6:22 Jep, the weeks after election are way more entertaining than the election. The sudden switch between full blown pre-election banther and post-election courtship is super funny. "The green will lead this country into ruins they can´t be allowed to be part of the gouverment!" 12 hours later "The greens are a natural partner for us and we support their agenda." 🤣
Adding to this, at 6:50 you asked if it is something official. Yes, yes it is official. There is a coalition-contract that both parties sign and that contains all their goals and agreements. One party can actually sue the other if they thing the other party is violating the contract.
I think this is a pretty good system because it means the parties have to be able to work together to accomplish anything, so it stops them from becoming too radical. Except for the AfD, doesn't want to work anyway and is happy if their representatives get paid taxpayer money for bitching and moaning from the sidelines.
@@Xardaras Pretty sure they can’t sue as a coalition agreement is not legally binding. However it still isn’t advised to break the agreement on a whim as it could disrupt the government and will likely be punished by voters as well as reduce the chances of a further government participation for the offending party.
Frankly, the best entertainement is always the first round, when every party explains why THEY are actually the big winner of the election, even if they lost votes.
2:38 Funny, it's the opposite in Germany: In public, the coalition parties shake hands and demonstrate unity, while behind closed doors they are fighting each other. xD
Its probable so in every Pr like system. You don't always get a coalition you like but was the best you could get. I bet there are a lot of dirty looks inside the party's in the US to since they are to large to hold the differnt way's people should feel.
8:03 While technically they could elect anyone to be chancellor, it's an unwritten rule that the party leader of the largest coalition party will become chancellor. So it's not like voters will get completely surprised, they know the likely candidates for chancellor before the election.
It is not always the "party leader". Scholz for example was only the designated chancellor candidate, but the party leaders are/were Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans.
@@f_f_f_8142 Exactly. Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder also got to be chancellors without being their party's leader (although Schröder was elected as party leader one year after the federal election). For my taste I would also prefer to keep those positions seperate, so the chancellor isn't too powerful and the governing party has more potential to deal with questions which are not directly connected with governmental issues.
@@MarcLucksch That system has nothing to do with Hitler's rise to power. Hitler was appointed chancellor of a minority government by President Hindenburg after several elections resulted in a negative minority (meaning that there was no feasible coalition to form a majority, i.e. the largest parties wouldn't form a coaltion with the NSDAP or the KPD which both added up to more than 50% of the votes). The most important change between the Weimarer and Bonner Republic was the curtailment of the president's power. The idea to give the parliament more power ( electing the chancellor, determination of emergency states), is an old idea of the democratic movement (prevalent for example 1848) and differs substantially from the presidential system of the U.S. What you could say is that the US mainly allowed people that would support such system to become influential figures in the Parlamentarische Rat but it is by now means that the US would have dictated our Grundgesetz.
I remember we had one situation where the parties could not find common ground for any coalition for weeks, which caused or President for the first time ever to tell them to finally get their shit together. It was insane.
Though the Belgians probably found that amusing, given that taking weeks is like an amateur move for them. Belgium once took 589 days to form a new government...
fun thing was: I voted and then went on a backpacking tour for half a year, I think they only managed to find a coaltion shortly before I came back, so basically I went and when I came back half a year later things where just the same as when I left :D
Well first of all, elections in germany are generally on a Sunday, so a work free day for most people, so that they can attend without compromising. Polling Stations are open from 8am to 6pm (correction made here), so everybody gets the chance to get to vote in this 10hour time frame. Also there are enough polling stations, that you dont have to wait 4 hours to vote. During the day, spot check questionaires are made by interviewing people who just have voted. From these numbers an rough estimate of the current vote distribution is made. The last spot checks are made around 6pm, now with the full voting period as an estimate how the vote distribution but also the voter turnout of the election ended up. After polling stations closed, all ballot papers and votes are counted overnight, so that on the next morning the Newspapers can publish the correct voters turnout and election results. If you think that having an election result within less than 24 hours and with as little inconvenience as possible for the population is advanced.... we dont use voting computers or digital vote, everyting is on paper. The US is just extremely inefficient and incompetent when it comes to elections. Alot of the "they stole the elections" Bullshit is due to this incompetent and inefficient election system in the USA. Coalitions in the government sign a Coalition Treaty, where they outlined their cooperative goals for the government, compromises etc. Each partner can voluntarily leave the coalition. In best case, this would result in a reshuffle of ministerial posts etc and a minority government vs a majority opposition, where the opposition is able to dictate more of their political ideas to the government, due to the government party/coalition now has to compromise with parts of the opposition to gain a legislative majority to pass laws and government actions. In worst case, this could result in an early election, ending the 4 year legislative period between elections short. (This happened in 2005 with the SPD/Grüne Coalition, where Schröder, the Chancellor, lost his Vote of Confidence and thus the government had to dissolve ahead of time) Please keep in mind that the Berteslmann Foundation is a neoliberal think tank and lobby organisation, not a non profit organisation.
@@D0MiN0ChAn sure, but those cases are the exception not the rule and happen on the state level not federal level. The number of those cases can be counted on 2 hands over the last 80 years. Wich is a good quota i would say.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Nope its the LAW. It's regulated in the Bundeswahlgesetz, §47 BWO to be accurated. You can only have reasons to open earlier that 8 am. there is no way you are allowed to open later than 8 am
I was a helper at the last federal, state and local elections in Lower Saxony. Voting stops at 6 pm and right after that the counting starts directly at the polling station with ~ 7 people. It's open to the public, everyone can come and observe. Counting is done by hand - old fashioned with tally sheets and results are afterwards filled into a form. Every vote is counted twice by different people (at least). Provisional results were phoned in roughly after 90 minutes - and the whole counting process, with all forms filled and signed by all helpers and everything under seal, never lasted longer than 2 1/2 hours. btw: we got an expense allowance of 60€ for it (which is not a taxable income).
But that's the issue, it's "supposedly" open to the public, but no one really is present on the counting. So do you ever know if cheating happens? In my opinion it should displayed life on TV/Internet and else.
@@KamichamaTechstarify You would need a ton of infrastructure for it, since basically every village has their own polling station, not to mention towns having multiple ones for different areas (and we are speaking of a low 4 digit number here). The more important thing is, representatives of all parties are present, so good luck convincing both an Die Linke and an AfD member to change stuff in general and the others to change stuff that it benefits one party there. And then have everyone stay quiet
@@KamichamaTechstarify You can literally be present during the counting if you want to and a lot of people do. It's just that usually nothing happens, people are just counting votes in there according to the rules
regarding the AFD, you are right, currently they cannot get anyone to vote for their candidate as a chancellor nor form any kind of coalition. But that was also said before 1932 about the NSDAP. We need to stay vigilant and call out hatred and racism wherever it occurs do not let them get any more track. In some states in Germany, they already have about 20% of the votes, which is a lot in the current political system.
NSDAP didnt get more than 37,7% in the elections prior to 1933, in the 1932 election they got 33%. And in the most relevant election in 1933 they got barely 44%. And that was mostly due to voter surpression by the SA infront of polling stations. The nazis never had the majority. It was due to Hindenburg appointing Hitler as Chancellor, that the NSDAP got into power.
