Surprise Awakening Awaits Merkel in September Election: No Stable Government

In response to my August 13 post Tale of Colours, All in Denial; Assessing Merkel's Chances reader Bernd from Germany (not AfD chairman Bernd Lucke) offered these comments ...

Hello Mish

Main stream parties have had success pushing AfD into the “right wing” corner. It would appear that many voters or potential voters are “embarrassed” to be seen in that environment, rightly or wrongly. As is tradition in Germany, under such circumstances potential voters will lie to polls and pollsters.

Internal polls by AfD – professionally done by independent pollsters – show AfD consistently at above 8%. Correspondingly CDU/CSU is lower by approximately that same figure.

I do not say AFD will be in the next Parliament with 8% of seats, however, I believe AfD will do a lot better than expected by anyone in main stream at this moment. I also believe that “other parties” will clock  much better results than polled right now. A party to watch are “Die Piraten”, which are coming out of their very low figures.

If there is a  considerably higher voter turnout than expected (expected is 60%), it might be a “blood bath” for main stream parties. Please note: there are about 20 additional parties on the election ticket, more than at any time before. If 2 of them get 4% and the remainder  each get 0.5% you will have 17% of voters not represented in Parliament due to Germany’s 5% hurdle. If that outcome comes true, all current predictions are out the window, irrespective of who made them, especially for coalition possibilities.

I maintain it will be a surprise awakening by Mm Merkel and her CDU/CSU as well as by many other “main stream” parties. I stick to my predictions made months ago. There will be no stable Government in Germany after the elections, save for the CDU/CSU-SPD one (grand coalition). I doubt such a coalition can happen under Mm Merkel’s leadership.

Best wishes
Bernd

AfD appears unlikely to get to the 10% I thought possible a few months ago, but even 5% will prove very problematic to Merkel, even more so if FDP does not get the 5% it needs.

The September election will be interesting to say the least.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com