Lots of info about it here:

(The Left Party squeaked in with 5.1%, just over the threshold.)

Acting SPD chairwoman Andrea Nahles pointed to the coalition in the Rhineland-Palatinate state where, in her words, the SPD and FDP were cooperating successfully under the governance of Minister-president Kurt Beck.

But a parliamentary leader of the FDP from Hesse, Jörg-Uwe Hahn, said there is no way that his party would enter into a "traffic light" coalition. The FDP had planned to be coalition partner with the right-wing CDU, and could not be used as "a training wheel for a Red-Green" coalition, he told the DPA press agency.

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Nahles reiterated leader Andrea Ypsilanti's campaign promise that her party would not enter into a coalition with the upsurge, far-left Left party, saying "the program and the people that they represent in Hesse do not stand for stability in government."

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So if there is no coalition, could there be external support? The logical answer is a minority SPD/Green coalition with external support from the Left Party. But that's just what the SPD rejected after the last federal election in the same situation, preferring to form a grand coalition with the CDU.

Uwe Andersen, politics professor at the University of Bochum, said he expects the CDU and SPD to be forced into a Grand Coalition in Hesse, the sixth such constellation in Germany's 16 states, causing ``a prolonged period of stagnation'' at national level.

Since last summer, federal SPD Chairman Kurt Beck has shifted his party’s rhetoric to the left and discarded Mr Schröder’s pro-business, reformist agenda in an effort to reverse an exodus of members and voters to the Left party.

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Sunday’s results suggest that he has fallen well short of his objective. By managing to win the necessary minimum 5 per cent of votes required for representation in the parliaments of both Hesse and Lower Saxony – the first time it has done so in any large western state – the Left party has established itself as part of the mainstream party spectrum across the country. No longer can it be dismissed as a largely east German phenomenon dependent on its bank of votes in the formerly communist region.

“The Left party is the real victor of both votes,” noted the Forsa polling group, adding that the SPD, despite its gains, had scored its second worst result in Hesse, while the CDU was at its lowest level in 40 years.

Mr Beck’s failure to trounce his leftwing rivals could present the German left-of-centre parties – SPD, Greens and Left party – with the dilemma of the French left before 1981, when it failed to cash in on electoral successes because of internal divisions.

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Hesse is home to Germany's financial capital, Frankfurt. CDU leader Koch's campaign on crime and immigration was denounced by critics as xenophobic.

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Federation of German Industry chief Juergen Thumann said he found the political trend troubling.

"The shift to the left in Germany continues," he told business daily Handelsblatt. "We are watching current developments with the greatest concern."

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Playing the immigrant card in the election campaign at Germany's Hesse state did not bring success to Christian Democrat Premier Roland Koch on Sunday's vote.

Koch's votes fell by 12 percent since the last elections. “The results would have been much more different if Koch had not used immigrants in his campaign,” said Murat Açıkalın, a Turkish citizen who has been living in Germany for 40 years.

The result constitutes a “democratic coup” against CDU, said Tayfun Çilingir, the president of the Rhein-Main Turkish Association and a member of the administrative board for Turkish German Associations.

A crucial result of the election is that “Koch is gone,” and policies provoking enmity toward foreigners is perceived as “not working,” according to Yıldız Köremezli-Erkiner, a German-Turkish candidate from the Left Party, who did not make it to the parliament. “This would lead [parties] to be more careful in the future. I do not think that they will use immigrants in their campaigns from now on,” she said.

“A cornered Koch attempted to use foreigners, youth, and violence to his advantage,” according to German-Turkish politician Turgut Yüksel, who was elected to the parliament from the SPD. “[Voters] showed a red card to Koch's campaign,” he said.

If a coalition between SPD, the Greens and the FDP is formed, it would have a positive attitude toward immigrants, Çilingir continued. “According to democratic precedents, Koch should resign.”

Erkiner, on the other hand, said the Left Party would be the guardian of the promises that the SPD made about migrant policies.

Turkish-German voters had a significant role in election results, as the small difference between the votes of CDU and SPD shows, according to Çilingir. Erkiner also said this is a start for immigrants to be more interested in politics and feel responsibility about it. “We are not represented in proportion to our existence here. Time is needed to change this. We should change as well,” she said.

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"Today we are all trembling with anticipation in the hope that Roland Koch will remain the governor in what I believe will be a grand coalition,"

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The Left Party is fast emerging as a fifth national party in Germany: it would currently win 12 percent of the total national vote if elections were held today, according to one recent survey.

SPD party chief Kurt Beck told public broadcaster ARD he "couldn't imagine" a grand coalition in the state.

But the SPD has refused to enter into a coalition or even to create a so-called "tolerated" government with the Left Party.

Addressing the possibility of an SPD-Green government tolerated by the Left Party, Peter Struck, the SPD's party whip in the federal parliament, told the Berliner Zeitung: "I don't think much of that idea, because it would mean that the Left Party could overrun us with demands for reciprocity that we don't want to be held politically responsible for. We need a stable political majority."

