If you thought Gordon was having a miserable time and Labour we're in utter desperation, unsure which way to turn, then just take a look at the German SPD. The party of government as recently as 2005, has sunk to a meagre 20% in the polls. Their raison d'etre, much like our Labour party, is being severely challenged. It looks like they are hemorrhaging votes to a more centrist CDU, to the liberal FDP (Lib Dem sister party) and to the Left Party, who are polling an incredibly 15%. They really are stuck. The challenge to their core vote and East German support is vast from the Left Party and they look in real trouble. With the Green Party also performing well a Jamaica coalition looks more likely. The SPD will be thoroughly out of power and will have to reconcile themselves to the Left Party, either by discrediting it, or by aping it. Either way, they are in serious electoral trouble. Is the Third Way dying everywhere?
P.S. on a different note, keep half an eye on the developing situation in Abyei and the potential for a reignition of the civil war between North and South Sudan. They are "on the brink"
Wednesday, 4 June 2008
Gosh, these polling figures almost make Gordon and New Labour seem popular
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8 comments:
The SPD is still in central government with the SPD
Correction: in government with CDU
I followed it when it happened. It seems that it all begun when the SPD leader Kurt Beck gave the Hesse SPD leader Andrea Ypsilanti his permission to form a state government with the support of the Left, which was clearly in contradiction with their promises before the election. The plan collapsed when some of their own ranks told that they wouldn't support such government, but the voters are now perceiving SPD as untrustworthy, and others feel that they now have permision to support the Left. Of course people are also tired to the Grand Coalition in federal government.
You can look how the polling figures have developed here.
and to the Left Party, who are polling an incredibly 15%
Do you know what the sampling was like for this poll? East/West, level in each Lander etc. etc.
thechristophe, click the link I gave in my previous comment, and then the names of the polling companies for more details.
(Not all of them give the details East/West, but some do.)
Anonymous,
Thanks very much for the link. I followed the Hesse thing too. Do you agree that the SPD have to redefine, re-interpret, or re-articulate what they are for?
I think they are in a situation where they just can't please all of their potential supporters. Ideally their partner would be the Greens, but because of the coming of the Left Party to the German politics, the situation is more and more often one where neither SPD and Greens nor CDU and FDP will have a working majority. If the SPD seeks support from the Left Party, it will lose support to CDU and Greens, and if it will ally with CDU, like now to form a Grand Coalition at federal level, it will lose support to the Left Party. I can't see anything, which would save them in short term.
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