Munich city council and mayoral elections (2008)

So, did everything turn out all right? Ude is as popular as ever, The Greens did well, the multitude of quasi-national socialist parties split the right wing vote and all those electoral eyesores clogging up the roadsides can be got rid of in the morning. This is a good thing, because my road rage level was getting near dangerous having to sit at the traffic lights and see that Josef Schmid and his stupid little anti-ausländer (meaning me) grin smirking its way back at me.

well the city council (counting starts at 8pm) is actually more important and can turn out quite differently, but I guess CSU -5% is a good sign.

http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/kommunalwah...7878/index.html

Whilst quite drunk and wandering through Victualienmarkt on Faschingsdienstag I asked Ude to take a photo with me . He didn't flinch even though I was painted up as the Joker ala Ledger and pissed outta my tree. He got my vote there and then. Nice one Ude!

He got my vote purely on the speech he made at The Busby Babes memorial. How often are the mayoral elections? Four years, is it? Ude for London 2012. I'd even consider moving home.

Stadtrat Results for city council

CSU 104.461 votes 30,0 %
SPD 142.791 41,0 %
GRÜN 38.473 11,0 %
FDP 22.334 6,4 %
RoLi 5.374 1,5 %
LINK 12.660 3,6 %
ÖDP 4.539 1,3 %
BP 5.274 1,5 %
ProM 3.141 0,9 %
BIA 4.893 1,4 %
FW 4.833 1,4 %

47.5% turnout

Council now looks like this:



Winners and losers:

I cannot say what train conductors working for DB should make; however I do know giving them a 31% one-off raise would have some serious effects on ticket prices and the company's cost structure, to name just two. As for whether the demand was unreasonable, it can be matter of opinion, but you they settled for much less than that. I suggest that if wage increases track productivity and profit sharing is implemented (and keeping both company financial health and industry conditions in mind) workers will do better.


It really would be helpful to see some actual numbers on the conductor salaries (raw data) and to see if any nonwage job guarantees were part of the negotiations.


Time permitting, I will look into this and answer what you have posted here.

I'm fine with Ude and I even like the Greens as a thorn in the side of the majors, but Green wins? Those are the idiots who think that because "ethanol from corn" sounds good without actually thinking about the knock-on effects, it must be so. This is exacerbated by the fact that in their shallow thinking it means "farmers will get more money and not the oil companies". So more grain will be wasted and food prices will go higher and more people will starve and no real progress will be made towards finding better energy sources or even making the current sources more efficient (like changing the electricity frequency from 50Hz to 60Hz).

woof.

Well it was my first time voting today. At last!!

"Seppi" and the CSU got their worst result like since forever in Munich.
But next time Ude can't stand again and the popularity factor will be gone.

I'd hoped SPD-Greens would lose their majority in the Stadtrat but they didn't.
The analysis of why party X got what in Munich can begin once the final results are in which won't be until tomorrow afternoon.

@ BD, I'd GUESS that a lot of the new votes that the Greens and the FDP got came from younger or newer voters who are attracted by buzzwords like "freedom" and "environment". It was described IIRC last week by the Süddeutsche as <paraphrase> "the politics of the hedonist party time generation".

Well I don't know about you lot, but I shall be lobbying on the issue of training for all on how to fold humungous ballot papers ready for the ballot box. How do they count these things so quickly? Do they fly in a team of crack origami black belts for the count, or what? The people (that's us plebs) of Munchkin deserve to know.

What does the ethanol from corn debate have to do with a city council election? I think other factors make the Greens strong here.

They haven't counted them all.
They have so far only counted the ballot papers for the council election that were a straight party list vote and that is fairly straightforward.
If you voted for more than one party or prioritised within a party your ballot is yet to be counted.
This second round of counting usually benefit the smaller parties.

What? No origami specialists? Pa! Wasn't worth votin' then.

The same goddamned thing that the CSU has to do with pushing the TransRapid (or at least those in Stoiber's circle). It's a party platform and that's where they'll try to steer money.

woof.

Ethanol from corn not directly perhaps but energy issues certainly!

Should SWM be privatised?
What about Munich's part ownership of the Isar I atomic reactor near Landshut?
How should SWM profits be spent?
More restrictions on cars in the city?
New runway for the airport?

etc etc

Sin, the counters are a mixture of city council clerical workers, bank workers, office workers who are used to handling a lot of paper and sorting it by X criteria for filing.
They are profis in their field. There are also witnesses that have various party affilliations to ensure that it is all fina bode.