Which honestly proves one thing to me: The worse the living conditions for people, the easier they get roped in by fascists. If you have job security, a proper salary and a good education enabling you a future full of real chances there's simply no reason to follow fascists who tell you "Your life is so bad because of Jewish people/immigrants/gay people/trans people/[insert any other minority]. If you vote for us we get rid of them and then YOU will be on top again" Of course that won't ever happen because fascists don't actually care for poor people but for power and control. After all minorities have been stomped out the poor people will be next, regardless of their nationality or patriotism towards the regime. Just ask Martin Niemöller.
Wich is about normal there are about 30% of the population in every western country that are attracted to the more extreme more facist like way of soing things. Some go to the extreme left but most go to the right. So about 25% is your upper limit if it comes above that you know your country is in trouble. 10% to 20% is considerate normale if you truly have a free society. Below 10% means that there is some heavy pressure not to vote or air such opnions wich while fine by me, nut means that there isn't really a free society as some of it is represt (wich if its this part i don't care that much).
@@ngotemna8875 "the worse the situation for the german population is, the better it is for the AFD". -Christian Lüth, former Press Secretary of the AFD in an confidential conversation.
A coalition is official in the way that they form a contract, and if one of the parties breaks the contract, the coalition can split up. But it’s not as official as in legally binding official it’s more of an agreement between the parties, and the coalition contract secures that all the parties know what they can expect from the others, and what the general direction will be in the next four years.
1:30 Voting starts at 8:00, ends at 18:00, and we get first estimate results at about 18:00. The voting process also is very different from what i know about the US. My designated voting booth is about 500m away, i get there early, show my ID Card alongside with the letter i got prior, get my papers, make my selection, return it, and thats it. 20 minutes later im already home again. Oh and its always on a Sunday - no need to hurry or get there in my work break.
@@piiinkDeluxe I always have the ID card with me, but I haven't been asked for it in years, they always accept just the letter. I only did voting per letter once, during Corona, otherwise I enjoy the little stroll to cast my vote.
@@Llortnerof Nope, that is a common misunerstanding. You are required to OWN an identity card and you should know, where it is, but you are not required to carry it with you all the time. It is just easier to do so because otherwise if you for example need to identify yourself the police will have to escort you home so that you can procure the card for them.
1:33 It usually takes one night to get preliminary results. Results of election day polls are available at 6 p.m. sharp. There are projections in between
@@IchWerSont That's why digital voting will most likely never be a thing. Bundesgerichtshof (our Supreme Court, basically) decided that it must be easily comprehensible for the voter to see what happens with your vote. Like all of you said you can watch the counting being done. But also everything in-between. You cannot do that with digital voting. You push a button on a PC and then what? Where is the electrical signal going? What does the program of the PC do with the input? Can your input be manipulated on the way to its destination? What happens if you vote and a power outage happens while pressing "send"? I don't know. You don't know. Nobody knows.
@@ngotemna8875 Honestly, not everything needs to be automated. Once every few years (including local elections) having to fill out a few Xs on a ballot isn't really a big deal if it helps with accuracy and security
I find it both funny and tragic that you think it weird or bad when politicians from different parties "cross the aisle" after an election or a campaign. It's really not: Sure, German politics are defined by compromise which often leads to watered down versions of good (and also bad) ideas, whereas one party's agenda is rarely if ever fully realized. Then again: The system itself makes it necessary to get out of your own bubble and engage on issues you yourself might not understand which in turn leads to maybe not a willingness but at least a need to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Which ideally leads to a little more empathy and a little less elbow egomania in the political sphere. Of course, on the other hand it's also a system that works more slowly since more people need to agree on something which might explain at least some of what Germans call Politikverdrossenheit (disillusionment with politics). But as a German who actually appreciates compromise - admittedly in my older age; in my 20s I found it unbearable, too, at times - I would argue that it's a better system than to have only two viable parties who systemically have be at each other's throats to score points. A couple of years ago I had a chance to listen to a politician from one of the countries in central Africa. He remarked that to him the thing that took him the longest to understand about German politics was that there are only opponents there, not enemies.
It does have upsides and downsides, yes. It's definitely good that they need to work together, downside is the dilution of good policies and that technically a junior partner can hold the entire government hostage (as the FDP likes to do now).
@@johanneskaiser8188 That, actually, is a great example for bubble thinking: The Greens believe ideologically that they are perfectly right and that a couple of billions here or there makes no difference to save the world (within the very limited confines of Germany). The Free Democrats believe that those couple of billions here or there as government debt will make a huge difference down the line (since we've been down that road before leading to a point where all a government could do was pay off its debt). Are the Greens objectively right? Surely not. Are the Free Democrats? Surely not. It takes a compromise, and compromise takes time, and everything that takes time is seen as frustrating. On the other hand, not having pure ideology become law is, I believe, actually a good thing, since non of the ideologies in the current government (or the one before that, for that matter) would be particularly beneficial.
@@christophwolf663 My problem is not with what I perceive to be right or wrong, but with the principle that the smallest junior partner can theoretically hold the entire government hostage. "Do what I say or we have to hold new elections bc I jump ship" is neither good style nor healthy. AddOn: Should smaller partners have a say? Oh, absolutely. Should they be able to almost literally tropedo anything just on their own? Perhaps not.
Yes it is an official coalition. They have to settle on their stands to different topics and barter who gets the right of way in which topic. In the end they have a "Koalitionsvertrag" --> coalition contract
No, it is informal, there is no law for this. Also as we seen plenty the last decades the Koalitionsvertrag is not legally binding. There is another thing Fraktionszwang, free translated as the duty to vote like your coalition or Faction, is not a legal thing.
They do broker a deal, and it's put on paper as a contract, but it's not really any more binding than any other political promise (you break those terms on your own peril, though, as coalition partners and voters alike might get angry with you). And it certainly is not a formal part of the officially codified political process.
I should add that while we do not get to vote the Chancellor into Office, the Chancellor has a lot less individual power than most Presidents. Funnily, we also have a President, but that role exists exclusively to travel to places and shake hands.
Streng genommen ist der Bundespräsident der oberste Mann im Staat, was noch aus der Zeit der Weimarer Republik stammt. Der Kanzler ist "bloß" dessen Stellvertreter und der Chef der Regierung, wird aber in der Öffentlichkeit mit mehr Aufmerksamkeit bedacht.
The (Voted by a collectoral summit) German president is official the first Member of State. More like a representative position - similar to the King of the UK. He (the President) is the final position to check and controll the goverment. He has to sign laws (and can deny to sign them - this happend a few times), he can disolve the goverment and call new elections etc. Second position is the Presdent of the Bundestag (Parlament) and the Chancelor is at third position.
I'm studying German in the Netherlands and we've been taught that the Bundespräsident has pretty much the same function as the Dutch king and queen. They represent their country - full stop :P
In my opinion, a purely representative president, as Germany has, makes no sense. The same function could easily be taken over by, say, the president of parliament.
5:00 After watching you for weeks not understanding Ampel or traffic light or coalition...this was somwhat satisfying xD Now you just gotta rewatch all those videos again with your new knowledge LOL
This video is part of the ever growing list of proof that he doesn't really read the comments, or he ignores them to push/increase activity on his videos.
The whole systems really helps to keep the fighting between most parties down to a certain level, just because after the election you might have to cooperate.
The AFD political program represents what Republicans stand for. The CDU, which is conservative/right, is what Democrats in the USA represent if you look at each of their goals.
