Germany's Merkel drums up colourful support in campaign speech

[webfact]

LETTER FROM BERLIN
Merkel drums up colourful support in campaign speech
Jintana Panya-arbudh
The Nation, Germany



BERLIN: -- "ANGIE, ANGIE, ANGIE". A loud cheer from supporters of incumbent German Chancellor Angela Merkel were heard inside the Tempodrom, a large circus tent next to the Berlin Wall on the west side of Potsdamer Platz on Saturday.

The dome was packed with 4,000 supporters, who had earlier queued up in a long line to get into the dome to listen to the last stage speech of the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic party (CDU) before the election. Most of the audience were senior people; there weren't many teenagers.

The election campaign was one of fun and entertainment - something rarely seen in a poll campaign in Thailand.

The event, including pens, banners and balloons, was decorated with the predominant CDU orange colour. Except for some blue banners, which read, "Cool bleiben und Kanzlerin whlen" ("Stay cool and vote for the |chancellor").

There was a concert to entertain supporters before Merkel arrived. A male singer sang a song, which I guessed was dedicated to Merkel as her name was used. Her supporters, who held aloft party slogans in German reading "Together successful" and "Angie", sang and danced along with the song. Around 11am, Merkel appeared, wearing one of her red trademark tops. She stopped to shake hands with some supporters and waved to others before taking to the stage. Her speech focused on reducing the unemployment rate, giving a higher pension to young mothers, creating more jobs and increasing income. She opposed a national minimum wage and an increase in income tax, introduced by her rival Social Democratic Party (SPD) as bad for job creation.

"I personally ask people to trust the CDU and return me [to office] with a strong mandate so that I can serve Germany for another four years and so that we can shape the country together," Merkel made a final appeal.

She received applause from time to time during her speech. She later left the hall and headed north to her Baltic coast constituency to await the election results. With a powerful voice and strong gestures, the woman widely seen as Europe's most powerful leader impressed several international journalists in our group.

A Portuguese journalist said "there was no plastic [in the speech]", while another reporter felt Merkel tried to build added trust among her supporters. The ballot booths have closed. But what lies ahead for Merkel is how is she going to form a new governing coalition? German political parties are often identified by or associated with a specific colour. For example,

German conservative parties are black while the socialists are red. Various other political parties in German-speaking Europe are identified by other colours, and one political coalition is even called a "traffic-light" coalition (Ampelkoalition - for red, yellow, green). In 2005,

Germany had a black-red coalition in power - black being the colour of the centre-right Christian Democrats and red their traditional rivals, the centre left Social Democrats. After the 2009 election, Merkel created a black-yellow coalition with the pro-business Free Democrats, which became a partner of the CDU, that would push ahead with tax cuts and welfare reforms.

The political colour was used as a gimmick by the media this time for the German coalition make-up. The front page of the Die Welt daily newspaper on the eve of the election day ran a combo photo of Merkel wearing various coloured dresses - red, orange, green, blue, pink, and purple.

The German newspaper did not want to criticise her styles or tease her as if she was on the catwalk. They were, in fact, talking about a very important political issue after the election.

The headline of the caption read "Welche Farbe passt zu Merkel?" meaning which colour does Merkel go for? In other words, which parties will she choose to form a government with?

If the outcome is of no surprise, with her CDU winning the most seats in Parliament, you may already know which colour she |will choose.


-- The Nation 2013-09-23

[Publicus]

This is one of those elections the voters haven't any imaginable reason to fire the government.

[Sing_Sling]

 

This is one of those elections the voters haven't any imaginable reason to fire the government.

Not many legitimate reasons aside form parochial politics - quite right.

Although she won quite handsomely, her partners, the FDP, seem to have fallen below the 5% parliamentary vote requirement and Merkel may have a tough time getting legislation through in the Bundesrat.

It looks like she may have to compromise and discuss issues like minimum wage with the SPD

On the other hand she may be able to rule by her won power, the first time since the 50s for this to happen

[Publicus]

Yeah, I haven't seen the data, but it could be that some of the Free Democrats' voters - just enough - voted directly for Merkel, leaving their own party a mite short of its usual threshold of 5%.The FDP falling short is quite the shocker.

It's good to see the far right did badly but the far left did too well.

The anti-Europe party may have drawn enough Euro-skeptic Free Democrats to kill the existing coalition, but I'm pleased to see it still didn't get enough votes to enter the Bundestag.

The SPD says it won't form a coalition, but if it doesn't it will be in the political wilderness. The black supplemented by the red could make some needed improvements to Germany. Merkel holds a good hand so the black would still would be running the show.

Overall it's not a bad outcome, or so it would seem to me.