Christian Ude is a very nice man, so he is!
I and all the people I know like him very much and think that he is a great guy, so we do!
We are all Christian Ude fans, so we are!
..and as I said before, we like him, so we do!
It's a great day for Munich, so it is!

Er, I thought the Greens in Europe were skeptical about biofuels.

yup, found it. The Green Party in the UK oppose biofuels:

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/news/1533

They'd bloody need to be counting that pink blanket. Would you believe I was a witness once? For my next door neighbour: (UK) Green Party. Of course he didn't stand a hope in hell, but witnessing the count was fascinating. Big name Bill Rodgers of Gang of Four fame was up against the incumbent Tory. Oo! It were a night of namecalling and bitching. Chief Tory witness got ejected for something underhand. Buggered if I can remember what. When the cameras were rolling for the results, Bill got a cacophony of cat calls. Highly entertaining night. I'd recommend it to any voter.


Blimey, Mr. Baldi. Anybody'd thunk you was Irish the way you go on. But, I'm also very happy Mr. Ude won... so I am!

I shall have to be following up with the KVR why we didn't get any voting papers, and why they ignored my pointing that out.

Admittedly since we've moved out of Munich we weren't that bothered about voting in Munich, but that's where we were supposed to vote, as the cutoff was 2nd December. Hope our votes didn't get cast anyway

Six years. So don't bother to go home just yet.

I was a witness for the Labour Party at the Bethnall Green and Bow/Poplar and Canning Town count in the 2005 election. The whole thing was galvanised by the utterly odious George Galloway's ca,mpaign against Oona King. Our candidate in Poplar, Jim Fitzpatrick won easily. But sadly the monstrous Galloway pipped Oona King. There was a walkout of all other parties when he gave his acceptance speech mainly because we have all been the victims at different times of being roughed up by Respect supporters where campaigning. It is the only time where I have seen Labour, Conservative, LibDem and Green all in common cause against a violent and antidemocratic enemy. In that election our count received the widest worldwide media coverage too.

It doesn't directly, just shows the sort of superficial populistic approach to important issues you do not want to have around when serious decisions should be taken.


Didn't know they were running for Munich too. Isn't it in the American zone in the first place?

That may be the only thing we politicaly ever agree on. I watched Question Time last week, he plays the media well but he is a populist rabble rouser..

I feel under 50 percent electoral participation is pretty dire. What were the rest doing?

I wasn't going to vote because I was too scared a tree would fall on me, but I changed my mind when I noticed that people were wandering around outside. I assume others shared my silly fear and the weather thus had a negative impact on turnout.

I understood that the green parties across Europe are now united as a single body. Or is Germany the exception to this rule or something?

Someone correct me if I am mistaken, but I belíeve that is at the supranational level only.

Well, if so, looks like one hand doesn't know what the other's doing:

Flugblatt Klimaschutz


P.S. gotta love the irony when propaganda to save the environment is printed out on fliers...

I googled for that text Genie but nothing came up. The Greens in the Uk supported biofuels until very recently and changed policy I think only a couple of months back. I would be surprised if similar currents were not running through the German Greens as all the EU green parties present a unified policy platform for the European parliament.

anyway, does anyone know the final breakdown of the stadtrat?

Far from being a fan of "Gorgeous George", was that the same Oona King that threatened her constituents
that a Blair government would cut funding for the area as revenge if they didn't vote for her?

She's in some high paid middle of the road think tank now isn't she?
Bet her ex constituents who are facing the latest round of New Labour attacks on welfare benefits are luvvin' her career success.

Stadtrat results almost totally finished now:
http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/kommunalwah...0562/index.html

according to one of the many entirely fabricated 'Respect' (now there is truly a misnomer) press releases that is something she said. But I attended all her public meetings and never heard her once say anything close to that.

Interesting result here in Freising in the Landrat election; the CSU got pushed down into third place and a second ballot will be held between the Freie Wähler and the Greens. If the Greens win, it will be their first Landrat win in Germany.

While the Transrapid knocked out the CSU in Munich, here the issue was also related to the airport – the third runway. Although the CSU locally claims to be opposed, Bavaria-wide they are in favour and they hemorrhaged votes as a result, gaining barely 14%. The two leading candidates both ran on anti-expansion tickets.

