This Is Not My Planet Anymore
Tag Archives: Elections
First We Take Ostelsheim
Then we take Berlin.
A Syrian who arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2015 has been elected as the mayor of a village in the south-west of the country.
Ryyan Alshebl, 29, who is a member of the German Greens but stood as a non-party candidate, won an absolute majority in Sunday’s mayoral election in Ostelsheim, a small municipality of about 2,500 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg.
The More Things Change…
Winning an election in Germany doesn’t mean you’ve been elected.
That would be undemocratic. Here, in Berlin, the loser parties get back together to form the next coalition government the voters just rejected.
Berlin: Conservatives win vote but unclear who will rule – Voters returned to polling booths across the German capital after a botched 2021 election was declared invalid. More voters picked the center-right CDU than any other party, but its candidate may not get to be mayor.
Dysfunctional Elections?
Oh brother. The Germans (Berliners) are copying US-Amerika again.
Only they got it all wrong, as usual. They’re actually trying to undue the damage done by rerunning the failed election. They’re actually trying to get an honest and fair result, in other words. Amateurs. They’ll never play in our league. When it comes to Banana Republicism, Americans will continue to lead the world.
Berlin holds court-ordered rerun of chaotic state election – The city of Berlin on Sunday is holding a court-ordered rerun of a chaotic 2021 state election that was marred by severe glitches at many polling stations that led to hours-long lines as some polling places ran out of ballot papers or received ones for the wrong district.
Berliners have long been frustrated by the German capital’s notoriously dysfunctional ways, which have been defying clichés of German efficiency for years and have made the city the laughing stock of the rest of the country.
US-Amerika Isn’t The Only Place In Need Of Foreign Observers To Monitor Elections
The Germans have their problems too, the German capital in particular. But in contrast to us Americans, Berliners actually have the courage to them in.
Berlin is peanuts compared to The Banana Republic itself, I know, but its sure got pluck.
‘Dysfunctional’ Berlin holds rerun after election chaos – German capital has been governed by centre-left coalitions for more than two decades.
It’s not every day that foreign observers are needed to monitor an election in Germany, one of the west’s richest and most stable democracies. But then again, Berlin is no ordinary city.
Fourteen officials from the Council of Europe, the continent’s top human rights body, will arrive in the capital this week to observe Sunday’s rerun of its 2021 election, an event so chaotic its results were nullified: Berliners had to queue for hours at polling stations, which ran out of voting papers and ballot boxes. Some stayed open late to cope with the crowds, when broadcasters were already calling the result.
“Glitches” Are Just Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories
Right? Even in, uh, Germany?
Germany Clears Rerun of Part of 2021 Election After Berlin Glitches – Irregularities in capital’s voting marred national election.
German lawmakers cleared a rerun of last year’s national election in six parliamentary districts in Berlin after irregularities at hundreds of the capital’s polling places triggered official complaints.
Repeat An Election?
What do they mean by repeating an election? I thought that once you get the results you want it’s a done deal. Repeating an election due to election day glitches simply isn’t possible. Not in my country it isn’t.
Judge: Berlin will likely need to repeat its 2021 election – The president of the Berlin Constitutional Court says Germany’s capital will likely need to repeat its 2021 state and district elections due to severe election day glitches.
Long lines formed outside many polling stations in Berlin that day as voters struggled with extra ballot papers. Some polling stations ran out of ballot papers during the day and others received ones for the wrong district, leading to a large number of invalidated ballots. Another issue was the election was supposed to end at 6 p.m., but voters waiting in line at that time were allowed to cast their ballots.
I Never Thought She Was All That Outgoing
But if that’s what everybody writes, so be it.
Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel watched from a visitors’ gallery on Tuesday as a new, more diverse and younger parliament elected a woman from the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) as parliamentary president.
The FDP Decides
It seems pretty clear to me who the next German Finance Minister will be.
Their boss, Christian Linder, will get the job. If he doesn’t, it won’t come to this odd coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP.
Lindner and the FDP stand for low taxes, debt limitation and a hard line towards Germany’s European partners. The climate crisis is to be addressed by private investment and carbon pricing. The Greens, by contrast, have put climate first – and for that reason advocate large-scale investment, lifting Germany’s “debt brake”, and a pro-European policy that continues the steps taken in 2020 towards common, debt-financed investment policy. It is precisely in these policy areas – where the differences between the Greens (and the SPD) and the FDP are greatest – that the finance ministry is critical.
It Can’t Happen Here
Election fraud. We’re not in the Banana Republic of Amerika, after all.
Or can it?
Berlin’s Constitutional Court to review election results – After a messy Election Day that saw ballots moved around the German capital during a marathon, the results are to be reviewed — focusing on two districts.
The OSCE has yet to issue its full report on the election. Roughly one in 10 polling centers — 207 out of 2,257 — had election irregularities. That represents over a hundred more stations than Berlin’s interior minister said in an initial report last week.
“That is a number that should scare and frustrate us all,” Michaelis said previously. She has resigned following the failures.
Observing Hermann 