Bundeswahl 2005 - Help making your mind up!

A useful website:

The Wahl-o-mat is a service which provides (for the second election running) you with an idea of which of the main political parties "suits" you best, based on your answers to thirty central political questions, such as:

- Should BAföG be calculated according to parents' income?
- Should the Bundeswehr be more involved in homeland security?
- Should the Kündigungsschutz (protection against unfair dismissal) be relaxed?
- Should MwSt (VAT) be raised?
- Should hashish be legalised?

You also get the (albeit simplified) opportunity to rate the importance of each of these issues to you. "Important" issues are counted double towards the result. I really like this idea. I try to keep abreast of German politics but it's easy to lose sight of the parties' positions on key issues.

Here's my result:

Im trying to answer "Die gemeinsame europäische Verteidigungspolitik soll ausgebaut werden.", but dont they mean "aufgebaut"? According to leo, ausbauen means both to enlarge, and to dismantle! Remove AND strengthen...
So how should the statement be translated? The blah blah blah should be enlarged, or dismantled?? Same word gives two opposing translations, weird.

"ausbauen" as in dismantle is used for when you are, say, trying to fit a new spark plug to a car and you have to take half the engine out to reach the old one.
So it would be "enlarge" here.

Heres my results:

Kza, it means "build out" as in expand.

Not too many surprises in my result.

Already got an invite to an official election party AFTER the Bräurösl on the Sunday!
I predict MASS carnage!

Excellent website... CDU/CSU was also at the bottom of my list (although I wouldn't have expected it!). Would be interesting to see if this is similar for other expats...

Perhaps the question, "should tax-paying ausländers be allowed to vote", should also have been included?!

Anybody know why that is incidentally?

Being neutral here:

Becasue Satman, for the "right", they DON'T want non-Germans to have the right to vote. Full Stop. partially due to racism and partially due to the fact that non-German voters are MUCH less likely to vote CDU/CSU.

For the "left", there are some people who who think that all adult long term residents should vote. BUT there are NO votes to win and a LOT of votes to lose (look at Hessen) on this issue. The mainstream left tens to phrase it in terms of making it easier for non-Germans to gain citizenship but as we know, even treading VERY carefully on that score they run up against the right.

So it really isn't an issue for a poll like this.

The truth is my German is not that great as I took it twice, thinking I answered the questions the same, but I am now SPD over Linke, while last time I was Linke, Grüne, SPD...

Was thinking of putting a poll up nearer the day. I wonder if the Süddeutsche would be interested in what non-voters would vote as a little sideline story...?

I'm not posting how mine came out (it wasn't CSU first but...)

I find the easiest way not to be confused by "ausbauen" is to visualise the role of the preposition "aus" in terms the English "out",
so:

- to take the spark plug out of the car (remove)
- to spread the dough out with the rolling pin (enlarge, widen)

Hopefully not the national party?

FDP for me.


To clarify first: I would be FOR this. But it is not a given: you can count the countries on the fingers of one hand that allow NON-NATURALISED foreigners to vote.

Or put it the other way MysteryMan, make it possible for the 25% of the population who are denied a vote to get German citizenship.

Cos the small steps that the present federal government has made in the direction have been blocked at every stage of the way by the right:

In the upper house of parliament, in the courts, as a mis-use of political campaigning "Where can I sign AGAINST the Ausländer" aka Roland Koch, in the implementation of valid federal law aka Freistaat Bayern.

Does anybody know which countries allow foreigners to vote?

Technically, it's less than 10 %, if you are refering to the non-naturalized adult population of Germany as a whole (for the city of Munich, you would be right, of course).

who needs this when you can see the article in Focus, see how much Kirchof would save me in tax every year, and know what everyone in my shoes would vote, never mind who he belongs to! over 30%, God bless that man... just wish he'd come in before I arrived, not after I leave!

So who is Kirchoff and whats his party? Tax reductions would probably be my main issue if I were voting too. Only because the current tax levels are stupidly high.

he's Merkle's man. I'm not political at all, but I'd stand to save over € 6000 in tax per year. That a lot of pocket money

But then all the rich people would lose all the stuff they get to write off for tax now, so they won't be amused by his plans.

And I didn't have time to read the rest of the article yet, can't see how much the people on low incomes would save or pay, and that is the crucial part to rescue the economy.

During the last election *someone* got caught by the Police drawing Hitler 'taches on the Republikaner election candidate's posters in a certain part of Munich.
But charm (and a waft of a certain Ausweis) helped.
Apparently.
Unfortunately right now posters placed by the NPD appear to "fall off" lampposts and into the gutter/the bin/skips/hedges/etc. in the very same area of Munich.
Such a pity.

How bizarre. A dead heat between die Linke.PDS and the FDP. Probably just as well I don't have a vote

That wasn't a stiff pink one was it Katrina?

Them N*P c**** (not a word I use very often) have got their posters on the Landshuter Allee, innacessable cos of the traffic.

Oh yes, stand corrected on the 10% / 25%, getting my Munich and Germany mixed up.

Edit: Persius, not TOO bizarre. They are WAY apart on economics/tax/welfare but very close on personal liberty. Have a look at the "Political Compass" sometime.

Edit: The "radical" tax cuts supposedly on offer from the CSU / CDU come with strings mind. Like 2% on MwsT, a health "Poll Tax"...

So no-one with the CSU/CDU in first place?

I did that research before and posted it on here but I can't find it anymore. It was basically one or 2 that allow non-naturalised residents to vote in national elections if they have been resident for a certain number of years. One of the scandinavian countries (Denmark or Sweden) was in there. Various others allow voting in lesser elections: i.e. local.

The unterschriftsaktion that caused so much fuss in Hessen a few years back was only about giving vote in local elections to resident non-naturalised foreigners in the state.

Errrm no, it was in protest at the first SPD-Green federal government planning to allow dual citizenship and the racist campaign turned what had been an SPD governerned state under one Mr Eichel into a CDU one under Roland Kock, the slimy racist bastard!

As it happens the federall aw fell due to the amateur way that the federal government tried to force it through the Bundesrat.

Stimmt: I was confusing it with what was happening in Belgium around the same time.

Thinking of the Vlaams Blok MM? Nasty people.

This is a wee bit more lighthearted:

http://www.der-kanzlergenerator.de/

You can errrrm "butch Angie up" or turn Schwesterwelle into a trannie.

I've fallen in love with Anhard Laysi ...

Looks a little bit like Gerard Depardieu...

I took this wahl-o-mat and I apparently lean toward the FDP.