Zwei Startbahn-Gegner siegen in Freising

I'm not particuarly pre-disposed to believe everything that comes out of Galloway's camp.
New Labour doesn't eactly win the George Washington Prize either is it.
Anyhoo, away from Galloway and son of Thatcher-Owen spin to Munich:

I'm glad our Lord Mayor of Munich Ude stated today that he is going to work with every organisaion possible to frustrate the NPD Stadrat at every turn.
The CSU opened the gates to Munich having an NPD city councillor.
I pray now they jump over their shadow and show their Christian colours by helping to undermine fascist operations from City Hall.

@ STB, yeah, all eyes on Freising.
I wonder how much the stronger Greens in Munich are going to push now on the runway as Munich City is an airport shareholder...

One of the first things that came up when I searched "Biosprit" on their webshite.

it must be off limits to google then

But even if they did sink the idea in their official party line, it seems very fickle to jump right on the Biosprit train singing greeny, greeny hallelujah, and after everybody realizes that it's simply a shit idea designed to help farmers maximize profits out of land, and would probably do much more environmental damage than it will spare, to then go 'oh you know what, let's be against it now'. Very fickle. Politicians should think things through, not wake up in the morning, check the wind direction and go with the flow.

I am not a green myself but I imagine the Greens thought at first that though it wasn't their ideal policy goal it was at least going n the right direction. But when food prices started rising and concerns about biodiversity started to be articulated they reversed the policy.

Your jealousy of King reeks, MT. What do you think she should have done after losing her seat in the HOC?

Jealous of Oona King?
No, I have sense of decency and a modicum of self-respect.

Anyhoo, votes are almost all counted for the council now.
One of the most interesting things I find in the election is that increase in the FDP and Green vote.
Young hedonist floating voters without a natutal affinity to the two big Volksparteien at work there I think.

I think the increase in the FDP and Greens' share of the vote is a positive development. I would agree with those who feel the CSU and SPD are ossified (no pun intended). Maybe the CSU will drop its support for that white elephant Transrapid...

Looks like your worst fears about the success of the far right didn't come to fruition, MT. Thank goodness. One other thing- did you see that the CSU wants to weaken the smoking ban (as reported in this morning's SDZ)?

Heh?

They were very likely not to have reached the required number of signatures.
But once Koch in Hessen and Schmidt in München began running racist campaigns I said the fascist parties were gong to get the signatures needed - and they did.
Once on the ballot paper I said they were likely to get seats: The BIA does have a seat. If the fascists hadn't bickered and had run as one list, they'd probably have 2 seats.

So the outcome is much as I predicted.

Seems to me that the people who provided signatures would have supported the CSU if they in fact were moved by and approved of what the CSU/CDU politicians were saying rather than looking to place fringe parties with extremist platforms on the ballot as a result.

The CSU has a philosophy of not tolerating any party to their right. They are quite happy to tolerate a xenophonic nationalist über-conservative fringe internally.
But the CSU isn't a fascist party, despite what some over eager anarcho-kiddies might say. There fascist parties thoug of which the NPD is the most infamous in Germany right now. Give them space to operate and they will. Koch and Schmidt provided that space.

You can ALMOST feel sorry for Scmidt becasue he was in a bind, indeed the CSU is still in and and they admit that.
The values of society in Bavaria's largest cities are at odds with their values.
They face a problem within the City of Munich of trying to do a balancing act between what (younger, more progressive) voters want and their regular voting clientel (older, more conservative) who want somehing else.

Classic example:
Mr Schmidt, would you be prepared to lead the CSD march as Christian Ude does?
<paraphrase> Yes. But errrrrm, it would have to a march based on decency and not overly sexual and offend public morality.

*Speechless*

That's their philosophy Sin, to bend themselves to the right to capture "conservative nationalist opinion" within the party while excluding the out and out AH crowd.
And that was / is their problem in Munich. Trying to be trendy with the liberal inner city society while satisfying the prejudices of Miss Eva Ordnung in Forstenried.

Labour defeats bid for EU treaty referendum

Well, I've seen all the results. Wasn't too bad either AND I've discovered tonight an old friend stood for RoLi... 6th on the list apparently.

CSU got a bit of a slappin', didn't they? Oh dear. Nevermind. I love this city.

_{*forgot to credit the above cartoon to Matt}