Political parties of Germany
Germany, being both a democracy and quite big, has many political parties. Being a functioning democracy, the system enables more than just one or two of these parties to actually have a say. This applies to local, regional and federal politics.
As usual with most multi-party democracies, the big parties are the dull, sensible ones and the fun/odd/repellent ones are the smallest.
Contents |
[edit] The Big Ones
[edit] The Union
Despite its name ('Die Union' in German) these are legally two parties and have nothing to do with worker unions - they aren't federalists either…
They are both centre-right parties with Christian roots, but they also have atheists, Muslims and Jews in their ranks - although those aren't the ones high up in the ranks. As part of a deal between the two parties, the CSU only has candidates in Bavaria and the CDU keeps it's fingers out of Bavaria - also they act as one party on a federal level. And yes, that is as chaotic as it sounds.
[edit] Christian Democratic Union of Germany
- Color: Black (unofficial), Orange (official)
- Short: CDU
- Name in German: Christlich-Demokratische Union Deutschlands
- History: Founded after World War II they've won many elections since. They had and have several important politicians in their ranks, such as Konrad Adenauer, Helmut Kohl and today's chancellor Angela Merkel.
[edit] Christian Social Union in Bavaria
- Color: Black (unofficial), Blue (official)
- Short: CSU
- Name in German: Christlich-Soziale Union in Bayern
- Specialty: Even though they are a bit more socially conservative than their CDU colleagues: If one judges by their level of populism and bumpkin-ness, one might call them the German tea party-equivalent. However, they are (believe it or not!) far less successful at concealing their idiocy than teabaggers are, yet now and then dreadfully more successful at getting Bavarians to like their provincialist bullshit. (“Not 48, 49 or 50 Percent—no, remember this: 76!”, His Majesty King Horst Seehofer of Bavaria commenting a 2014 survey on whether people consider him a good governor.)
[edit] Social Democratic Party of Germany
- Political leaning: centre-left, tending towards center, social democracy, Third Way.
- Color: Red
- Short: SPD
- Name in German: Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands
- History: 150 years of it. The SPD is as as old as Germany itself (as a legal entity), it voted for WWI, splits occurred after 1918 that later formed the KPD. After WWII, the SPD in the West became one of the biggest parties, in the East they were forced into a merger with the KPD to form the SED. After the Fall of the Berlin Wall some switched back, others formed the PDS which later became another party... but yeah they are big. They currently have two factions, more centre-left Keynesians and Third Way advocates. The Third Way came out on top under Gerhard Schröder, though it's been argued by the party's left-wing that Schröder's policies hurt the party in the 2005 elections, as he was viewed as undermining the welfare state in Germany.
[edit] The ones that make the governments but never are the leading party - well, not yet
[edit] Alliance '90/The Greens
- Political leaning: environmentalism, social democracy/democratic socialism (they aren't quite sure themselves), feminism, grassroots politics (no that's not a joke)
- Color: Green
- Short: GRÜNE and various regional variations
- Name in German: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen
- History: Began as a bunch of hippies that wanted to save the earth in the seventies, later joined with various human rights parties from East Germany that before merged to 'Alliance 90'. For some reason they were elected into the Bundestag in the eighties, were elected out of it again, and are in without pauses since 1994. In 1998 they formed a coalition with the SPD and became one of the governing parties. After Stuttgart 21[wp] and the Fukushima nuclear disaster their votes went up as high as 30% (from about 10% before).
- Trivia: With Cem Özdemir, they are the first party to have a Muslim in the party head (he isn't in there alone, as the head of the Greens are always one female and one male member).
[edit] Free Democratic Party
- Political leaning: Classical liberalism, Neoliberalism
- Color: Yellow and Blue
- Short: FDP
- Name in German: Freie Demokratische Partei
- History: Sometimes they were in the government, sometimes they weren't. Because of changing coalition partners, they are the party which has been in government for the most time.
