American Views Abroad

 
This October is particularly stunning and golden. A welcome relief after two floods in Europe -- Germany, Austria and Switzerland in summer and France in September -- were overshadowed by New Orleans. Monday was German Unity Day, a national holiday, and the marshlands along the Elbe provide endless dikes to walk along and a pleasant way of clearing the mind of all things political. Very soothing in a year like this one. Living abroad means being confronted with not just one way of doing things and dikes and elections are good examples. They know the destruction floods can bring along the North Sea and in Hamburg and the condition of dikes is a local passion. We stopped and bought apples, pears, potatoes and a type of apple brandy or schnapps from a local farmer and the conversation invariably turned to floods. She recalled how she'll never forget trying to get her grandparents off their farm during a particularly dreadful flood in the sixties and the reason why they decided to move their farm farther inland after that. Nor could she forget the filth as well as the environmental problems afterwards.

German elections are always fascinating to follow as an American. It's really impressive how the founders of the present German Basic Law bent over backwards to make sure every vote gets counted. Truly counted. No winner-take-all philosophy here. They have two votes in each election: one for their direct candidate in Parliament and one for a political party. Citizens can split their votes and are often encouraged to do so which was something I could never quit understand why. This year I got the point. It's called (roughly translated) 'left-over' votes. According to Germans I have asked, the answer has been an explicit: 'Don't even try to understand it. We can't.' To put it in a nutshell (of how I understand it), there are direct candidates who can only get into Parliament with direct votes and candidates who are direct candidates but are going to get into Parliament over their Party's list anyhow and then there is a mathematical equation about how many votes the Parties get compared to the direct candidates alone and those who get in via the Party lists. 'Left over' votes thus change the number of delegates in Parliament. According to an article in last Sunday's FAZ, a leading newspaper here, German election laws need an overhaul because the situation with 'left over' votes is getting out of hand. The people in that one particular district in Dresden, who had to vote two weeks later because of a sudden death of a candidate, very cleverly caste their votes and gave an extra seat to the CDU. At least that is the media's take on it all. What seemed lost in the news was how the new Leftist Party gathered over 19% of that vote.

One point I find remarkable when comparing the German election results to the US elections in 2000 is how, until now, I have not heard anyone say: 'I don't care who becomes Chancellor. Let's just get this over with.' Unfortunately I heard or read this about Bush/Gore too many times for comfort back in 2000. People seem to be watching, almost patiently, all the posturing going on in trying to find a coalition. Actually you can't help but get the impression they rather like seeing politicians being forced to grapple with the unusual situation of having to work with the other side or sides instead of grabbing whatever chance they can to get in the limelight. Probably the ultimate hell for politicians is being forced to work it all out in one grand coalition or another.
- posted by Gloria @ 7:26 PM