Germany has voted - now what?
Finally the rally is over and Germany has decided who’s going to rule the country the next few years. Only problem: there is no decision!
Frightening parallels to the US’s 2000 presidential election: not only do candidates now battle like presidential candidates (complete with public face-offs on TV and “I love my wife!” statements), no, they also try to copy closer-than-ever results from the US’s 2000 election.
However, this is the last thing that Germany would have needed. None of the political parties had an agenda that convinced the majority of Germans. The country is left without clear leadership and direction and that’s the worst that could have happened.
During our last trip to Germany we seemed to observe “frustration” all over the place and one of the major contributors to this climate is the lack of “government” (I’m talking about the “govern”, “steer” in this word’s original meaning). Instead of having a strong political patry (and I don’t care whether that would be left or right), the German people are left with two parties battling for power and leaving the country in the dust. The parties already got their receipt from German businesses: the German DAX (blue chip index) is off 2% and the Euro is also off against the dollar …
Hi Hiasi,
of course you are absolutely right and your observations while you were over here some weeks ago reflect the mood we are all in. Now we can prepare ourselves for a “large coalition” - meaning the two parties who were fighting eachother for months now should all of a sudden work together as partners… or a “traffic light coalition” - the red, yellow and green party work together where the leader of the yellow ones clearly stated that he would prefer NOT to touch the red ones at all!
I would not be surprised to see the next election campaigns in the beginning of 2006…