amid heightened and rising global tensions.
With negotiations under way for the Exit from the UK from the EU and the EU struggling with a migrant crisis of epic proportions the last thing that Europe and the EU needed was a surge in right-wing German nationalism. Europe is changing. The world is changing and this German election result merely confirms that a New World Order is taking shape quite different from the post-1945 or post-1992 frameworks. The rhetoric and discourse of AfD is unprecedented in post-WWII Germany talking about fighting an "invasion of foreigners" and going on the "hunt" after Angela Merkel. AfD have pledged to begin debates on immigration and the Open Door 2015 policy as well as a host of issues relating to German national identity and culture. "We want a different policy," co-leader Alexander Gauland said following the historic AfD surge. It will be very interesting to observe how this pans out for Mrs. Merkel, the EU and the world.
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La segunda nota salió anteayer y viene de Moon of Alabama:
Título: A German Election Analysis
Texto: As your host is German you may want to read his opinion and analysis of today's federal election results in Germany.
German election results (ARD 6pm exit poll) Update: Preliminary official result:
CDU/CSU - 33.0%
SPD - 20.5%
AfD - 12.6%
FDP - 10.7%
Left - 9.2%
Greens - 8.9%
No great surprise there.
The participation rate slightly increased to 76.2%.
The result is bad for the top-candidates Merkel (CDU) and Schulz (SPD). The CDU lost 9 percentage points compared to the 2013 election, the SPD lost 5. These two parties once held a total of 81% of votes between them. They are now down to 53% of total votes.
Voter migration analysis will show that the CDU loss was caused by Merkel's centrist and socially liberal policies and especially her gigantic immigration ("refugees") mistake. It caused the right-wing CDU voters to go over to the new right-wing party AFD. Other CDU voters (re-)joined the FDP.
Her party will punish Merkel for this catastrophic result. I doubt that she has two or more years left in her position. Her party will shun her and move away from the center and back into its traditional moderate-right corner.
The voters lost by the formerly moderate-left, now also centrist, SPD went over to The Left and the FDP. Many also abstained.
The FDP is back in the game after having been kicked out of parliament is the 2013 elections. The Greens and the Left Party results are mostly unchanged.
Over the last 25 years both of the traditionally big parties, CDU and SPD, had moved from their moderate-right, respectively moderate-left positions towards a "centrist" neo-liberalism. In consequence The Left split off the SPD and now the AFD from the CDU.
The AFD is by no means a "Nazi" party though a few Nazis may hide under its mantle. The voters are mostly traditionalist, staunch conservatives and anti-globalization. They were earlier part of the CDU.
The SPD will not want to enter another government coalition with Merkel, It played Merkel's junior partner over the last eight years and that led to ever increasing voter losses. It nearly killed the party. The mistake of selecting the colorless Schulz as top-candidate will lead to some (necessary) blood loss in the party's leadership. SPD head Gabriel will, like Schulz, have to step back from leadership positions.
Merkel will have difficulties forming a coalition. She will avoid the AFD as her campaign had discriminated that party as "Nazi" (in itself a huge strategic mistake). She will try to build a coalition with the Green and the FDP. It will be enough to rule for a while but is a somewhat unstable configuration.
The new parliament will be more lively than the previous ones under the large CDU-SPD coalition. More parties and a real opposition will create more public discussions.
We will likely have new elections within the next two years.
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