The last important head of their party was famous for being gay and equally infamous for living in a libertarian dreamland.[1] Their current man in charge is Christian Lindner. In the latest federal election, the party did not surpass the five-percent threshold and thus failed to enter the Bundestag for the first time in their history. Plus, they lost several important Landtage (state-level equivalents to the Bundestag), too. They are thus considered essentially dead, although the corpse is still twitching a bit and may rise from the grave in the next elections.
[edit] The Left
- Political leaning: Democratic socialism, pacifism, populism
- Color: Red
- Short: LINKE
- Name in German: Die Linke
- History: Founded in 2007 as a merger of PDS (successor of the SED, the party that was in charge in the East Germany) and the WASG, which was founded by somebody who has enough of the "liberal" policies of the SPD.
- In the Thuringan state election in 2014, Die Linke became the strongest party on the left side of the spectrum. They subsequently formed a coalition with the SPD and the Greens, making up the new state's goverment with themselves as the leading party.[2] (Thus, they don't quite belong into this section anymore.)
- Reaction of other parties to this party: "AHHH! OMG! OMG! THE COMMIES ARE BACK!!1!!! WE DON'T PLAY WITH THESE KINDS OF PEOPLE!!"
[edit] They didn't make it last time
In German federal elections, parties only get seats in Bundestag if they receive more than 5% of the vote. This is a stability issue, as in the old days of the Weimar Republic too many Parties had seats and democracy banned itself. In public discourse, however, people are also praising it it as an instrument to keep Nazis out of the parliaments.
[edit] Pirate Party Germany
- Political leaning: "digital liberalism," social progressivism/libertarianism, social democracy, individualism, e-democracy
- Colors: Black/Orange
- Short: PIRATEN
- Name in German: Piratenpartei Deutschland
- History: Founded in 2006 and modeled after the Swedish Piratpartiet, they reached 'only' 2% in the 2009 Bundestag elections and therefore are the biggest party in Germany that has no seats in the Bundestag. Won 8.9% in regional elections in Berlin in 2011, which lea to speculations that they might be the next party to get into the Bundestag.
[edit] National Democratic Party of Germany
- Political leaning: Far-right, "democracy," ethnic nationalism
- Colors:
Brown(unofficial), Black/White/Red (official) - Short: NPD
- Name in German: Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands – Die Volksunion
- History: Founded in 1964, several tries to ban the party failed. Also known as a "Nazi Party," and due to Germany's past (and them being extreme wingnuts) it's probably okay to stray into Godwin here.
[edit] The laughing stock, the others and just weird ones
For the matter of disk space we can't list all the parties - also that list would be so long you wouldn't want to read it, so here are the highlights:
- Party of Bible-abiding Christians (PBC, Partei Bibeltreuer Christen): Evangelical Christians, although much more left then you might think. They really don't like abortion, sex and the gays. They also say that all states without God are designed to fail - using Nazis and Communists as an example.
- The PARTY ("Die PARTEI", which is an humours acronym for "Partei für Arbeit, Rechtsstaat, Tierschutz, Elitenförderung und basisdemokratische Initiative"): Founded out of the satirical magazine "Titanic." Proposes to built up the Wall again — and they said they aren't kidding.
- Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany (APPD, Anarchistische Pogo-Partei Deutschlands): Calls itself the party of social parasites. Advocates special zones for Nazis, racists, fascists and child molesters, free beer and more freedom. No they aren't joking... Supposedly not.
- The Violetes (Die Violetten, Die Violetten – für spirituelle Politik): Advocates a "more spiritual" political consensus.
- Bavaria Party (BP, Bayernpartei): A separatist party in the Land of Bavaria - if the rest of Germany would care is not known...
[edit] They didn't make it
- National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei): Banned after WWII.
- Communist Party of Germany (KPD, Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands): Banned in 1956 as dangerous to the Constitution. There have been several small parties and groups that tried to revive it and today communists are organized in dozens of different parties.
- Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED, Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands): Ruling party of East Germany. Dissolved in 1990 and many of it's members joined the successor party "PDS", which became today's "The Left" (see above).