German elections: One more such “victory” and Merkel is undone

The national elections in Germany took place. As expected, Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats are still the largest party and she is looking at a fourth term in office. However, as King Pyrrhus is supposed to have said, “one more such victory and I am undone”.

 

[Screencap from the Frankfurter Allgemeine website. Black=Christian Democrats; Red=Social Democrats; Blue=Alternative for Germany (populist right); Yellow=Free Democrats (classical liberals); Purple=The Left (former East German communists); Green=The Greens; Sonstiges=remaining/others.]

Both the major parties, the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, are at their nadir since WW II. The third largest party is now the populist right-wing, anti-immigrant, anti-establishment Alternative for Germany, which in the former East Germany placed second [h/t: masgramondou] and in the state of Sachsen (Saxony) actually became the #1 party! The other major winner are the classical liberal Free Democrats — the junior partners in many postwar federal governments — who have made a great comeback since the last election when they did not make the 5% electoral threshold. Barney the purple communist dinosaur and its green belly both maintained their strength.

 

Preliminary seat distribution in the Bundestag (709 total seats). Voter turnout: 76.1%

 

The logical coalition partner for Merkel might seem the SPD (continuing the present coalition), perhaps with support from the FPD in a “national flag coalition” (black-yellow-red). However, the SPD decided to go lick its wounds and take the opposition cure. This leaves the so-called “Jamaica coalition” (after the colors of the Jamaican flag) of CDU, FDP, and Greens. “Two years at most for Jamaica,” says a headline at the Frankfurter Allgemeine, as such a government is prey to many obvious internal contradictions.

The AfD itself seems to be riven by an internal power struggle between populist-right and far-right wings. Party leader Frauke Petry has even announced she does not wish to be part of the AfD faction in parliament, leading to calls for her to step aside.

[At this latter link is also an interesting interactive graph showing voter flow between 213 and 2017 elections. For instance, about one-third of all FDP voters this time are defectors from the CDU/CSU, while one-quarter of all AfD voters did not vote in the previous election.]

“Interesting times,” in the ancient Chinese sense of the word…

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!

UPDATE 2: AfD-chairwoman Frauke Petry and her husband Marcus Pretzell, regional AfD chair in North Rhine-Westphalia, intend to quit the party.

And Horst Seehofer, chairman of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party CSU (Christian Social Union), is calling on Angela Merkel to “draw personal consequences” from the historically poor showing of the CDU and step aside. National Review speaks of “Merkel’s Nightmare Victory” [h/t: Jason B.]

UPDATE 3: see my next update here