National election in Germany: The latest projections....
The Social-Democrats (SPD) are poised to win with a lead of about 1-2% ahead of the Christian-Democrats (Merkel's CDU).
As for the smaller parties, it's notable that both extremist anti-establishment parties (AfD on the right and Die Linke on the left) fared worse than last election, while the more moderate anti-establishment party The Greens (Die Grünen) gained votes. Here's my personal opinion as to why:
* With Die Linke, the voters didn't buy their pie-in-the-sky promises, because they were unable to explain how to pay for them.
* With the AfD, this election-season had no illegal-immigrant panic to exploit and the voters didn't buy that the anti-Corona-measures are government-tyranny.
* With the Greens, they gained votes because the voters want change, something different, but they also want something not too radical.
Possible make-ups of the next government:
* SPD as senior-partner with CDU as junior-partner.
The problem with this is that the voters are BY FAR not happy with what happened last time when there was a "big coalition". The SPD runs the risk of immediately pissing away the goodwill of the voters.
* SPD as senior-partner with Greens and Free Democrats as junior-partners.
The big problem would be finding common ground between the Greens and the Free Democrats. Both are socially liberal, but the Greens are economically on the moderate left while the Free Democrats are full-on capitalists. But I think it would be possible for the Greens to give up their economic demands if the Free Democrats agree to go along with their environmentalist demands.
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