Meet the new boss...

... same as the old boss. 

Can I say "I guess they were fooled again"?

That's it for the big election.  I know I'm still not in any position to comment on the politics here, but I'm going to try anyway.

We watched the results come in on Sunday night.  It was all over in about two minutes.  Seriously.  Very anticlimactic.  CDU/CSU scored a victory with about 34% of the vote.  (That still sounds weird to say, victory with 34%.)  Meanwhile, the largest opposition party, the SPD really got it handed to them.  If I remember correctly, their totals were down nearly 10 points from the previous election. 

I know this is overly simplified but to compare it to the US system, I have it broken down like this:

If CDU/CSU is Republican, then SPD is the Democrats, although both are much more in the middle.  FDP are kind of Republican-light (but very pro-business).  The remaining parties that make an impact, the Left and the Greens are (obviously) left-leaning.  Here's a graph showing the results:

So what does that mean? How bad is it?

To be honest, I don't really know for sure.  At first glance, it really doesn't appear much different from the previous election.  CDU/CSU in charge, with SPD as the opposition.  But again, that is oversimplifying it. Here's another graph I stole (in the name of education!) showing the seats in parliament:

The CDU/CSU, combined with the FDP (CDU's preferred partner), now have a majority in parliament and can probably accomplish whatever they want.  332 seats out of 622 for the two combined partners.  Most people I know here are not too happy.  Then again, Cologne is one of the most liberal cities in the country.

I guess what most people were surprised by was how much SPD slipped and how much FDP received.  With the economic crisis still lingering, I wouldn't have thought that a pro-big business party stood a chance.  But Germany has weathered the recession differently than other developed countries and for different reasons.  So what do I know?  If you're still reading and have interest, this might provide a better post-election wrap up for you than I could ever try to provide.

Not only was I surprised by how quickly the vote was called, I was also surprised to learn the new government took over on the very next day.  No voting in November then waiting months for Inauguration Day.  And, like the local city election, it was the most simple ballot I have ever seen.  One piece of paper, two choices.  The first choice is for Chancellor, the second is a vote for a party seat in parliament.  It really couldn't be any easier to complete.

I had read an article about the idea of instituting mandatory voting.  Apparently the government is worried about the continued poor voter turnout.  The numbers have been going down for years.  First of all, forcing compulsory voting in a democracy sounds pretty damn ironic to me.  Secondly, they ought to consider what poor voter turnout means.  The previous election's voter turnout dropped all the way to 77%! The horror!

Check out these numbers from the U.S. if you want to know what low turnout means.