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Berlin's 12 Borough Mayors include Christina Emmrich (The Left), Dagmar Pohle (The Left), Gabriele Schöttler (SPD), Matthias Koehne (SPD), Franz Schulz (The Greens), Monika Thiemen (SPD), Heinz Buschkowsky (SPD), Christian Hanke (SPD), Ekkehard Band (SPD), Marlies Wanjura (CDU), Konrad Birkholz (CDU), and Norbert Kopp (CDU).

Koch doesn't get it:

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"We didn't mobilize our own supporters enough," Koch said.

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[ 29 January 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/hessen.htm

I guess CDU premier Roland Koch's xenophobic message, particularly in Hesse, got their campaign derailed.

Still can't see Die Linke in any coalition, or supporting a SPD/Grn coalition.

Congratulations to Die Linke, and SPD, get over yourselves already. Leftists have nothing to gain by being austerity centrists.

[ 29 January 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 29 January 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
It's time for the SPD to finally accept that it's destiny is to be an left-wing, anti-austerity full employment and stop letting the CDU share power just to keep Die Linke out.

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At the federal level the grand coalition is semi-paralysed.

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If the economy slows down, it will be hard pressed to produce a coherent response. Both parties are focused on picking quarrels for the 2009 elections. But if they cannot co-operate, the only winners will be rival parties, such as the Left.

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Koch, who is seeking a third consecutive term as leader of Hesse, has riled immigrant groups, the Jewish community and Germany's left-wing voters and politicians with calls for deportation of "criminal foreigners" and an end to "multicultural" coddling of immigrants. A brutal pre-Christmas attack on a German pensioner by two young immigrants on a Munich subway train prompted Koch to seize on juvenile crime as the mainstay of his re-election campaign.

However, Koch's campaign seems to have backfired. Just a few months ago, Koch was expected to secure re-election with ease. But latest opinion polls show he and SPD candidate, Andrea Ypsilanti, who is campaigning with calls for a national minimum wage, running neck-and-neck.

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The provincial party chair Ulrich Wilken was elected at the selection convention to the fourth spot on its list. He is a scientist from Frankfurt who had been a PDS member, rather than a member of Oskar Lafontaine's WASG. Marjana Schott was a deputy chair, and won the number two list position, but she too had been a PDS member.

Hermann Schaus was a trade unionist and WASG member, the only elected member with real labour credentials.

Janine Wissler, in position number 3, is a 26-year-old student who came through the WASG from the anti-globalization group ATTAC. Barbara Cárdenas was from a municipal left coalition of Greens, PDS and others. A mixed bag.

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Originally posted by Centrist:
Even the eastern states of Thuringia, Brandenburg, have grand coalition SPD/CDU goverments as the SPD view Die Linke as a stigma.

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But in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and Brandenburg the SPD could lead a left coalition. It did so in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania from 1998 to 2006, but decided to form a coalition with the CDU instead after the 2006 election.

[ 03 February 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

Well, its capital Wiesbaden is governed by a Jamaica coalition municipally, with a detailed 50-page coalition agreement running to 2011. In the 81-member council governing the city of 300,000 people, the CDU has 29 seats, the Greens 10, and the FDP 7, giving the coalition a majority.

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The Hesse-SPD had quite connecting points with the Liberals: "Just one example: Our energy programme helps the middle class and creates tens of thousands of jobs."

The Ypsilanti team's designate as Interior Minister, Social Democrat Juergen Walter, named a government of SPD, FDP and Greens "one which matches the best traditions of Hesse, and which also has the greatest probability of working for this province for five years." The citizens' vote of the state election should be respected: "We can't keep the citizens voting until we like the result."

SPD and FDP were for the expansion of the Frankfurt airport, the rehabilitation of the country's roads and the north Hesse highway project. "We differ only in the terms; the purpose is the same."

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The far-left in some parts of Europe has also made it as far as into national governments -- in France, Sweden, Italy and presently in Norway. But such coalitions have rarely been especially successful.

In 1998, the Social Democratic Party in Sweden entered a coalition with the Left party and the Greens. One result was that support for the far-left quickly eroded.

"We don't regret being part of the coalition, we could certainly air some of our views," said Gudrun Utas of Sweden's Left Party. "But we didn't have positive experiences."

After four years of being part of the government, her far-left party has managed to attract just 5 percent of the vote -- a far cry from their historic high of 12.8 percent in 1998.

"It's a real dilemma," said Spier. "At first, the far-left in Sweden profited from the Social Democrats' move to the center. But once they took on governing responsibilities, the far-left lost its halo -- as well as votes." At the same time, the Social Democrats won the majority it needed to govern thanks to the far-left.

The Swedish example may hold lessons for Andrea Ypsilanti. Depending on the outcome of coalition talks among Hesse's parties, she may yet change her mind and get the Left party on board after all in order to gain that magic majority.

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"It has to be said that in Germany, a part of the Left still continues in the tradition of the PDS and the additional problem is that we have a remnant of the SED [the former East German ruling party] there," said Spier. "West Germans have a problem accepting that."
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As stated above, Die Linke in Hesse is an "oddball" group and who knows what insatibility they would bring to any potential coalition.

