German election diary: Posters everywhere but no attacks

http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2013/08/german-election-diary-0

by guruz • 13 years ago

45 47 13 years ago

Perhaps this is partly due to the multitude of parties, which in turn is due to the nature of the electoral system?

In a two party system, a lot of people feel like they are voting for the lesser of two evils, so negative campaigning is presumably far more helpful to your cause.

If you have to compete with multiple parties for votes, you need to offer more than simply criticism of the opposition.

JonSkeptic• 13 years ago

Agreed. I think having more than two parties to choose from would resonate with many Americans.

Currently we have only to choose between a douche and a turd. It would be nice to at least get different shades of douche and turd to pick, and who knows, we may get to pick something that isn't horrible.

kghose• 13 years ago

Unfortunately there is no good solution. I followed Indian politics for a while, and the danger of multi-party elections is the dreaded 'coalition' where a bigger, more mainstream party, in an effort to come into power, will align with a smaller, more extreme/fringe party. In this manner extremist views start to gain ground, and gain influence beyond what the simple vote gave them.

dimitar• 13 years ago

There are a lot of people protesting the current multiparty proportional system in Bulgaria. They don't like the coalitions, the lists of candidates as opposed to individuals, the indirect election of prime minister (biggest coalition appoints one).

However I am very skeptical that changing the political party structure changes much. Aren't in the end the Republicans and Democrats just two big coalitions of movements that tolerate their coalition partners? If you had a multiparty system you'll get a liberal party, a conservative party, a far-right party and maybe a libertarian party. And they'll form long-run coalitions just like they do in multiparty countries.

In a multi-party system you are still probably voting for the lesser of two or more evils. In Bulgaria between 4 and 7 factions in parliament so its definitely a multi-party systems, although parties like to place themselves on a left-right spectrum and ally accordingly.

Did it have attack ads in all the elections? Absolutely! Ads target everyone, including smaller parties, to get votes from them and create guilt-by-association to their actual or potential coalition partners. You obviously don't target you partners, so thats why a right-left divide seems to appear... so you can claim you get a two-party system, you just have the primaries during the actual election.

Pxtl2• 13 years ago

Hey, Bulgaria, want to trade?

Here in Canada, the government goes to the party with the most seats, and each seat is handed out in a small regional FPTP election. What this means is that our elections go through two first-past-the-post filters instead of one. In 2008, the Conservatives faced all the other parties aligning against them to throw them out and, through a trick of procedure, they managed to keep control of the government. They were elected with only 38% percent of the vote - the minority ruled as a majority.

pyrocat• 13 years ago

Mixed-Member Proportional Representation

brazzy2• 13 years ago

But what Germany's parties are offering instead of criticism is generic, meaningless feel-good slogans. Better than smear campaigns, to be sure, but still rather disappointing.

sentenza• 13 years ago

The true problem is that most parties flat-out refuse to state a vision for the future of the country. This election season it has become so bad that "having a plan for the future" and "fringe party" have become synonymous.

All parties that have a chance of being in a government coalition only talk about the past, the now, or nothing at all. It's a declaration of intellectual and ideological bankrupcy.

darxius• 13 years ago

I'm from Canada, and there are attack ads everywhere. I can't stand them. Instead of using your money, your time and your effort trying to destroy another candidate, tell me why you're better. I think it's by and large one of the major reasons I have little faith or interest in the politics of my country.

marijn• 13 years ago

Actually, some of the posters from Die Grünen (Green Party) have a rather personal taste to them. See [1], which shows Merkel and Röstler (figureheads of the current ruling parties) with the caption "It's always someone else's fault". And then of course, there's the fringe parties, like [2], saying "Which ass will you choose this September?".

[1] http://www.gruene.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Bilder/Webbanner/... [2]: http://img01.lachschon.de/images/153979_WelcherArschdarfsden...

Of course, that's still kittens and rainbows compared to the rabid, poisonous insanity that is considered normal in the US.

mhaymo• 13 years ago

attack ads, like Super PACs, are unimaginable here, legally and culturally.

