Who would you vote for (if you could)?

OK, who keeps creating the fake new members and voting for the Greens???
In the words of John McEnroe, " You cannot be serious!"

seems like Stoiber could still fuck it up for Angie.
Heard some "Ossie" (person from earlier east, is that politically correct?) say this morning that Stoiber should eat his Weisswurst and shut up and care about his own shite

Closest thing to a liberal party that Germany has (and no, I do not count the 'Spasspartei' FDP, unless you mean liberal with the coke and hookers).

I voted Green (think I was the second one too), but then I live in Freiburg which has a Green Mayor! I have been given a brief over view of all the parties and they sounded like the best of a bad bunch... I've been reading the thread but not commenting as I am an uninformed voter

I haven't voted yet. Initially I favoured Angie and the CDU. I do actually think she deserves a shot at being Chancellorin and she has a degreee in Science - which if you ask me there are too many Wirtschaft types stuffing up the economy. However, she has her mate Edmund. (It wouldn't surprise me either, if the CDU did win, somehow Stoiber would oust Angie from the top job.) Then I remember the political debate they had trying to decide whether to allow people (Auslanders) to be able to retain their original nationality if they opted to take out German citizenship. As I recall the SPD/Greens were in favour or dual nationality BUT had to compromise to what it is today because of the CDU/CSU. I have lived here long enough to vote but can't and I am annoyed about that. If I was able to retain my Australian citizenship I would take out German citizenship BUT the CDU/CSU torpedoed that chance. We don't have freedom of movement with the current situation. If we left Germany for longer than 6 months we would lose our permanent residency.

To Colonialgirl: yes, thats exactly my point. The world is very different to that which backward looking people like Stoiber and Lafontaine still imagine it to be. There is much more movement of people - and there will be yet more in the years to come. Technology, communications, big tariff-free trade blocs like EU and NAFTA, together with international corporations who are not wedded to any one particular country, but regard the whole world as their base of operations and hunting-ground to boot is changing the world faster than yesterdays men realise.

People go on holidays to far off countries, they buy real estate in far off countries, they move and take up residence to find work in far off countries, invest in far off countries, they buy things via the internet - Ebay, Amazon etc from far off countries - and then find themselves having to pay "customs duties" on the goods they bring back or have couriered to them. Very backward and oldfashioned and no longer relevant. And this whole "citizenship" and "subject" thing belongs also in the pre-globalisation past of the last century.

These territorial-patch politicians should not imagine that the world will stay as it is right now - or that they can turn the clock back to the way things were in the 70s or 80s Bundesrepublik Westdeutschland and the 6 cosy members of the EEC as it was then. The real world is changing faster than their policies.