Yep. There is not left party in the USA. Not even center-left You have right-wingers and center-rightwingers. Both beholden to the economic titans of the country (though that's not different here. Remember Porsche basically dictating the coalition contract for the FDP? I member)
As your neighbours i would agree with that asesment fortunatly for you you only have 1 extreme right wing luny party. We sort of got 2 and half the last one is very right but not luny and split of from one of the luny ones.
I'd say the AFD is still a good bit left of modern Republicans. Heck, at this point the NSDAP positions might be left of them (obviously not the actual party on account of no longer existing). Especially the insanity in Florida.
How dare you? Don't you know that nowadays republicans have become fascists? 🤣 Joel Roth the pedophile said this. And Biden the second pedophile, too. So it must be correct. 🤣 Just like it must be correct, that AfD are fascists. Because..... because..... ehm....... ISSO! The Mainstream media says it! 🤣 So it must ne true.
And english words are like: "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis". 99,9% game over at the american spelling contests for sure! XD I stick with the much easier and shorter german translatation: "Quarzstaublunge".
watching you understand things made me appreciate this video (from Bertelsmann Stiftung umm Foundation). There's loads more to understand but hey, step by step does the trick! looking forward to your future education on the basics of German politics.
I think you got a good grasp on our political system as shown in this video, you got everything they explained. The next thing to get a better understanding of how these things work would be watching a video about the "5% Hürde" (Hürde = hurdle), but I don't personally know a good enlish video about this topic. Maybe a fellow commenter can link you to something regarding this, or maybe you find one on your own! best wishes
No Video but (maybe) a short introduction: The 5% hurdle was introduced because the missing of such a barrier was one brick in the instability of the Weimar Republic and was also one reason Hitler was able to use this political instability to raise power. In the Weimar Republic every party with a few votes got a seat in the parlament and therefore the goverment has to be a coalition of many small and tiny parties. This made it near impossible to create a stable coalition and caused that often no majorety was found and one election after the other (As I remember in one year 3 or 4 Elections) where needed. So no continuity, no safety, no stable goverment. When the "Grundgesetz" (Constitution) was formed in 1949 they introduced a threshold of "minimum 5%" of the votes was intruduced to limit the number of parties in the Parlament (theoretical max. 20 parties each with 5% of the votes are possible) to avoid this instability.
In reality in our German parliament the coalition often has LESS than 50 % of the votes but more than 50 % of the seats. That's due to our 5%-Threshhold. A party must get at least 5 % OR at least three direct candidates to form a fraction/group in parliament. So the sum of those other parties might have a share of about 9% of votes but none is represented in the Bundestag. This means a possible coalition would only need about 45,5 % of the votes to form a government because they would still have more than 50 % of the seats in parliament. The last election results of 2021 were: SPD: 25,7 %. 206 seats CDU/CSU: 24,1 %. 197 seats Greens: 14,8 %. 118 seats FDP: 11,5 %. 92 seats AfD: 10,3 %. 83 seats Left: 4,9 % (represented in parliament because they got three direct candidates) 39 seats OTHERS: 8,7 % (one seat because ONE protected minority party related to the Danish was won) 1 seat Total number of seats in parliament: 736 necessary amount of seats to form a coalition: (736/2)+1 = 369 Number of seats of the current traffic-light-coalition: 52,0 % of votes and has 416 seats (56,5 %) A grand coalition (SPD/CDU/CSU) would have 49,8 % of votes but would have 403 seats (54,8 % of seats) in parliament. A Jamaica-coalition (CDU/CSU/Greens/FDP) would have 50,4 % of votes but 407 seats (55,3 %) in parliament. A theoretical CDU/CSU/FDP/AfD-coalition would have 45,9 % of votes but 372 (50,5 %) seats in parliament. An SPD/Left/Green-coalition would fail to form a coalition because the number of seats would be 363 (49,3 % of seats). However they would unify 45,4 % of votes. They could have ONLY formed a coalition if the OTHER parties had achieved a higher share of unrepresented votes! Check out the close call with the theoretical center-right coalition with 372 seats!
It is not a loose association of parties. The coalition is governed by contract. This contract contains the political goals for the legislative period.
The afd effectively consists of two kinds of people: racists/nazis, and the people who maybe aren’t ones themselves but are okay with being in the same political party as nazis. There are even court rulings that allow to call some of the heads of the party that, so ..
The most important difference between the political systems: in theorie, having multiple parties enables the voter to vote not only for the lesser evil, but something that actually suits their needs and wishes. In reality, there is some messy stuff going on, like one party hindering the other to get things done. Best example right now would be the legalization von cannabis: The greens have been pushing this issue for decades as well as the (neo)liberals (FDP, represented by the yellow color), the social democrats (SPD, represented in red) only changed their attitude when entering the traffic light coalition. Speaking of coalitions: yes, after agreeing on the different politcal aspects, they actually set up a contract. The opposition however, consisting of the far right AFD and the also very much rightwing CDU/CSU, is totally against legalization. Since the german political system has two houses (Bundestag and Bundesrat), things get a little messy: The Bundestag ("lower house") has the traffic light coalition, so things should work out pretty easily. But since the Bundesrat ("upper house") must agree to bigger changes, this is not as easy: the Bundesrat represents the political coalitions of the individual states, the number of seats for a state represents the number of inhabitant in that state: more inhabitants equals more seats. For a law to be accepted, it must get 50% of the votes in the Bundesrat after having passed the Bundestag. And the Bundesrat is dominated by the right wing CDU, which enables them to block the implementation of this law, essentailly resulting in a standoff situation with overall stagnation.
About the coalition thing and law ... actually, coalitions are kind of against the german Grundgesetz (the name of our constitution), as it says in Article 38 that every representative isn't bound by instruction. And coalitions are all about instructions from "higher" authorities inside the coalition. Athough it is usually accepted as "neccesary" for the stability of germany that the executive branche controls part of the legislative branch (even with stuff that borders to extortion), though not very democratic in my opinion.
You might want to watch another video explaining the voting system in germany. You actually have to votes. The first one us voting for a candidate in your county, they don't have to run for a party, but they usually do. The person with the most votes for every county gets to the parliament. Your second (arguably way more important) vote is for a party. If a party gets three or more direct mandates (that is elected canditates running for their party) or alternatively over 5% of second votes, the party gets to send a number of representatives proportional to their amount of second votes to parliament. However now it gets tricky. If a party has got more direct mandates, than are indicated by their second vote share ( of the parties in the bundestag), all the other partyies are granted additional seats until the share of seats for each party roughly resembles the percentages again. I know its quite complicated but I think its actually thought through quite well.
6:43 Even though the coalition partners sign a "coalition contract" at the beginning of their term, it's not legally binding at all! It's more like a "letter of intent". In theory, a coalition can split up at any time by one (or more) coalition partners refusing to continue to cooperate (e.g. voting against joint legislation). It has only happened once in the history of modern Germany (in 1982), but of course it's a common threat among coalition partners when disagreements arise.
Pretty similar to how it works in Sweden too. (except here, the far-right option has slowly gotten bigger and bigger until it is the second largest party and is now impossible to ignore, so it is actually part of our current government... )
Interesting, now it would be interesting to see the difference of definition of far right between Germany and Sweden. For example our far right party wanted to shoot at refugees if they try to enter the country illegal. (Most extreme proposition the talked about) and all foreigners with no german heritage are not allowed to have a german passport.
