German and Austrian politics: Twilight of the conservative parties

[A Horse Named Stranger]

*sigh*

Ideen des Merz statt den Iden des März. 

Yes, he will run. And I think as required by law some tune for that non-news.

 

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

10 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

*sigh*

Ideen des Merz statt den Iden des März. 

Yes, he will run. And I think as required by law some tune for that non-news.

 

 

You can say what you want that guy is persistence personified.

Good song though.

[rotting sea cow]

@Luzifer's right hand

WTF are those blackout rumors in your country?

Is that an excuse to have a real lockdown?

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

40 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

@Luzifer's right hand

WTF are those blackout rumors in your country?

Is that an excuse to have a real lockdown?

 

Blackout preparation has been a goal of our government for quite some time now.

There was a planned focus on information about that recently.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

So we have a list of who gets what ministry. 

FDP finance 

SPD

• Chancellor (d'uh)

• Head of chancellory

• Homeland

• Defense

• Ministry for construction and lease (new one)

• Work and Social

• Health

• Economic cooperation (I assume that's the new name for foreign aid and development)

 

Grüne

• Economics and Climate

• Foreign Office

• Family

• Farming

• Enviroment

FDP

• Finances

• Justice

• Traffic (infrastructure/logistics)

• Education and Research

Would've preferred to see finance in Green hands, alternatively they should've tried to get the traffic.

In combination with Farming and Economics they would've had a hand on the key ministries to combat the climate crisis, and undo some of the idiocies left behind by those Bavarian oafs.

[The Wondering Wolf]

I've never got these Greens ambitions towards the Foreign Office. It's mostly saying hi to other state leaders and telling them about the opinion of the German chancellor. And usually there isn't much leeway there anyway. It was clear that the FDP would get the Finances, but it could have made sense to trade the Foreign Office for traffic and and some more contentual concessions.

[Luzifer's right hand]

So is Lauterbach get the health ministry or have the "Pandemic is over" fuckwads won?

[Loge]

44 minutes ago, Luzifer's right hand said:

So is Lauterbach get the health ministry or have the "Pandemic is over" fuckwads won?

We don't know yet. They haven't announced a cabinet list yet. They'll probably wait till the parties have approved the coalition deal.

[The Wondering Wolf]

6 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

SPD

• Chancellor - Olaf Scholz

• Head of chancellory - Wolfgang Schmidt

• Homeland - Christine Lamprecht

• Defense 

• Ministry for construction and lease (new one) - Svenja Schulze

• Work and Social - Hubertus Heil

• Health

• Economic cooperation (I assume that's the new name for foreign aid and development)

 

Grüne

• Economics and Climate - Robert Habeck

• Foreign Office - Annalena Baerbock 

• Family - Katrin Göring-Eckardt

• Farming - Steffi Lemke

• Enviroment - Anton Hofreiter

FDP

• Finances - Christian Lindner

• Justice - Marco Buschmann

• Traffic (infrastructure/logistics) - Volker Wissing

• Education and Research - Bettina Stark-Watzinger

According to ZON, the green ones are safe, the orange ones likely and Defense, Health and Economic Cooperation are unclear.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

7 hours ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

I've never got these Greens ambitions towards the Foreign Office. It's mostly saying hi to other state leaders and telling them about the opinion of the German chancellor. And usually there isn't much leeway there anyway. It was clear that the FDP would get the Finances, but it could have made sense to trade the Foreign Office for traffic and and some more contentual concessions.

It used to be a high profile post during the cold war era well into the 1990s. It's become increasingly irrelevant and less glamorous over the past eight years or so. Ministry of finances is the new Prestigious Office.

You could see how the foreign office was a nice and important post during the cold war days. You travel around the world, sign treaties (basically bribe foreign goverments, but that's another story). But a lot of that outsourced to the EU nowadays. The cold war, where you do stuff in the name of freedumb is also over. I don't think the Greens actually fought that hard to get it. They wanted Finance, but didn't get it. I don't think the FDP really wanted that office either.

But truth be told, at least that's one less office for Maas to mess up. Somehow I think he might end up with Defense.

Hofreiter Enviroment makes sense. Göring-Eckardt family, also makes sense. I don't have a strong opinion on Lemke. With other parties there's traditionally also some sort of regional pissing contest involved in terms of representation - that's the reason Hubertus Heil and Maas suddenly ended up in cabinet positions; and why I think the SPD will inflict Heiko Maas upon us again (despite his awfulness). So somebody from the West (likesay NRW) might want to have a word about it.

As for the SPD like I said, territorial pissing contest between the different state parties, on who gets a cabinet position. In a sane world Lauterbach should get the health ministry. Politics and sanity do not necessarily mix. Lauterbach is from NRW, so is Schulze. So that might be a problem. They need to give a post to somebody from the south and somebody from the east. I don't think Scholz counts as Eastern German, despite his residence being in Potsdam. 

