Are we talking about the German election?

[isabel]

Merkel won a fourth term, but the right wing party won a bunch of seats in parliament.

On NPR this morning, they interviewed some German guy who said, unprompted, "I'm not a Nazi. I'm not racist." We (white people) really don't learn, do we?

www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/09/24/553345614/germanys-political-earthquake-making-sense-of-the-right-shift-in-elections

[andwhat]

I was listening on NPR this morning. Sounded just like the US to me.

And then the Muslims are welcome, but Islam is not. Wow.

[Linie]

She's going to have it a little more difficult, but through a coalition with the other democratic parties, it is not impossible to govern without too much impact from these a**holes.

Other countries in Europe are doing it.

PS I don't want to dismiss the fact that there is racism here in Europe. There's a lot and it's not getting better - it makes me furious.

[OscarQ]

Thanks for posting. I caught a brief report on NPR yesterday but they didn't identify the other parties forming the coalition, just that SD we're going into opposition.

Edit for egregious typos.

[Linie]

Excerpt of The Guardian:



Angela Merkel faces tough negotiations in coming weeks as she attempts to engineer a governing coalition that can withstand pressure from the far right, which has swept into the German parliament for the first time in over five decades.

The German chancellor’s centre-right Christian Democrat-led alliance took 33% of the vote in Sunday’s election – its worst result since 1949 but enough to remain the largest force in parliament.

The centre-left Social Democrats – Merkel’s government partners since 2013 in a “grand coalition” – also suffered their worst post-war result, taking 21%. Alternative für Deutschland secured 13%, marking the first time in almost six decades that an openly nationalist party will enter the Bundestag.

The elections have left an unprecedented number of parties jostling for influence in the next parliament. The pro-business FDP, leftwing Die Linke and the Green party will also crowd into the Bundestag’s plenary chamber – a first since the introduction of a 5% hurdle for parliamentary seats in 1953.

The chancellor’s biggest challenge is to sweet-talk two parties into allying with her – the FDP and the Green party – who not only intensely dislike one another but are both cautious of losing credibility with their voters.


Talks between the parties, which will also include the CDU’s Bavarian sister party the CSU, could potentially last until after Christmas and risk triggering fresh elections if they collapse.

[downtoearth]

I was watching this over the weekend - BBC had good coverage yesterday evening. Anyway, I'm so glad Merkel prevailed, but her coalition is going to be tough to maintain. She has her work cut out for her.

I also was reading HRC's book about how there are more women leaders in Europe because women leaders have show that they are good at coalition building and getting things done, she specifically calls out Merkel for her ability to do that.

[mrsukyankee]

It was sad but they said the exact things that we said in the US and the UK - we didn't hear what the people had to say, we didn't know that populism was so strong. Ugh.

[raangoli]

Sept 25, 2017 10:55:56 GMT -5 andwhat said:

I was listening on NPR this morning. Sounded just like the US to me.

And then the Muslims are welcome, but Islam is not. Wow.

How...does this work?