Originally Posted by Novocastrian (Post 10914628)

That's one take on it, but not a very sophisticated one. The SPD are centrist-left while die Linke are fairly hard left, a rebranded DDR Communist party. The Greens are also lumped in as left, but they're the greens so not really.

An SPD-Linke-Gruenen coalition would mathematically have a (very slim) majority but would be unlikely to survive for any time at all.

It's more that the FDP have finally been exposed as incompetent hypocrites and have lost almost all of their voters either to the CDU/CSU or to the AfD, a fringe group on the right who are basically single issue crazies wanting Germany to withdraw from the common currency.

Neither the FDP or the AfD reached the 5% threshold so neither are represented in the next Bundestag. That's why Merkel's a touch short of a straight majority. Nothing to do with the "divided left".

Originally Posted by ninaDGBCA (Post 10914790)

:goodpost:

The problem is that a big coalition between Union and SPD doesn't work too well either. So we'll see what the new coalition will be. I think maybe black-green would be interesting :lol:

Originally Posted by Novocastrian (Post 10914804)

I agree, there were considerable stresses in the last pre-2009 Grand Coalition and before this election the SPD said they weren't interested (but they would say that, wouldn't they? ;)).

I'm also intrigued by the idea of black/green. The CDU, IIRC, were the biggest party in the Bundestag when the Energiewende was started. It might be a good idea this time.

We'll see, but I think the SPD will agree to the GC.