Sunday, June 07, 2009

EU elections in Germany and Austria

European Union Parliamentary elections were held Sunday throughout the EU. Based on the early results I've seen, here is status of the results in Germany and Austria.

Germany: Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) together with its Bavarian sister party the Christian Social Union (CSU) won the most votes with 38%. But that was a significant decline from the previous one in 2004. The Green Party and the Left Party together effectively matched the vote for the junior governing party, the Social Democratic Party (SPD) with a combined 21%. In local elections that also took place the same day, the Greens for the first time came out as the leading party in Stuttgart. The Greens also won 22% in Mainz, a record for them in that city, which put them just behind the votes for the CDU and the SPD.

This election continues a weakening of the SPD's support. It's still has the second largest representation in Parliament after the CDU/CSU. But it's not unthinkable that the Greens could overtake them soon, though they would have to double their vote to achieve that. It's hard to say how some kind of Green/Left Party merger would fare, because the "postcommunist" Left Party still leaves doubts about how far they've come from orthodox Communist ideas of 20 years ago.

Austria: The Christian Democratic ÖVP pulled 30% with the Social Democrats (SPÖ) winning a disappointing 24%, down from their 33% in 2004; the ÖVP was also at 33% in 2004. The far-right FPÖ won 13%, which they considered a disappointment, and the Greens won just under 10%. An electoral headed by a former journalist, Hans Peter Martin, was the biggest surprise, pulling almost 18%, higher than the established parties the Greens and the FPÖ.

As usual, the Austrian Communist Party (KPÖ) won under 1%. The KPÖ's main historical distinction was their business acumen at laundering money from the East German Communist Party back in the day.

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