Elections

Mood: confused, sleepy
Stage notes: reading some messy election results

So. . .Sunday was election day for Germany. Usually it is not so early, but the German President is able to call for new elections, and this year he chose to do just that. By the way, the Chancellor is top-dog in Germany and the President is more like our VP.

Simplified version: Schroder's party (SPD, currently in power) was running against Angela Merkel's Party (CDU). CDU got 35% of the vote and SPD got 34%. This gave Angela Merkel's party only 3 more seats than Schroder. Both of them are claiming victory. Merkel says her party is "the strongest political power in the country" and that it "does have a clear mandate to govern [Germany]." Schroder says, "Those who wanted change in the office of chancellor have failed grandly. ... Over the next four years there will be a stable government under my leadership." Sort of reminds me of an incident in American politics not so long ago. Now both of them are scrambling to form partnerships with the parties who got the rest of the votes so they can form a clear majority. To add to the mess, one of the German states (Dresden) will not hold their election until October because one of the candiates in their area died just before the election. Oye vay!