The Green Party won big in the german state of Bavaria
https://www.vox.com/2018/10/15/17978218/angela-merkel-germany-bavaria-csu-afd-greens
Voters in the German state of Bavaria went to the polls this weekend and dealt a serious setback to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The elections this Sunday in the southern German state were considered critical for Merkel and her fragile governing coalition. The state’s largest party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), managed to cling to first place in the elections with a little more than 37 percent of the vote, but lost their absolute majority and saw their most bruising results in more than half a century.
This was a blow to Merkel, since the CSU is the sister party to her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). But another member of Merkel’s governing national coalition, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), also saw its support absolutely cave in the Bavarian elections, putting them in fifth behind with just less than 10 percent of the vote.
The losses for the major parties in Bavaria meant that smaller parties made big gains. Germany’s anti-immigrant far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) secured double-digit support — about 10.2 percent of the vote — and further established itself as a political force.
But when it came to smaller parties, the biggest gains went to the Greens — a left-wing party that’s pro-immigrant, pro-Europe, and pro-environment. The part came in second place with 17.5 percent of the vote on Sunday, putting the party on its way to becoming one of the biggest political forces on the left in the region.
Both the Greens and AfD’s successes — along with the damages to the long-established center-right CSU and center-left Social Democrats — reveal the cracks within German politics.
“You see the hollowing out in Europe of the center, and political fracture and fragmentation,” Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told me. “Bavaria is the perfect snapshot.”
The same thing is taking place in America, Albeit in slow motion.
Voters in the German state of Bavaria went to the polls this weekend and dealt a serious setback to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The elections this Sunday in the southern German state were considered critical for Merkel and her fragile governing coalition. The state’s largest party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), managed to cling to first place in the elections with a little more than 37 percent of the vote, but lost their absolute majority and saw their most bruising results in more than half a century.
This was a blow to Merkel, since the CSU is the sister party to her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). But another member of Merkel’s governing national coalition, the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), also saw its support absolutely cave in the Bavarian elections, putting them in fifth behind with just less than 10 percent of the vote.
The losses for the major parties in Bavaria meant that smaller parties made big gains. Germany’s anti-immigrant far-right party Alternative for Deutschland (AfD) secured double-digit support — about 10.2 percent of the vote — and further established itself as a political force.
But when it came to smaller parties, the biggest gains went to the Greens — a left-wing party that’s pro-immigrant, pro-Europe, and pro-environment. The part came in second place with 17.5 percent of the vote on Sunday, putting the party on its way to becoming one of the biggest political forces on the left in the region.
Both the Greens and AfD’s successes — along with the damages to the long-established center-right CSU and center-left Social Democrats — reveal the cracks within German politics.
“You see the hollowing out in Europe of the center, and political fracture and fragmentation,” Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), told me. “Bavaria is the perfect snapshot.”
The same thing is taking place in America, Albeit in slow motion.