On the whole, Germans seem adverse to extremes on both sides of the spectrum.

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Stefan Körzell, the Hesse District chair of the Confederation of German Trade Unions (DGB, the umbrella organisation for trade unions in Germany) and Armin Schild, the district director of IG Metall (Metalworkers, the largest of Germany's 8 unions) have called for a coalition of SPD, Greens and the Left Party.

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There remains only the attempt at a minority government.

There are some Greens like Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Rupert Plottnitz who are calling for this, and also left Social Democrats such as former MP Horst Peter.

It is considered imponderable how well such a government would work, which would have to manoevre from vote to vote.

But former premier Holger Börner (SPD) showed that it can work.

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Until 1982 Hesse had an SPD-FDP coalition government. In 1982 the FDP had fallen below the 5% threshold, and at the same time the Greens had entered the House for the first time, holding the balance of power. They were as taboo then as the Left Party is now; another election followed in 1983, when the FDP returned to the House but as an opposition party. After a transitional period, this set the stage for the SPD minority tolerated by the Greens.

But it's not a comfortable precedent for the SPD. The coalition eventually collapsed because of local Green insistence on an immediate stop to atomic power and their rejection of a partial license for the Alkem nuclear plant in Hanau. The following elections in April 1987 ended with a victory for the CDU and FDP.

Note the link to the survey site that currently gives the odds as follows (total, and latest):

1 Traffic-light coalition 34.37% 31.93%
2 Red-Green-Red 24.00% 22.30%
3 Grand coalition 23.79% 22.10%
4 Other (minority) 18.99% 17.64%
5 Jamaica Coalition 5.47% 5.08%

[ 02 February 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

It includes Frankfurt, with 653,000 people in the city proper, and about 3 million in the metropolitan conurbation. That's almost half of Hesse's population, and almost half of its 55 ridings.

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Mr Peter, the situation in Hesse recalls the time 25 years ago. You experienced the SPD's minority governments of Holger Börner, and then the rapprochement to the Greens. Have you sometimes thought: doesn't that work anymore?

On the contrary. It was a process of development, which led to red-green cooperation. The process was not without setbacks. . .

What conclusions do you draw for the present situation?

From the Börner years, we can learn that politics must indeed have the courage to jump over shadows. SPD and the Greens must clarify their relationship with the Left Party.

Does "clarify" mean cooperate with the Left?

My proposal is as follows: draw out the maximum possibilities that the Constitution provides. Andrea Ypsilanti should focus on the April 5 election of the prime minister, and after this election, identify the possibilities for cooperation. There is no realistic possibility of red-red-green. It is too early for that. But there is a chance, with varying majorities, to implement projects. Or the possibility of cooperation arriving at association agreements with the Left, with the goal of the adoption of a budget.

Ypsilanti rejects talks with the Left, however. Should she consider them so?

The rejection of talks is irrational and thus not sustainable politically. When I look back and consider how big the differences were between the Greens on the one hand and of Holger Börner's SPD, both politically and personally, then the trenches between shifting majorities are much narrower now than then.

Then what is the credibility of Ypsilanti, who has made clear statements against co-operation?

The clear delineation of the Left was necessary to set the threshold for election of the left as high as possible. The credibility of Andrea Ypsilanti attaches to her election statements: a new political style, a new political orientation, against social coldness. This was her strategy of hope.

Börner's experiment laid the ground for the Red-Green federal government. Is this way also sketched out for the SPD and the Left?

Red-Red-Green must also be a possible perspective in the federal government. Franz Kafka once said: Don't waste time looking for obstacles. Maybe there isn't one.

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Originally posted by Centrist:
A traffic light coalition (SPD-FPD-Die Gruene) in Hesse would be much more palatable to the Hesse electorate as well as for the longer term return of SPD control of the state.

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"It has to be said that in Germany, a part of the Left still continues in the tradition of the PDS and the additional problem is that we have a remnant of the SED [the former East German ruling party] there," said Spier. "West Germans have a problem accepting that."
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As stated above, Die Linke in Hesse is an "oddball" group and who knows what insatibility they would bring to any potential coalition.

On the whole, Germans seem adverse to extremes on both sides of the spectrum.

I'd also wager that if the SPD decided to include Die Linke in a coalition, the right-wing within the SPD would eventually move over toward the FDP and, to a lesser extent, the CDU in terms of future polling numbers.

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I'm not an expert on German politics, in the slightest. But maybe that's true in western Germany but not necessarily in eastern Germany. Berlin has an SPD led government with Die Linke as its junior partner. Also, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern had a red-red coalition from 2002-2006, though with the NPD entering parliament they didn't maintain a majority and opted to form a coalition with the CDU instead.