@@v.kut7307 And I was always wondering why people were so angry about it. The CDU was also saying we needed "safe borders". You can't have "safe borders" without shooting. It's not a "save" border if all you see of it is a sign in the middle of a field. Everyone who calls for a save border is calling to kill people.
@@v.kut7307 Not even entering illegally. Frauke Petry said this specifically in regards to asylum seekers. If you seek asylum you are not illegally entering. Period. And no, the rule of seeking asylum in the first country you set foot in does not supersede this. You still must properly look into the case and if you find out they should have asked for asylum in Greece or whatever you then can send them back (which I am against, too, but that's another point) I repeat: Frauke Petry and the Afd, which fully supported her, wanted to shoot innocent asylum seekers for the "crime" of fleeing from certain death. Absolutely disgusting. This should have been the end of this toxic sludge that calls themselves a political party.
6:45 yes, (at least here in the Netherlands, but I assume in Germany too) a coalition is the government. That means if a coalition splits up, new elections are needed to form a new coalition. Sometimes it's hard for parties to come together, if the biggest parties don't want to compromise. We have a rather racist party over here that's consistently getting a bit part of the votes. The biggest party refuses to work with them, because they're just unprofessional in their language, so that often leads to a stalemate here and results in us not having a formal government for weeks or months.
coalitions are usually formalised by a kind of contract or government declaration what political projects they want to do together. it is not legally binding but politically often the yardstick for a government Germany has these political foundations which are usually politically somewhat biased (Bertelsmann tends to be business conservative - they whole coalition building part across the Atlantic at the end was kinda an ideological point for them, Adenauer foudnation conservative, Friedrich Ebert foundation social democratic etc...)
And most of us are happy with our political system. The two party system of USA is here a horror scenario, which is warned about. Because in USA you have everytime the same clush between two sides and no progress.
9:10 what the video doesn't mention is how the Bundestag, which is a so called "working parliament", functions. The representatives are not there to be present in debates all the time (although that's part of their job as well), they're mainly part of the Bundestag to work in committees and do faction work. Cause in the Bundestag there are no parties but factions consisting of representatives being member of a party. That's why the parties CDU and CSU's members are part of the "Union" faction in the parliament and not split in two according to their voting shares. There may also be independent representatives not part of any faction or party. In theory any parties could merge to one faction in the Bundestag, like Greens and SPD for example. It's the same in the parliament of the EU, there are multiple parties from multiple countries in parliament but they join together in few factions, like all the Green or environmentalist parties in Europe are part of the Green faction in parliament, it's even better to understand with the example of the EU parliament I guess. Back to Germany: The members of each faction get to work in committees and all factions have the right to have a certain amount of committee members and actually also committee leaders - which is more like a committee spokesperson and organization manager rather than a political leader. Committees work on proposed legislation, current issues and so on. So the AfD gets the same rights as other parties/factions and they also get to propose representatives for their slots in the committees. Reallistically speaking however the AfD proposed some people with right extremist events in their past for certain committee positions and rightfully so got their applicants rejected by the other members of the committees. Of course the AfD instantly cried like little babies about it and played the victim card. Had they proposed people without extremist backgrounds the other members would have approved the applicants. I think it was part of the victim role strategy of the AfD, they constantly complain about being disadvantaged in many ways but if you take one second and do some research it's evident that they just like to play the victims without actually having any valid argument.
6:57 it's not a law (that wouldn't make sense, because the government changes), it's a "coalition contract" (which is broken a lot these days by the FDP)
6:50 Usually there is a coalition treaty stating which are the goals for the current legislature period, which are the common projects of the coalition and which party gets the lead for which department. Nowadays in most parties that treaty has to be ratified by an assembly of delegates. Afterwards the coalition elects a representative of the biggest party as chancellor, the first test for the ability of the party leaders to hold a majority in parliament together.
Coalitions are for 1 voting period, a coalition of over 50% forms the governing coalition, everything else is the opposition. They usually form a written agreement of their major goal for the 4 years period at the start.
About the AfD, do they get anything done, no they don't. All they do is basically interrupting the normal procedures. Like shouting during discussions, submitting proposals that have to get voted on (even if there is zero chance they will pass), or playing other political games.
How could they get anything done if they never get the chance to get into any position to do so? No matter what they say, do or propose. It get's ignored anyway. So how could they get anything done? Please explain. And when it comes to interrupting and shouting etc. in the Bundestags-discussions. Open both eyes and ears. It's something other parties do too and on the same level.
@6:55 when a coalition is formed, they do it with a legal contract which includes which resorts each party will get and which will the government main focuses
4:20 I don't know much about how the German government system works but generally in my country (which currently the ruling coalition has a supermajority for the second time in our history), it would be easier and faster to pass laws you want than compared to if your coalition won at like 50.9% for example.
Here's a little fun fact in between: in Germany, any normal citizen can found his own party - all he needs is a constitution and a certain number of members and you can start doing politics yourself.
The law says the Kanzler is elected by the Bundestag and he/she forms the government. In the real world, a coalition is formed, they agree to a contract about politics and ministers and then elect the Kanzler. It has happened several times, that the coalition didn't last for the whole term. In this case, a new coalition can be formed and elect a different Kanzler or the Kanzler tries to govern with a minority and looks for partnership in each single question. If both didn't work, we get a new election within a few month.
The problem with this coalition system is, that when they "don't like" how we have voted them (aka when they can't settle on pulling on the same side of the string in various discussion point (or however you want to phrase it)) the can call for re-votes. Seriously, if they got voted in a way that a coalition is not possible for them, then ... simply ... don't form a coalition. This would be a minority leadership since no major blob of agreeing with each other could have formed. But this would mean that they would have to discuss and trying to convince each other. We would call that "democracy". They call it "work". And that scares them.
7:00 points out perfectly one of the problems that exists in American politics, or any political system with only 2 main parties. In a coalition, the more extreme ideas that nobody else agrees with can be kicked out of the main parties and relegated to the minor parties that nobody wants to work with. They will get a vote and their voices can still be heard but they can't influence major policies that everyone else disagrees with. In a 2 party system where each party only cares about beating the other party in every election, neither can afford to remove the extremes. There is no other party for them to go to and if they don't get the votes then the only other alternative is for the other party. If the politician with the extreme views is smart and recognises how important they are to their parties victory then they can attach a lot of demands to their continued support, knowing that the party can't, or won't, kick them out no matter how unpopular their views are.
We have MMP here which is similar in many ways to the German system but we also vote for our local politicians who will represent us in parliament. IMO it was a big improvement over "First Past the Post" (party with greatest number of seats wins) and encourages collaboration with smaller parties and more balanced policies.
the problems with a "red-white-blue" coalision are as follows: 1. we do not have a white party as far as I'm concerned 2. there would be no way a center left party and a far right party would join together because their core values are far to different. heck the traffic light, which is all pretty centric, has a lot of problems finding a problem to agree on 😅
By the way: The Bertelsmann Foundation was founded in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn, majority shareholder (by inheritance) and CEO of the Bertelsmann corporation, which he grew from a mid-size publishing house (which his grandfather Johannes Mohn had taken over in 1887 from his father-in-law Heinrich Bertelsmann) to a global media conglomerate. Since 1993 the Foundation holds the majority of shares of the Bertelsmann corporation, but because of the legal structure of the corporation as Bertelsmann SE & Co KGaA those shares establish only very limited voting rights regarding company policies. The Foundation is however very rich and uses its influence also for its own interests; some critics regard it a think tank for economic liberalism or even neoliberalism.