[The Wondering Wolf]

37 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I don't think the Greens actually fought that hard to get it.

Hm, maybe the Greens as a party didn't really care, but my impression has been that Baerbock wanted it since it was clear she wouldn't become chancellor.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 minutes ago, The Wondering Wolf said:

Hm, maybe the Greens as a party didn't really care, but my impression has been that Baerbock wanted it since it was clear she wouldn't become chancellor.

Center of power had somewhat shifted after the election. At least that was my reading from the outside. Habeck appeared to have taken charge of things, while Baerbock appeared to be more sidelined. My reading might off, but that was very much the impression one got from looking at things from the outside. 

Anyway, there was also one nice win on the position front for the Greens. They get to pick the next German member of the EU commission. And that's not nothing.

[The Wondering Wolf]

Habeck surely took charge of things related to representing the Greens in public, but it seems to me Barbock still has a lot of influence within the party and support of the base (if she didn't, she would have been cast off right after the election day considering she botched the campaign). But maybe we're going to learn a bit more about the process soon.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Well, Habeck will be vice-chancellor, if the reports are to be believed. So that'd heavily point towards a shift inside the party, too. Yes, Baerbock has good connections within the party, but the botched campaign had cost her quite a bit of political capital. And yes, botched campaign is the dominant (and imo correct) reading.

[Loge]

12 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Well, Habeck will be vice-chancellor, if the reports are to be believed. So that'd heavily point towards a shift inside the party, too. Yes, Baerbock has good connections within the party, but the botched campaign had cost her quite a bit of political capital. And yes, botched campaign is the dominant (and imo correct) reading.

Well the Greens declared Baerbock candidate for Chancellor. That got her a lot of attention, but also put her under close scrutiny, which she couldn't stand up to. She simply wasn't up to the task. (Neither will she be as foreign minister.) On the other hand, 15% is the best result ever for the Greens, they just raised much higher expectations in their support base.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

She beat out Habeck for the candidacy. She is by all accounts a very well versed politicians, who is well versed in different areas of policies. She is just bad at selling policies and thus on the campaign trail, where she visibly felt uncomfortable - why she actually wanted candidacy, that's a question only she could answer. Anyway, she should be very well equipped for the foreign office (or any other position). Habeck is kinda the reverse. Details? Details are boring, he is more into the bigger picture and selling a vision/ideas. Personally I find him with his flowery language a bit tiresome, but that's my personal opinion. 

The 15% could've been much more. At least 1% was lost in that Saarland debacle, which had little to do with her. Otherwise a lot of non-issues got blown out of proportions - all part of the game, she wanted the job, that's part of the job. But there were a whole lot of unforced and thus avoidable errors on the campaign trail. 

I reiterate what I said in the old thread. That election was winnable. She did not run against Willy Brandt or Konrad Adenauer. She lost to Olaf Scholz and Armin Laschet. Two distinctively uninspiring and weak candidates. I have very little doubt that Habeck would've delivered a better result. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Spon thinks the Green cabinet posts will be

Habek (Economy + climate)

Baerbock (Foreign)

Lemke (Enviroment)

Spiegel (Family)

Özdemir (Farming)

Hofreiter would lose out under this scenario. I have no idea, why Özdemir should be in charge of farming (or any other department). His expertise is foreign policy and defense. Foreign office is taken by Baerbock, and defense is in SPD hands. 

[Luzifer's right hand]

Der talentierte Herr Schmid

A great documentary if you interested the the affairs around Kurz.

The current head of the ORF is being replaced by a Kurz drone and most people think he focused on this to ensure that Kurz will never make a comeback.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Well Kurz is stepping down as party leader and his other political functions.

But it looks like the puppet chancellor that replaced him has to go and we are getting a new chancellor. According to information leaked to the media on his closest is planned a chancellor Karl Nehammer our current minister of the interior who did nothing to enforce covid-19 measures for 1 1/2  and got told by the police union when he started trying that they are neither capapable nor interested in enforcing the lockdown for the unvaccianted(which was a very short live experiment anyway).

I guess the plan of Scholz and Co. to rule after the pandemic is over did not work out. I guess collation talks on top of unnecessary deaths is something new.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Looks like vaxx mandate is coming next year (Februrary is atm teh current reporting). Let's see how Linder's clown posse will vote on this issue. 

Semi-related note. Anybody seen Arakan lately? I mean he was our main (or only) defender of Wagenknecht and even tried to open a thread based on her nonsense book about the Hipster or Lifestyle left. The petty part of me is kinda curious how he feels about that true left Icon now going off the rails wrt vaccines, too. I mean her latest gig apears to be I say it out loud and I am unvaxxed and proud - or stupid, I always get those two state of minds mixed up.