The SPD is already the third party (behind CDU and Die Linke) in Saxony-Anhlat, Thuringia and Saxony (barely ahead of the NPD in the latter state). So maybe if they weren't seen as too much of a status-quo option in that part of the country, ie: if they'd be more willing to form a coalition with Die Linke then they'd benefit. It seems like Die Linkie has shed at least some of the negative image of being associated with the SED of East Germany in that part of the country. So maybe the SPD would benefit from being associated with the growing appeal of Die Linke in that part of the country. Especially keeping in mind the presence of the NPD in some of these parliaments, a party that has been roundly criticized along the ideological spectrum, yet still manages to break the electoral threshold due partially to their anti-establishment appeal. (Though of course the NPD gets support for many different, pretty bad, reasons too of course - not just for being anti-establishment.) Although, with a federal presence in government for the SPD (that could have a negative backlash at the state level), a more radical approach in eastern Germany might not be enough to stop their slide.

[ 05 February 2008: Message edited by: Vansterdam Kid ]

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:
The SPD is already the third party (behind CDU and Die Linke) in Saxony-Anhlat, Thuringia and Saxony (barely ahead of the NPD in the latter state). So maybe if they weren't seen as too much of a status-quo option in that part of the country, ie: if they'd be more willing to form a coalition with Die Linke then they'd benefit.

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
But if they enter a "traffic-light" coalition in Hesse, they may lose some centre-right voters overnight, without picking up many from the centre-left right away. Will they gamble on long-term gain?

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Could be... but in neighbouring Rheinland Pfalz the SPD/FDP coalition has been quite successful and the FDP has maintained the same level in the polls... 10% in the latest Psephos.

The SPD/FDP have also always been quite accomodating toward each other in neighbouring Nordrhein Westfalen until the election a couple of years ago with the CDU at the helm.

As alluded earlier, the FDP are in coalition with the Greens in Wiesbaden municipally albeit with the CDU.

It's also interesting to note that Hamburg's CDU mayor has recently mused about entering a coalition with the Greens in the upcoming election, if the numbers don't work out with the FDP.

So, in that context and with the mantle of power we'll see in the coming days or weeks.

[ 05 February 2008: Message edited by: Centrist ]

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Originally posted by Vansterdam Kid:

The SPD is already the third party (behind CDU and Die Linke) in Saxony-Anhlat, Thuringia and Saxony (barely ahead of the NPD in the latter state). So maybe if they weren't seen as too much of a status-quo option in that part of the country, ie: if they'd be more willing to form a coalition with Die Linke then they'd benefit. It seems like Die Linkie has shed at least some of the negative image of being associated with the SED of East Germany in that part of the country. So maybe the SPD would benefit from being associated with the growing appeal of Die Linke in that part of the country. Especially keeping in mind the presence of the NPD in some of these parliaments, a party that has been roundly criticized along the ideological spectrum, yet still manages to break the electoral threshold due partially to their anti-establishment appeal. (Though of course the NPD gets support for many different, pretty bad, reasons too of course - not just for being anti-establishment.) Although, with a federal presence in government for the SPD (that could have a negative backlash at the state level), a more radical approach in eastern Germany might not be enough to stop their slide.

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In the east, the PDS... now Die Linke... has always maintained around 25% support in each of the states due to its populist, anti-establishment appeal as well as lingering discomfort with the economic malaise in that part of the country.

So a Red-Red coalition was not too surprising in M-V and in Berlin with the addition of the Greens.

Howver the Brandenburg SDP have always rejected such a coalition outright, IIRC, and have continued to form a grand coalition with the CDU.

As for the NPD, they are polling below 5% in all eastern states except in Saxony, where they are meeting the 5% threshold.

Additionally, the SPD reformist approach at the federal grand coalition level also abets DIe Linke's rise in the polls in the western part of the country for now.

I think the following insights within the national SPD, from Euro2day, are also interesting:

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The issue of how to respond to the rise of the Left party has led to hand-wringing in the CDU and SPD, with pro-reform politicians in both parties now warning that mimicking the Left's focus on social welfare issues was not the wayforward for Germany.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, foreign minister and the SPD's deputy chairman, said in a newspaper interview: "Our voters expect an overall political concept [from the SPD], not just social policy."

The party needed to address economic issues relevant to "middle-class bread-winners as well as poor and unemployed ­people", he said.

Peer Steinbrück, the finance minister and SPD deputy leader, warned the party against "chasing after" the Left party, arguing that it would "win many fewer votes if it moved [towards the Left party] than it would lose if it occupies the political centre ground".

Both men - who advocate stepping up the tough labour and social reform measures introduced in recent years - have watched with frustration as Kurt Beck, SPD chairman, has in recent months shifted the party leftwards, partly to limit the Left's rise.

The SPD's failure last month to prevent the Left's successes has emboldened Social Democrat reformers to warn against a further leftward drift, analysts said.
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[ 05 February 2008: Message edited by: Centrist ]

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As for the NPD, they are polling below 5% in all eastern states except in Saxony, where they are meeting the 5% threshold.

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It's sickening that workers were forced by the cowardice of right-wing social democrats to make such a hideous choice.

The democratic left needs to start being LEFT again, or repulsive developments like worker support for fascism will continue.

[ 05 February 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

These are the sorts who were glad to arm the Freikorps.

[ 05 February 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Left Party leader Ulrich Wilken says the party leadership decided this by a large majority. For senior posts in the legislature, Janine Wissler and Marjana Schott will be the deputy chair and managing director.