Theoretically, it's possible to have just one party run the country... a "coalition" is not required to form a government. But for that, they'd still need more than 50% of the Bundestag - our parliament - to consistently support them... and no party has managed to achive that in the history of the Federal Republic. So practically, even if you are the strongest party, you always have to find some other group to form a coalition with.
Well i don't know how its done in Germany but in the Netherlands you can sort of form a minority governement. Governing will be a bit tricky and they ussualy don't last. but you can shop by different party's to get the votes for diferent issues.
@@arturobianco848 Technically you can do that, but minority governments are considered instable and have therefore never been done on the highest level of government (though they happened a few times on the lower levels, meaing in the cities or the "länder").
@@swanpride Well the one party also never happenned in the Netherlands to, as fas i'm aware. But what the original poster stated is false you do not need a majority. Its just preferd for practicall reasons. So we should educated the poor american fellow propperly and confuse him a bit more 😉.
The couldn't cut the Green out, because Black and Red would NOT be over 50 % that's exactly the point. The graph didn't show the whole scale of 100% because no coalition ends up being 100% they all form to get just over or a little more over 50%. Otherwise they would form a two party coalition like the Grand Coalition that was right at the top. The graph went to maybe about 60% on the left side. But it's just am abstract representation of how coalitions can form, and what nickname each color combination has gotten. The nicknames are just a quick and catchy way of conveying what combination of colors ( = parties) you are talking about.
It has become common for a coalition to sign a "treaty", outlining their intended legislatory initiatives for the upcoming election period, but that is not binding, but rather a declaration of intent, and therefore usually not followed through strictly. A coalition is technically not required by law, but with less than 50% of the votes in Bundestag you will most likely not get your chancellor elected and not many laws passed. There are a very few examples of minority governments on Bundesland level and below, but those are usually the last resort, when no other coalition could get to an agreement. Usually they are "tolerated" by another party, that does not become part of the government, but helps to get them elected and will usually not completely block all of their legislation.
In Belgium we also have names for coalitions based on their color in the political spectrum. "Purple coalition": liberals (blue) + social democrats (red) "Swedish coalition" (colors of Swedish flag): liberals (blue) + Flemish nationalists (yellow) + Christian democrats (the cross) "Vivaldi coalition": coalition of 4 parties (actually 7, for three of them there's a Flemish and a Walloon variant). Refers to Vivaldi's Four Seasons (though it may have been called the "Pizza coalition" for the same reason 🙃).
Cooporation across different states, different parties, ideologies the nation, Europe, the world. That has always been a part of german politics. Even during the holy roman empire the emperor was voted on by different kingdoms and duchies (and just as today there was obviously corruption) And just as much as back then, we're still bickering and make jokes about each other, but work together and get to a compromise when we have to.
I think red, white, blue must be the most popular colours for a flag. You can add US; UK; OZ; NZ; Liberia; Norway; Russia; I think Croatia. That's just off the top of my head.
the coalistions are formalized with a so called "koalitionsvertrag", a coalition-contract, where the two or more parties that form the coalition state their goals and ministerial posts.
The coalition has sort of an official status, because when a coalition is formed, the parties work out a lengthy document, laying out all the agreements and compormises from the earlier negotiations. This document is then signed as a treaty for the parties to rely on, so they can say: "See, we agreed on that topic and you signed it." But as you can see right now, there is still a lot of wiggling room and debate over it, like the FDP would often be like "Yeah, we agreed on that topic IN GENERAL, but it isn't specified if this includes X (which we think it should)." And yes, breaking up a coalition is much like a divorce, with the parties going: "You betrayed me. I should have known from the start that you didn't mean it." or "You're not the party you used to be when we coalitioned two years ago." Also, there will be a lot of counselling and the junior partners be like: "Oh no, don't break up - what will become of us?" and the opposition leader party be like: "But what have they ever done for you? You'll be better off with me - let's form a new coalition and together, we will rule the galaxy!" So German politics is basically a Telenovela.
a coalition agreement is not legally binding. it is an agreement between the parties involved. it contains, for example, the desired goals, basic values and codes of conduct.
Here in Switzerland it works slightly different. The people elect the two chambers (similar to the Senate and the House of representatives in the US) and then they decide on the 7 heads of state for Switzerland. But since their power is very very limited it doesn't really matter other than for prestige. The power lies in the Parties who sit in the two houses. But since they barely ever find a consent, the final word is very often the people of Switzerland who kinda act like a referee. It's also very easy here to challenge a law made by the parties by a referendum so that the final say comes to the voters, no matter how the parties decided in the first place. It is a bit more complicated than that of course, but in a nutshell, that's the swiss semi direct democratic system. Almost every country in Europe has it's own flair of system. The american one seems weird to most here, especially when it comes to things like Electoral College
Coalitions are publicly known and announced but not necessarily a legal thing. It's more to inform the voters that these parties are working together and agree on certain things, which plays into re-elections a lot, but in the end a coalition can always fall apart and not everyone in a coalition will always support every choice of the coalition
The power of the parties far right and left is, that they take voters from the center-left and -right parties, so these are then weaker in the coalition negotations - which finally end with a treaty between the coalition partners. To not be "too weak" more center parties may take over some of the "ideas" of the more extrem parties to not loose even more voters or get voters back.
The coalition agreement is a very important part of an upcoming government. The coalition parties will compromise with each other on certain political points, but not all. For example, party A wants to raise a certain tax by 10%.; its perspective partner is against it; in the end the coalition agreement could see the tax not implementet at all, raised by the full 10% or raised by 5%, depending of how important that political point is for the agenda of each party. It's a "giving & taking", one party compromises on one point and gains on another. Small parties(in % of the vote) can even force some of their agendas through if they dont compromise on it and the other parties need their votes. Although the final political agenda is never as "extreme" as the parties promised during election, this system ensures that the wishes of smaller population are not ignored and the country changes slowly over the election cycles and not abruptly during just one election. Slow and steady; it has its own merit and demerit.
7:55 I think this is actually better here in Germany than in the US, since you can only be the head of the executive branch of government, if you have a majority in the legislative institution(s) (Majority in Bundesrat not actually necessary), so a stalemate, like it is now in the US or has been in the second half of Obamas second term, isn't possible or at least not as hard and troubling for the nation . So this limits the harm the different parties can do to the system if they disagree on all matters
many react the same way you did: "wait.. why is this combination called traffic light?" then shown a literal traffic light: "oh they meant it really that way"
4:36 While i don't recall it happening before, Parties might want to form a Coalition that encompasses significantly more than 50% under certain circumstances. Notably they might want to reach 2/3 to be able to change or ammend the constitution.
But even then it would basically be impossible to change the constitution since having a whole coalition agreeing on a change in the constitution is basically impossible
To backtrack a little bit: Few Minutes after the voting booths close we know the Results with like ~90% accuracy. Things can still change a little bit until the official results a few days or weeks later, but you'd genuinely expect that the results only vary by a handfull of parliament seats. This does however get interesting when a party (most likely FDP or Linke) are scrapping the 5% Bar, so it isn't sure until the official results if they are actually making it into parliament.