Legally? There are laws preventing certain kinds of criticism of political parties, and we're celebrating this?

Perhaps it's because I haven't seen many attack ads (as a UK citizen who doesn't watch adverts), but I don't get the hatred for them. Is informing the populace of the downsides of your opponents' positions not better than putting contentless posters all over the city?

jamesaguilar• 13 years ago

The problem comes when some of the advertised downsides are fictitious and/or designed to appeal to people's irrationality.

Personally I think it would be great if there was some enforceable way of making it illegal for politicians to lie about each other. But then you have the problem of who judges that . . . which may end up being an easier problem to solve than the problem of electing good leaders in an American political climate. Not sure.

Svip3• 13 years ago

Well, Germany doesn't have really have activist judges, because they don't have Common Law. Because of this, it is rather hard (and especially hard to justify) to be political in one's judgement in Civil Law systems, so most judges (I obviously cannot say with absolute certainty all) in Civil Law countries tend not to be political motivated.[0]

[0] That is not ruling out them being corrupt, of course.

skrause• 13 years ago

Even though the article make this impression it's not illegal in Germany to criticize your political opponent as long as you're not telling straight lies.

AlecSchueler• 13 years ago

While I don't agree with silencing laws, I just wanted to point out that attack ads have been a real problem in the UK recently. In November last year the DUP party in Northern Ireland came under criticism for distributing thousands of leaflets attacking a council decision to normalise the regularity with which the Union flag was flown at the Belfast City Hall [0]. This raised tensions which eventually led to a series of attacks in December on the offices and homes of members of rival parties[1], and sustained rioting in January[2].

[0] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20317461

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-20619259

[2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-21020296

Pxtl2• 13 years ago

Perhaps it's because I haven't seen many attack ads (as a UK citizen who doesn't watch adverts), but I don't get the hatred for them. Is informing the populace of the downsides of your opponents' positions not better than putting contentless posters all over the city?

Here in Canada the drum beat of attack ads is incessent. The Liberal party has gone through a terrible churn of leadership in teh past few years, and the Conservatives roll out attack ads the moment the leader is selected, regardless of how close we are to an election.

this_user3• 13 years ago

Germany politics are and have been for the last couple of years in a rather curious state where the opposition appears to have given up on attacking Merkel in any meaningful way. I think there are several factors that play into this.

First of all, after the 2005 election a grand coaltion between Merkel's CDU and the social democratic SPD was formed leaving only the three smaller parties with a combined 166 out of 614 seats as the opposition. This put the SPD in the position of the CDU's junior partner instead of their usual position of attacking the CDU's political agenda. What may be even worse from the SPD's perspective is that the are now in the position of having supported the decisions made in Merkel's first term which would make it less than believable to attack those decisions now.

In the 2009 election the CDU only lost a marginal amount of votes while the SPD suffered heavy losses to the benefit of the three smaller parties. This allowed Merkel to form the traditional coalition consisting of CDU and the liberal FDP thereby leaving 290 of 622 seats to the oppposition and allowing the SPD to resume their role as the main force in opposition.

Except they never did. Instead of mounting attacks on the government, they stayed tame and oftentimes even concurred with the government on decisions despite no longer being in power. I am not sure about their reasons. Their lack of charismatic leadership personnel may have played a role, but that can only explain so much.

The second and more important factor is probably Merkel's very specific style of governing. She tends to be extremely passive, never exposing herself and opening herself up to criticism. If possible, she avoids making decisions at all. If she has to make decisions, she will always take the popular choice. If hard or controvesial decisions have to be made, she never makes a proposal herself. A proposal is either leaked to the press or presented by one of her ministers. In case said proposals garners widely negative reactions, the minister takes the blame giving Merkel the opportunity to shield herself from the fallout. Should an extraordinary event like the Fukushima accident lead to a sudden reversal in public opinion (towards nuclear energy in this case), Merkel will immediately flip her position and take the opposite one. If you have paid close attention to German politics in the last couple of years, you will see these exact steps repeated over and over again.

