In Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the governing Social Democrat (SPD)s got whipped, to the tune of a 10 percent drop at the polls. In Berlin, by contrast, the SPD picked up 1.1 percent, received the most votes of any party, and now has the option of continuing its coalition with the Left (PDS) or forming a new one [...]

This much is uncontroversial: in late 2003 the CIA kidnapped Khalid al-Masri, a Lebanese-born German citizen, and carried him off to a prison in Afghanistan for interrogation. In the end they released him when they realised that his only crime was to have the same name as some other man they wanted to get [...]

German media are now reporting that the SPD has agreed to let the largest parliamentary faction put forward the candidate for Chancellor. For three weeks, the Social Democrats had been arguing that as the largest party represented in the Bundestag, they had the right to name the candidate. (Germany’s Christian Democrats come from two parties, [...]

FT says a deal will be reached shortly, and Merkel will be chancellor. Schröder is out.

Ms Merkel’s expected victory in the battle for the chancellorship is likely to be announced on Monday, following a meeting on Sunday evening in Berlin between Mr Schröder and Ms Merkel, according to the SPD politicians, who spoke on condition [...]

Unfortunately, following our recent move to a different hosting provider, some Euros in the Fistful are still experiencing technical difficulties when trying to post. We’re trying to solve the problem as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, other people are experiencing problems as well. The “K-question”, the question who will become the next Chancellor, and presumably the amjor [...]

The other half of Dresden has voted today. Early reports (based on 60 out of 190 precincts) by Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for ZDF television indicate that voters learnt a lot about the intricacies of the German personalised proportional representation electoral system, by giving the local CDU candidate, Andreas Lämmel, sufficient “first votes” to win a direct [...]

Despite appearances, and for all the stalemate it produced, yesterday’s German election has certainly confirmed that Germans are neither too afraid of change, nor too scared of instability. In fact, they chose both.

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CDU advertising for SchröderBeing stuck in a traffic jam is probably not the best place to be to blog about the German election. On the other hand, it may well be an excellent metaphor for the result of today’s German elections, which Mrs T sketched below. Hearing the results on the radio, the first thing [...]

Ok, now that Edward has already mentioned it, I might as well explain in a little more detail what I meant by saying that “on some level, the CDU might be afraid to win.”
Last Saturday evening, strolling through Stockholm’s Gamla Stan, Edward asked me about my gut feeling concerning the outcome of the German election [...]

What better way to bury the news of your party’s ouster from power in a state it’s ruled for nearly 40 years than to up the ante?
Give this to Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der, he still knows how to dominate the news cycle like no one else in Germany. Angela Merkel didn’t hear the news until she [...]