Coalitions are something semi-official. I don't think there is actually any legislation on them - i'm certain that they are not mentioned in the constitution at least, while parties themselve are - but that doesn't mean that they are entirely informal. The Parties forming a coalition do negotiate and sign a Coalition Contract that then gets published, lining out realitively detailed what they as a coalition think of the country's current situation and what they want to do about it. The German Political Satire Show "Heute-Show" actually had one of their comedians read out the entire Coalition Contract of the current coalition on RUclips and it's an almost 9 hour video. The fucking Preamble is 11.5 minutes on its own. (ruclips.net/video/gZKh5NaWz8E/видео.html)
@@alexanderzippel8809 From 1949 to 2021, the German constitution has been changed 65 times, about 0.9 changes per year or 3.6 changes per term on average. Sure, a tiny number compared to the total number of laws passed, but I wouldn't call it "basically impossible", given that it happens all the time.
It happened back during Adenauer's time, when there were only three parties. I think it was during his second term (might have been his third) that the CDU/CSU actually got more than 50% of the vote, but he decided to go into coalition anyway (I suspect partly to keep the CSU from making too much trouble....)
In Germany, the President and the Chief of the Administration (Chancellor) are two different roles. Formally, the President is Germany's highest office, but in fact, the German President has more of a representative function without much power. The power lies with the chancellor, who (according to the German constitution) "defines the political guidelines" (in German: Richtlinienkompetenz). The chancellor does not need to be from the largest party in the Bundestag, not even from the largest party in the coalition. Whoever gets a majority vote in the Bundestag, is the next Bundeskanzler. Neighboring Austria, which has a similar system, once had a Chancellor which came from the third ranked party. In 2000, Wolfgang Schüssel was elected chancellor, after the largest party, the SPÖ, failed to find a partner to form a coaltion, and the second placed FPÖ was led by Jörg Haider, a very controversial figure, who had no chance to get a majority vote in the Austrian Nationalrat. In the end, Wolfgang Schüssel's party, the ÖVP, formed a coaltion with the FPÖ under the condition, that Jörg Haider did not become the chancellor candidate.
First of all, I would like to say that things like back then can never happen again because now legal rules have been put in place that can never happen again - once was already too much. Then it is not an unwritten law that the party leader automatically becomes chancellor. We have a Bundestag with well over 600 seats to allocate - each party puts a candidate for chancellor up for election - but we ourselves choose the party and then it's a question of whether we can govern alone with a 2/3 majority with these 600 seats or do I have to look for coalition partners and then they decide among themselves who will be chancellor and who will hold which ministries from which party - so for once the Greens have become the governing party. Another important aspect is that politicians are not allowed to have their election campaigns financed from private campaign donations - this is to ensure incorruptibility the election campaign is therefore paid for by the German taxpayer the advantage of this is that I cannot form any lobbyists in our country and thus influence the formation of the government to their liking.Very importantly, the AFD does not have too high a percentage here, there simply aren't enough people who would vote for it. There are frustrated voters who unfortunately change their minds, but they will never have the opportunity to become so big. But what is democracy that I ban everything even what I don't like or that I discuss and talk about it and try to change something and yes unfortunately it also means that you have to listen to stupid Nazis. And we try to counteract the whole thing by not being as narrow-minded as we used to be and by counteracting the whole thing with education and intelligence and by teaching our children the right values so that no one can be influenced as easily as they were then.
Reguarding the chancler: In extreme cases we got something called "konstruktives Misstrauensvotum" (constructive vote of no confidence). If a big enough portion of the Bundestag doesn't trust the cancler in reguards of their promised goals or intentions and a big enough portion votes agains him, he will be booted from his possition and a new one will be voted in. This isn't something usual and has only happened once in 1982.
It's nearly impossible for one single party to win the majority vote. And forming a government by coalition keeps the leading party in check, they cannot unilaterally decide anything because if they tried their coalition partner would oppose them thus they would fail. So compromise is key.
Coalitions are not official or dictated by law, if any party would reach 50% of votes, they'd be the sole ruling party. But since no party ever reached 50% on their own, they have to form a coalition, otherwise there wouldn't be a government to form. I think this 50% hurdle is actually an official law, if I'm not mistaken. But how the parties get there after the votes have been passed is completely up to them.
(ya there are fraction and Koalition) like can not understand this in minutes it takes students 5 years of school and general knowledge of 19 years of live in Germany to understand stand this and only if they had A in every exam is 100% understanding but I appreciate your effort and your interest
6:22 Jep, the weeks after election are way more entertaining than the election.
The sudden switch between full blown pre-election banther and post-election courtship is super funny.
"The green will lead this country into ruins they can´t be allowed to be part of the gouverment!"
12 hours later
"The greens are a natural partner for us and we support their agenda." 🤣
Adding to this, at 6:50 you asked if it is something official. Yes, yes it is official. There is a coalition-contract that both parties sign and that contains all their goals and agreements. One party can actually sue the other if they thing the other party is violating the contract.
I think this is a pretty good system because it means the parties have to be able to work together to accomplish anything, so it stops them from becoming too radical.
Except for the AfD, doesn't want to work anyway and is happy if their representatives get paid taxpayer money for bitching and moaning from the sidelines.
@@Xardaras Pretty sure they can’t sue as a coalition agreement is not legally binding. However it still isn’t advised to break the agreement on a whim as it could disrupt the government and will likely be punished by voters as well as reduce the chances of a further government participation for the offending party.
Frankly, the best entertainement is always the first round, when every party explains why THEY are actually the big winner of the election, even if they lost votes.
@@swanpride Agreed, I love those.
2:38 Funny, it's the opposite in Germany: In public, the coalition parties shake hands and demonstrate unity, while behind closed doors they are fighting each other. xD
Its probable so in every Pr like system. You don't always get a coalition you like but was the best you could get. I bet there are a lot of dirty looks inside the party's in the US to since they are to large to hold the differnt way's people should feel.
8:03 While technically they could elect anyone to be chancellor, it's an unwritten rule that the party leader of the largest coalition party will become chancellor. So it's not like voters will get completely surprised, they know the likely candidates for chancellor before the election.
From what I remember, the US actually set it up that way so that, "Hitler can't happen again".
It is not always the "party leader". Scholz for example was only the designated chancellor candidate, but the party leaders are/were Saskia Esken and Norbert Walter-Borjans.
Sad Söder noises
@@f_f_f_8142 Exactly. Helmut Schmidt and Gerhard Schröder also got to be chancellors without being their party's leader (although Schröder was elected as party leader one year after the federal election).
For my taste I would also prefer to keep those positions seperate, so the chancellor isn't too powerful and the governing party has more potential to deal with questions which are not directly connected with governmental issues.
@@MarcLucksch That system has nothing to do with Hitler's rise to power. Hitler was appointed chancellor of a minority government by President Hindenburg after several elections resulted in a negative minority (meaning that there was no feasible coalition to form a majority, i.e. the largest parties wouldn't form a coaltion with the NSDAP or the KPD which both added up to more than 50% of the votes). The most important change between the Weimarer and Bonner Republic was the curtailment of the president's power. The idea to give the parliament more power ( electing the chancellor, determination of emergency states), is an old idea of the democratic movement (prevalent for example 1848) and differs substantially from the presidential system of the U.S. What you could say is that the US mainly allowed people that would support such system to become influential figures in the Parlamentarische Rat but it is by now means that the US would have dictated our Grundgesetz.