The election of van Ooyen is considered sensitive because the politician is not a member of the Left Party. Wilken sees this as a strength, however. As parliamentary leader van Ooyen would embody unity with the extraparliamentary movements, said the party chair.

The party's provincial executive also began discussion of the election results. "We achieved two main goals for this election under difficult conditions. We have a group in the Hesse provincial parliament. And we have prevented a black/yellow majority. Had we failed, we would now have a government of CDU and FDP under Roland Koch."

At the same time however, the Left Party notes that "we stayed below our potential." The votes cast by women and young voters were below average. They also must address the unemployed better: 14 percent of them had voted Left Party in Hesse, while in Lower Saxony 27 percent had. There should have been a stronger connection with the minimum wage issue.

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[ 06 February 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

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50 percent of respondents think Ypsilanti should be prime minister. Only 33 percent want Koch to remain in office.

Even among CDU followers support for Koch dwindles. Only 58 percent of them want a continuation of the CDU politician's term of office, while 26 per cent would prefer Ypsilanti. The followers of the SPD are firmly with their candidate: 72 percent of them want to see Ypsilanti in the State Chancellery, but about 15 percent vote for Koch.

Ypsilanti gets the most support not from her own ranks, but from the Greens. By 84 percent, their voters say Ypsilanti should govern. Six percent prefer Koch.

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[ 10 February 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

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The first project of the new Left Party Caucus in the Hesse legislature will be a motion for the abolition of tuition fees. They reckon this will have a majority, since the SPD and the Greens also announced in the election campaign that tuition fees should be abolished after an election victory, said the deputy Janine Wissler on Friday at the presentation of the group. Next, announced the deputy and trade unionist Hermann Schaus, to fight for the withdrawal of the privatization of the University Hospitals of Marburg and Gießen. The top candidate of the Left Party, the non-party deputy Willi van Ooyen, reaffirmed the intention of the caucus to vote for SPD chairman Ypsilanti as Prime Minister.

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The University Hospital Giessen and Marburg consists of the university hospitals in Gießen and Marburg. The hospitals of the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen and the Philipps-University Marburg were merged by the province of Hesse in July 2005. From a bidding process in January 2006 Rhön Klinikum AG emerged as a buyer; the purchase price of the two hospitals was 112 million euros. Five percent of the shares remain with the province, which therefore has virtually no further influence on the management. The scientific staff is still employed by the province of Hesse, but health care service staff by the Company.

In January 2006, the Hesse legislature by the votes of the CDU and FDP agreed to the sale of shares to Rhön-Klinikum AG. The first complete university clinic privatisation ("Universitätskliniksprivatisierung") in Germany was controversial: In addition to a citizens' initiative, there was an initiative for a petition against the privatization, numerous protest actions and demonstrations and political resistance, because a deterioration of patient care and working conditions was feared. A number of employees complained against their transition from public service to a private company, which proceedings are still pending.

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Its most visible spokesman is the federal MP Werner Dreibus, a senior trade union official who came in with Oskar Lafontaine's WASG which he helped found. Since 1994, he has been the top representative of IG Metall (Germany's largest union) in Offenbach, a large suburb of Frankfurt which the SPD carried, and was elected an MP from Hesse for the Left Party in 2005. He is deputy chair of the federal caucus.

But he was number 2 on the 2005 Hesse list. Hesse's other federal Left Party MP is a veteran communist parachuted into Hesse, Wolfgang Gehrcke. In 1961 he became a member of the then-illegal Communist Party (KPD) and was a co-founder of the Socialist German Workers' youth (SDAJ) from 1968 to 1974, and active in the founding of the German Communist Party (DKP) 1968. From 1973 to 1989, he was a party executive and until 1989 for eight years district chairman in Hamburg. With the transformation to the PDS he became a national executive member, and in 1993 to 1998, Vice-Chairman of PDS. In 1998 they gave him a spot on the Brandenburg list (the east German province around Berlin) and he became a federal MP until 2002 when the PDS lost all but two of their seats. In 2004 he won a seat in the provincial legislature of Brandenburg. But in 2005 the PDS half of the Left Party merger was entitled to one of the top two spots in Hesse, and they imported Wolfgang Gehrcke, shown on the official Hesse list as still a resident of Brandenburg.

[ 10 February 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

Apparently, they have also decided against entering into a formal coalition with the SPD and the Greens as Die Linke views those parties as "neo-Liberal."

http://www.fr-online.de/top_news/?sid=55c1e6b0f1f377b01a85854dddde22ac&em_cnt=1286025

The FDP is the junior coalition partner of the SDP in neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate and the FDP was the junior partner of the SDP in neighbouring NorthRhine-Westphalia for years until the last election.

Ergo, I can see the first traffic light coalition in a German state led by the SPD, which I think will eventually be the final outcome.

Apparently, they are negotiating with the FDP for a traffic light coalition but negotiations are not that simple.