The worst part is, it works. Her latest approval rating is at 60% compared to 25% for the SPD candidate. Somehow she has managed to lull not only to public but also her political opposition to sleep over her two terms in office. This leaves us in 2013, a month away from the election with an opposition that behaves more like her pet kitten than her political challenger. What is even worse, is the fact that it leaves the population without a real choice for political change.

LinaLauneBaer• 13 years ago

If she has to make decisions, she will always take the popular choice.

Are you saying that this is a bad thing? I am always surprised when people demand from politicians to make unpopular choices. Isn't that a bit schizophrenic?

brazzy2• 13 years ago

"Should an extraordinary event like the Fukushima accident lead to a sudden reversal in public opinion (towards nuclear energy in this case), Merkel will immediately flip her position and take the opposite one."

I think you mean "away from nuclear energy" ;-) though I dont't think public opinion was ever for it, most people just didn't care enough to make it politically untenable to support it. That changed drastically with Fukushima. And to be honest, I'd rather have a politician in power who is able to change their opinion in response to important events than one who will not admit being wrong whatever happens.

ihsw2• 13 years ago

It certainly has been very odd, especially considering there was a very noisy and shrill uproar around NSA/BND -- and I use the term was tentatively.

Merkel is a backseat driver, to put it bluntly. When the ride get bumpy then she can defer outrage to whomever she has employed as the driver, however when all is well then she receives nothing but praise for her careful stewardship.

hyperventilator2• 13 years ago

Does any candidate support closing US military bases in Germany?

rb2k_• 13 years ago

Maybe the far, far right or far, far left.

But I think they're universally liked because of the economic upswings they bring to the regions (often rural).

hnha• 13 years ago

not sure that would be possible. their right is based in ancient legal agreements after losing ww2.

netrus• 13 years ago

It's as easy as just asking them to leave. While the bases re strategically useful for the US, they'd have a hard time labelling them necessary, given the current US-German relationship. But Germany won't ask, because they do some good and little harm.

lispm• 13 years ago

Sure, but there are not many left anyway. There has been some anger because of US spying and the US ignoring German law (flying people to torture centers via Germany).

arrrg• 13 years ago

They are irrelevant and a non-issue on the federal level (I cannot remember when they were last publicly discussed there, much less controversially discussed). They are about equally irrelevant on the state level and certainly also not controversially discussed there.

On the very local level (city, county, region) they can be an important issue – but the perspective is nearly always an economic one: The base as a large employer in a region that might grow or shrink or close down. Best city marketing approaches for getting Americans from a nearby base to come visit and buy stuff. It’s always stuff like that.

Ok, I guess I can think of one current somewhat heated issue that was recently discussed and that I noticed, living somewhat close to a base and all – but, again, only on a very local level: the US Army being allowed to fly drones for testing purposes (also outside of and between two of their bases). But even there the discussion is not exactly a shouting match and never even connected with any kind of argument to close bases.

I think the general consensus in Germany is that having the US as a tight ally is a good thing. And you don’t throw a tight ally out of your country, especially if what they are doing there is (at least perceived as) completely harmless. Sure, there might be widespread general disagreements with the US military strategy as a whole, but that does not, in general, lead people to want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to say.

I think you might be able to rally quite a few people around a hot button issue like the stationing of nuclear weapons in Germany (but I’m not even sure whether the US still does that), but throwing out the US? Not really.

If you are an American who wants to close all US bases in Germany quite a few German politicians would be indifferent or worried about the US-German relationship and many local politicians with a nearby base would be furious about you taking away all those jobs (not that the bases matter for the German economy in general in any significant way).

hyperventilator2• 13 years ago

especially if what they are doing there is (at least perceived as) completely harmless

Umm. The citizens Iraq and Afghanistan might disagree with you.

igl• 13 years ago

What is there to attack, when they are all exactly the same? Germany will hop between SPD and CDU forever. With 0 change. The greens and FDP are merely helpers to fake some noise in our mindless american-style media apparatus. I don't even bother with voting. Politics only distracting you from what is real.

German election diary: Posters everywhere but no attacks

Related Stories