5:00 The sudden realization what traffic light they meant in all those memes :D
I remember we had one situation where the parties could not find common ground for any coalition for weeks, which caused or President for the first time ever to tell them to finally get their shit together. It was insane.
Yeah that was 5 years ago after Jamaica failed right?
Though the Belgians probably found that amusing, given that taking weeks is like an amateur move for them. Belgium once took 589 days to form a new government...
@@ohauss Damn.
@@ChemOrSmth Yeah, I think you're right.
fun thing was: I voted and then went on a backpacking tour for half a year, I think they only managed to find a coaltion shortly before I came back, so basically I went and when I came back half a year later things where just the same as when I left :D
Well first of all, elections in germany are generally on a Sunday, so a work free day for most people, so that they can attend without compromising.
Polling Stations are open from 8am to 6pm (correction made here), so everybody gets the chance to get to vote in this 10hour time frame. Also there are enough polling stations, that you dont have to wait 4 hours to vote.
During the day, spot check questionaires are made by interviewing people who just have voted. From these numbers an rough estimate of the current vote distribution is made.
The last spot checks are made around 6pm, now with the full voting period as an estimate how the vote distribution but also the voter turnout of the election ended up.
After polling stations closed, all ballot papers and votes are counted overnight, so that on the next morning the Newspapers can publish the correct voters turnout and election results.
If you think that having an election result within less than 24 hours and with as little inconvenience as possible for the population is advanced.... we dont use voting computers or digital vote, everyting is on paper.
The US is just extremely inefficient and incompetent when it comes to elections.
Alot of the "they stole the elections" Bullshit is due to this incompetent and inefficient election system in the USA.
Coalitions in the government sign a Coalition Treaty, where they outlined their cooperative goals for the government, compromises etc.
Each partner can voluntarily leave the coalition.
In best case, this would result in a reshuffle of ministerial posts etc and a minority government vs a majority opposition, where the opposition is able to dictate more of their political ideas to the government, due to the government party/coalition now has to compromise with parts of the opposition to gain a legislative majority to pass laws and government actions.
In worst case, this could result in an early election, ending the 4 year legislative period between elections short. (This happened in 2005 with the SPD/Grüne Coalition, where Schröder, the Chancellor, lost his Vote of Confidence and thus the government had to dissolve ahead of time)
Please keep in mind that the Berteslmann Foundation is a neoliberal think tank and lobby organisation, not a non profit organisation.
I mean, we do have our black sheep here in Germany as well regarding election/voting results. Cue "Berlin-Wahl" 🤐🤫
@@D0MiN0ChAn sure, but those cases are the exception not the rule and happen on the state level not federal level.
The number of those cases can be counted on 2 hands over the last 80 years.
Wich is a good quota i would say.
Sorry to correct: ALLPolling stations are open fom 8 am - 6 pm!
@@Heike-r2o never seen one that was not, but sure, that can happen
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Nope its the LAW. It's regulated in the Bundeswahlgesetz, §47 BWO to be accurated. You can only have reasons to open earlier that 8 am. there is no way you are allowed to open later than 8 am
"Yeah, sex is great, but have you ever figured out what 'trafic light' memes are about after being confused for a month?"
Ryan Wass, probably
I was a helper at the last federal, state and local elections in Lower Saxony. Voting stops at 6 pm and right after that the counting starts directly at the polling station with ~ 7 people. It's open to the public, everyone can come and observe. Counting is done by hand - old fashioned with tally sheets and results are afterwards filled into a form. Every vote is counted twice by different people (at least). Provisional results were phoned in roughly after 90 minutes - and the whole counting process, with all forms filled and signed by all helpers and everything under seal, never lasted longer than 2 1/2 hours.
btw: we got an expense allowance of 60€ for it (which is not a taxable income).
And I already heard people from the US say it is not scalable even when I told them how it works...
But that's the issue, it's "supposedly" open to the public, but no one really is present on the counting. So do you ever know if cheating happens?
In my opinion it should displayed life on TV/Internet and else.
@@KamichamaTechstarify You would need a ton of infrastructure for it, since basically every village has their own polling station, not to mention towns having multiple ones for different areas (and we are speaking of a low 4 digit number here). The more important thing is, representatives of all parties are present, so good luck convincing both an Die Linke and an AfD member to change stuff in general and the others to change stuff that it benefits one party there. And then have everyone stay quiet
@@KamichamaTechstarify It is counted multiple times from diferent people
@@KamichamaTechstarify You can literally be present during the counting if you want to and a lot of people do.
It's just that usually nothing happens, people are just counting votes in there according to the rules
regarding the AFD, you are right, currently they cannot get anyone to vote for their candidate as a chancellor nor form any kind of coalition. But that was also said before 1932 about the NSDAP. We need to stay vigilant and call out hatred and racism wherever it occurs do not let them get any more track. In some states in Germany, they already have about 20% of the votes, which is a lot in the current political system.
NSDAP didnt get more than 37,7% in the elections prior to 1933, in the 1932 election they got 33%.
And in the most relevant election in 1933 they got barely 44%.
And that was mostly due to voter surpression by the SA infront of polling stations.
The nazis never had the majority.
It was due to Hindenburg appointing Hitler as Chancellor, that the NSDAP got into power.
Which honestly proves one thing to me:
The worse the living conditions for people, the easier they get roped in by fascists.
If you have job security, a proper salary and a good education enabling you a future full of real chances there's simply no reason to follow fascists who tell you
"Your life is so bad because of Jewish people/immigrants/gay people/trans people/[insert any other minority]. If you vote for us we get rid of them and then YOU will be on top again"
Of course that won't ever happen because fascists don't actually care for poor people but for power and control. After all minorities have been stomped out the poor people will be next, regardless of their nationality or patriotism towards the regime.
Just ask Martin Niemöller.
Wich is about normal there are about 30% of the population in every western country that are attracted to the more extreme more facist like way of soing things. Some go to the extreme left but most go to the right. So about 25% is your upper limit if it comes above that you know your country is in trouble. 10% to 20% is considerate normale if you truly have a free society. Below 10% means that there is some heavy pressure not to vote or air such opnions wich while fine by me, nut means that there isn't really a free society as some of it is represt (wich if its this part i don't care that much).
@@ngotemna8875 "the worse the situation for the german population is, the better it is for the AFD". -Christian Lüth, former Press Secretary of the AFD in an confidential conversation.
To be clear: the NSDAP got into government by forming a coalition with the conservative party at the behest of indutrial leaders.
A coalition is official in the way that they form a contract, and if one of the parties breaks the contract, the coalition can split up. But it’s not as official as in legally binding official it’s more of an agreement between the parties, and the coalition contract secures that all the parties know what they can expect from the others, and what the general direction will be in the next four years.
1:30 Voting starts at 8:00, ends at 18:00, and we get first estimate results at about 18:00.
The voting process also is very different from what i know about the US. My designated voting booth is about 500m away, i get there early, show my ID Card alongside with the letter i got prior, get my papers, make my selection, return it, and thats it. 20 minutes later im already home again. Oh and its always on a Sunday - no need to hurry or get there in my work break.
And everybody past 16 has said ID card. Usually, the ID is enough if you don't have the letter on hand as well.
@@Llortnerof or only the letter is possible. But it's better to have the ID with you.