The FDP does not want to govern with the Greens and SPD and likewise, the Greens do not want to govern with the FDP and CDU.

http://www.bundestag.de/aktuell/archiv/2008/19539990_ypsilanti_interview/

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In the last election, the SPD and coalition partners CDU had lost more than 12 percent of the votes. Moreover Hanauers signaled by refusing to vote that they were fed up with ten years of Grand Coalition. Only 35 percent of the population had voted. He could not interpret this as "One more time!" SPD leader Kaminsky said, "but rather as a mandate of the voters to give the smaller groups more responsibility." Kaminsky could even imagine at that time governing with varying majorities.

But that did not happen. "Shamrock" is the name of the Alliance, which for about 15 months has drawn in addition to the SPD, the FDP, the Greens and the Citizens for Hanau (BfH). Never before had four groups governed the city of 90,000. And the Hanau CDU leader Francis Ott never tired of predicting the approaching end of the cloverleaf. "The Greens and the FDP, they can never get along" he kept saying, but must now admit that in Hanau the traditionally leftwing Greens can dovetail perfectly with the Liberals.

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Originally posted by Centrist:
Apparently, they are negotiating with the FDP for a traffic light coalition but negotiations are not that simple.

The FDP does not want to govern with the Greens and SPD.

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I don't know which way they will go.

[ 12 February 2008: Message edited by: Wilf Day ]

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Are snap elections allowed for the German Lander(state)parliaments?

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Hamburg Mayor Ole von Beust said he's not opposed to forming an alliance with the Greens . . . Although von Beust didn't rule out a CDU-Greens partnership, he emphasized ``major frictions'' between the two parties on environmental and education policy. The Greens, which shared power in Hamburg with the Social Democrats between 1997 and 2001, agree there is dissent on energy policy while noting similar positions on research and development.

``We're not ruling out black-green'' cooperation, Christa Goetsch, the Greens' leading candidate, told a separate briefing today. ``We're open to new opportunities.''

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Or will it attract centrist voters? There's a vacuum at the centre since the FDP has tied itself to the CDU.

Before the Hesse election the Hesse Greens expressly ruled out a "Jamaica" coalition (black-green-yellow, including the FDP.) But if voters in Hamburg like the idea, it may spread. It could even be the answer federally.

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
The Hesse Left Party is an odd duck.

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Well, this little tidbit from one of the recently elected Die Linke deputies in neighbouring Niedersachsen should open up some eyebrows:

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BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany's Left party has thrown out one of its regional deputies who sparked outrage by arguing for the return of East Germany's notorious secret police, the Stasi.

Christel Wegner, 60, has been expelled from the Left party's parliamentary group in Lower Saxony after winning a seat in the state's parliament last month, the party said on Monday.

Wegner, who is also member of the German Communist Party (DKP), had said she wanted to see a new socialist Germany.

"I think that if a new society was created, we would need such an organisation (as the Stasi) again, because we would have to protect ourselves against reactionary forces trying to weaken the state from within," she told ARD.

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[ 18 February 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

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"I think that if a new society was created, we would need such an organisation (as the Stasi) again, because we would have to protect ourselves against reactionary forces trying to weaken the state from within,"

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CDU: 42.6% (-4.6%)
SPD: 33.9% (+3.4%)
(second worst result since WWII)
FDP: 4.9% (+2.1%)
(just under the 5% threshold)
Grn: 9.6% (-2.7%)
Left: 6.6% (?)

I guess the CDU held its position due to the popularity of CDU Mayor Van Beust as well as Germany's highest growth rate at 4.5%.

As for possible coalitions:

1. CDU/SPD
2. CDU/Grn
3. SPD/Grn/Left

If the SPD is going to abandon the poor and the unemployed(as the right-wing SPD hacks in Centrist's post above still insist it should) in the hopeless effort to capture "middle of the road" voters who won't vote for them even with that much open heartlessness in their program, then everybody is just going to have to accept that Die Linke will keep growing. As it grows, it will undoubtably take on much more of a radical democratic socialist character and even further marginalize the tiny and already irrelevant Stalinist rump that attached itself to the party.

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Originally posted by Centrist:
As for possible coalitions:

1. CDU/SPD
2. CDU/Grn
3. SPD/Grn/Left

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Incumbent CDU Mayor Ole von Beust is likely to seek government with the Greens, in the first such coalition in Germany at the state level. But will the Greens go for it?

Green leader Christa Goetsch: we will talk with the CDU, but the CDU would have to make a U-turn.

Meanwhile back in Hesse, the Greens rule out a coalition with the CDU (still seeking Red-Yellow-Green), and SPD leader Ypsilanti has not ruled out letting the Left party vote for her as premier (she can't stop them, I assume, unless she forms a grand coalition, which she is still not doing). They are starting to speak of a minority government with no "active collaboration" with the Left, no toleraton agreement, just (I assume) dare the Left to vote against their bills, under threat of an early election where the Left might fall below 5%. Of course this is still a game of chicken, trying to force the FDP to come on board, or be blamed for giving the Left Party too much power, in which case the FDP could lose out in this hypothetical early election.

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SPD leader Andrea Ypsilanti has announced she won't seek election as governor after one of her colleagues refused to break an election pledge not to work with the Left party

A dramatic week in the western German state of Hesse has concluded with the Social Democrats (SPD) spectacularly failing to broker a minority government with the Green Party. SPD leader Andrea Ypsilanti was forced to abandon plans to stand as state governor after a rebel SPD politician said she couldn't vote for a coalition that was supported by the Left Party.

"I will not stand for election on April 5," she told a televised news conference on Friday after she had failed to persuade SPD representative Dagmar Metzger to back her in the forthcoming vote.

The shock decision marks the end to a controversial flirtation with the far-left party that provoked a rebellion within the party ranks. The outcome will be a sharp blow to SPD leader Kurt Beck who had given Ypsilanti the green light to seek Left Party support for her proposed minority government.

Ypsilanti had met with Metzger on Friday morning to try to persuade her to change her mind, but the 49-year-old lawyer was sticking to her guns. She told reporters after the meeting that one of her reasons for refusing to back her leader was the fact that the Left Party was a direct successor party to the SED, the former East German Communist Party.

"I am from West Berlin and grew up in the time of the Berlin Wall, and I experienced how this wall divided a family" she said. "The Left Party is for me far too unpredictable at the moment."

The opening up to the Left Party had been highly controversial after the SPD in Hesse had gone back on a pre-election promise not to deal with the far-left party. The risky move seems to have backfired, leading to a sharp slide in the public opinion polls for the party.

Ypsilanti said the SPD had "no options" in Hesse, ruling out any grand coalition with the conservative Christian Democrats who she now predicts will stay in power. "We will search for majorities for our motions in the parliament," she said.

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CDU leader Roland Koch said Friday he was prepared to stay in office temporarily in a managerial capacity and called on the Green Party to enter negotiations with his party and the business-friendly FDP on forming a coalition government.

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The Green party in the city-state of Hamburg signaled on Thursday that they were prepared to enter negotiations for a "black-green" coalition with the conservatives in Hamburg.

Green Party chief Anja Hajduk said the CDU was willing to soften its position on the new coal-fired power station and was open for an alternative.

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It's time to get past the social democrat vs "communist" split in Germany. Nobody there is a Stalinist anymore and the wall is down to stay. Creating a left-wing government is what matters. Nothing outweighs that.

And if the Greens accept a coalition with the CDU, it means they've become a party of the right and abandoned everything they ever believed in. They can't fight for the environment or peace and back the CDU.

[ 08 March 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Centrist:
Die Linke not only wants abolition of tuition fees but also want a shorter work week for the public service.

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:

It's time to get past the social democrat vs "communist" split in Germany.

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Well, for those of us who want to get rid of capitalism (rather than try to ameliorate it somewhat) the distinction is crucial.

ETA: I agree, though, that Stalinism is not an issue.

[ 09 March 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]

Which is not a bad idea to form government under the current circumstances.

Unfortunately, the right-wing of the national SPD including SPD finance minister Steinbrueck and SPD foreign minister Steinmeie,r along with the right wing "Seeheim Circle" within the SPD, are strongly opposed.

Even in Hamburg, where the election results are in a similar deadlock as in Hesse due to Die Linke, the Hamburg SPD wants nothing to due with Die Linke. The Hamburg SPD is also known to be quite right-wing and is where former SPD Chancellor Helmut Schmidt came from.

The SPD could form coalition government in Hamburg with the Greens and the support of Die Linke, but....

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"Following the Hamburg election, the SPD and the Greens offered to help the CDU secure a majority. They are determined to keep CDU Mayor Ole von Beust in power, even though he lost the election and no longer has a majority."

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Originally posted by Ken Burch:
Nobody there is a Stalinist anymore and the wall is down to stay. Creating a left-wing government is what matters.

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Five years on, "reforms" still divide SPD:

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the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a political foundation closely associated with the SPD, published a study in late 2006 indicating that four percent of people in western Germany and 20 percent in eastern Germany were living in "precarious" economic conditions and felt "left behind" by politicians and society.

The SPD's far-left wing, the Left party and the labor unions had harsh words for the Agenda 2010.

Nevertheless, unemployment sank from 10.6 percent in 2005 -- the highest it had been since German reunification -- to 8.3 percent in 2007.

Michael Sommer, the head of the Federation of German Trade Unions, commented that the Agenda 2010 had widened the economic gap in German society.

The bulk of the criticism, however, came from the left. Today, hundreds of thousands of full-time employees "earn less than those who receive Hartz IV unemployment benefits," said SPD member Ottmar Schreiner in ZDF.

"That was made possible in part by the Agenda," he said.

Oskar Lafontaine, who left the SPD in 2005 to found the growing Left party, condemned the Agenda, saying that "five years of Agenda 2010 mean five years of neo-liberal dead-ends and the destruction of social peace and the people's trust in politics."

The success of Lafontaine's new Left party, comprised in part of dissatisfied former SPD members, represents a mounting political threat to the SPD.

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Originally posted by BetterRed:

In Italy in 1983 elections,the PCI (partida communista Italiana) received nearly 32 percent of the vote, almost tied with Christian democrats.

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A minority government headed by incumbent Premier Roland Koch took office in the western German state of Hesse Saturday after elections ten weeks ago failed to produce a clear winner.

At Saturday's opening session of the new parliament, none of the five parties presented a candidate to challenge Koch, allowing him to continue as acting premier.

He is now expected to try and persuade the Greens to join him in a coalition at a later stage.

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http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3246829,00.html

Latest Hesse poll (April 9) with election result and current poll standing respectively:

CDU: 37% - 40% (+3%)
SPD: 37% - 28% (-9%)
FDP: 9% - 10% (+1%)
Grn: 8% - 9% (+1%)
Linke: 5% - 8% (+3%)

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/landtage/hessen.htm

I guess I was somewhat correct in my earlier Feb. 2 posting:

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I'd also wager that if the SPD decided to include Die Linke in a coalition, the right-wing within the SPD would eventually move over toward the FDP and, to a lesser extent, the CDU in terms of future polling numbers.

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"A new election seems the best way out of the mess in Hesse, but that's unlikely to happen," said [Peter Loesche, politics professor at the University of Goettingen], referring to parliament's right to vote to dissolve itself.

"None of the parties would back such a move at present, most of them are concerned they may fare even worse in a new vote."

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=a8hc1P0PLKE8&refer=germany

[ 13 April 2008: Message edited by: Centrist ]

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Originally posted by Wilf Day:
Conservatives, Greens Edge Toward Coalition in Hamburg:

The Green party in the city-state of Hamburg signaled on Thursday that they were prepared to enter negotiations for a "black-green" coalition with the conservatives in Hamburg.
Green Party chief Anja Hajduk said the CDU was willing to soften its position on the new coal-fired power station and was open for an alternative.

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Wilf Day: The black-green Hamburg coalition has now happened.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is leader of the conservative CDU, has been quick to play down such speculation. She told the television station ZDF Thursday that a CDU-Green alliance on the national level was "very unlikely," adding that the common ground between the two parties was "not so big" on the national level.

Erwin Huber, the leader of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), was similarly wary. Such a coalition "could work in a big city like Hamburg, but it's not a model for the future," he told the regional newspaper Müchner Merkur. He said the Christian Democrats couldn't "make any sensible policies" with the Greens on issues such as the family, integration of foreigners and crime.

Senior Greens were also making cautious noises Thursday. Co-floor leader Renate Künast said on ARD television on Thursday evening that there were "totally different political questions and a long list of differences" on the national level. She emphasized that she was not even considering an alliance with the CDU in the federal government after the 2009 elections.

However, other Green Party politicians came out in favor of trying out new options. Veteran Green Party politician Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who is floor leader for the Greens in the European Parliament, told the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau that the party had to "try out new constellations." The Green mayor of Tübingen, Boris Palmer, told the online edition of the political magazine Cicero that a CDU-Greens link-up on the national level would be an "interesting option."

The CDU and Greens agreed earlier this week to form a coalition in Hamburg after state election results (more...) ruled out both parties' preferred coalition options, namely the CDU with the business-friendly Free Democratic Party and the Greens with the center-left Social Democratic Party. The new coalition has attracted attention because the rise of the far-left Left Party is making the traditional coalitions increasingly hard to obtain, as Germany's established four-party system is replaced by a five-party system.

However, there is no guarantee that the new Hamburg marriage will be a happy union. There are still a number of stumbling blocks between the two parties, and it is not entirely clear how they plan to deal with the biggest bone of contention, namely the building of a new coal-fired power station in the Hamburg district of Moorburg. The Greens oppose the project on environmental grounds, while the CDU supports it.

The new CDU-Greens link-up is not entirely without precedent. The parties have formed workable coalitions in local government before -- including in major cities, such as Essen and Frankfurt -- albeit never at a state level. However, alliances with the CDU are controversial within the Green Party, with many left-wing members viewing the conservatives as their arch political foes.

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Suddenly the coalition game would be wide open -- instead of the traditional pairings of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) with the Greens and the CDU with the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP), anything would be possible. A new era of political promiscuity would be ushered in.

The Greens' options are limited. The party is currently undergoing something of an identity crisis. Rather than occupying a certain swathe of the political spectrum, the Greens are an issues-based party. As such, they are a broad church, making their profile diffuse and vulnerable to erosion from other parties in the increasingly crowded political landscape.

And their problems are manifold. The party has suffered a loss of confidence after going into opposition in 2005 following the glory years in government under their standard-bearer Joschka Fischer, Germany's most popular politician at the time. Meanwhile the environmental moral high ground has been invaded by Angela Merkel, who has positioned herself as the "green chancellor." And the party's left-wingers, disenchanted by realpolitik decisions by the Greens while in government with the SPD, such as to support the NATO bombing of Kosovo in 1999, have been defecting in droves to the booming Left Party.

The Greens are taking a big risk if they leap into bed with the conservatives too quickly. There are warnings that many party members will jump ship if the Greens enter into coalition negotiations with the CDU without extracting significant concessions in advance. The Greens may learn to their cost that infidelity can carry a high price.

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