@@piiinkDeluxe I always have the ID card with me, but I haven't been asked for it in years, they always accept just the letter. I only did voting per letter once, during Corona, otherwise I enjoy the little stroll to cast my vote.
@@swanpride Technically you're required to keep the card on your person anyway. I don't think this ever actually gets checked though.
@@Llortnerof Nope, that is a common misunerstanding. You are required to OWN an identity card and you should know, where it is, but you are not required to carry it with you all the time. It is just easier to do so because otherwise if you for example need to identify yourself the police will have to escort you home so that you can procure the card for them.
1:33 It usually takes one night to get preliminary results. Results of election day polls are available at 6 p.m. sharp. There are projections in between
Voting is done with pen and paper and counting is done by people
@@schnelma605 and you can come in and watch them count.
@@schnelma605 And anybody can come and observe that everything is going the way it's supposed to.
@@IchWerSont That's why digital voting will most likely never be a thing.
Bundesgerichtshof (our Supreme Court, basically) decided that it must be easily comprehensible for the voter to see what happens with your vote.
Like all of you said you can watch the counting being done. But also everything in-between.
You cannot do that with digital voting.
You push a button on a PC and then what?
Where is the electrical signal going? What does the program of the PC do with the input?
Can your input be manipulated on the way to its destination?
What happens if you vote and a power outage happens while pressing "send"?
I don't know. You don't know. Nobody knows.
@@ngotemna8875 Honestly, not everything needs to be automated.
Once every few years (including local elections) having to fill out a few Xs on a ballot isn't really a big deal if it helps with accuracy and security
I find it both funny and tragic that you think it weird or bad when politicians from different parties "cross the aisle" after an election or a campaign. It's really not: Sure, German politics are defined by compromise which often leads to watered down versions of good (and also bad) ideas, whereas one party's agenda is rarely if ever fully realized. Then again: The system itself makes it necessary to get out of your own bubble and engage on issues you yourself might not understand which in turn leads to maybe not a willingness but at least a need to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Which ideally leads to a little more empathy and a little less elbow egomania in the political sphere.
Of course, on the other hand it's also a system that works more slowly since more people need to agree on something which might explain at least some of what Germans call Politikverdrossenheit (disillusionment with politics). But as a German who actually appreciates compromise - admittedly in my older age; in my 20s I found it unbearable, too, at times - I would argue that it's a better system than to have only two viable parties who systemically have be at each other's throats to score points.
A couple of years ago I had a chance to listen to a politician from one of the countries in central Africa. He remarked that to him the thing that took him the longest to understand about German politics was that there are only opponents there, not enemies.
thats actually a very good way to descibe it smart african man.
It does have upsides and downsides, yes. It's definitely good that they need to work together, downside is the dilution of good policies and that technically a junior partner can hold the entire government hostage (as the FDP likes to do now).
@@johanneskaiser8188 That, actually, is a great example for bubble thinking: The Greens believe ideologically that they are perfectly right and that a couple of billions here or there makes no difference to save the world (within the very limited confines of Germany). The Free Democrats believe that those couple of billions here or there as government debt will make a huge difference down the line (since we've been down that road before leading to a point where all a government could do was pay off its debt). Are the Greens objectively right? Surely not. Are the Free Democrats? Surely not. It takes a compromise, and compromise takes time, and everything that takes time is seen as frustrating. On the other hand, not having pure ideology become law is, I believe, actually a good thing, since non of the ideologies in the current government (or the one before that, for that matter) would be particularly beneficial.
@@christophwolf663 My problem is not with what I perceive to be right or wrong, but with the principle that the smallest junior partner can theoretically hold the entire government hostage. "Do what I say or we have to hold new elections bc I jump ship" is neither good style nor healthy.
AddOn: Should smaller partners have a say? Oh, absolutely. Should they be able to almost literally tropedo anything just on their own? Perhaps not.
Yes it is an official coalition. They have to settle on their stands to different topics and barter who gets the right of way in which topic. In the end they have a "Koalitionsvertrag" --> coalition contract
No, it is informal, there is no law for this. Also as we seen plenty the last decades the Koalitionsvertrag is not legally binding. There is another thing Fraktionszwang, free translated as the duty to vote like your coalition or Faction, is not a legal thing.
And afterwards they can ignore the contract for the next 4 years because of Schuldenbremse.
@@Kelsar1981 exactly. A "Minderheitsregierung" (Minority Government) can exist and is legal. Nothing is stopping it from existing
They do broker a deal, and it's put on paper as a contract, but it's not really any more binding than any other political promise (you break those terms on your own peril, though, as coalition partners and voters alike might get angry with you). And it certainly is not a formal part of the officially codified political process.
@@MasterHigure Yeah, like the CDU and SPD breaking their own contract by legalizing uploadfilters for platforms like youtube.
I should add that while we do not get to vote the Chancellor into Office, the Chancellor has a lot less individual power than most Presidents.
Funnily, we also have a President, but that role exists exclusively to travel to places and shake hands.
Streng genommen ist der Bundespräsident der oberste Mann im Staat, was noch aus der Zeit der Weimarer Republik stammt. Der Kanzler ist "bloß" dessen Stellvertreter und der Chef der Regierung, wird aber in der Öffentlichkeit mit mehr Aufmerksamkeit bedacht.
The (Voted by a collectoral summit) German president is official the first Member of State.
More like a representative position - similar to the King of the UK. He (the President) is the final position to check and controll the goverment. He has to sign laws (and can deny to sign them - this happend a few times), he can disolve the goverment and call new elections etc.
Second position is the Presdent of the Bundestag (Parlament) and the Chancelor is at third position.
I'm studying German in the Netherlands and we've been taught that the Bundespräsident has pretty much the same function as the Dutch king and queen. They represent their country - full stop :P
In my opinion, a purely representative president, as Germany has, makes no sense. The same function could easily be taken over by, say, the president of parliament.
@@mina_en_suiza the point of the president is to be outside the parliament
5:00 After watching you for weeks not understanding Ampel or traffic light or coalition...this was somwhat satisfying xD
Now you just gotta rewatch all those videos again with your new knowledge LOL
5:05 Ryan going "Aaaaaah!" as if we hadn't been explaining what the traffic light coalition is numerous times in the past.
This video is part of the ever growing list of proof that he doesn't really read the comments, or he ignores them to push/increase activity on his videos.
It was like in the scene in "Finding Nemo" when Dori suddenly started remembering everything
After weeks of ignoring the comment section screaming at him what the meaning of that traffic light is, he finally got it. Congrats.
I don't think he reads the comments.
@@tosa2522 Yeah, that's the whole point
The whole systems really helps to keep the fighting between most parties down to a certain level, just because after the election you might have to cooperate.
1:30 We get forecasts because some research groups ask people after they voted what they voted for. It's relatively accurrate most of the time.
The AFD political program represents what Republicans stand for. The CDU, which is conservative/right, is what Democrats in the USA represent if you look at each of their goals.
Yep. There is not left party in the USA.
Not even center-left
You have right-wingers and center-rightwingers. Both beholden to the economic titans of the country (though that's not different here. Remember Porsche basically dictating the coalition contract for the FDP? I member)
As your neighbours i would agree with that asesment fortunatly for you you only have 1 extreme right wing luny party. We sort of got 2 and half the last one is very right but not luny and split of from one of the luny ones.
I'd say the AFD is still a good bit left of modern Republicans. Heck, at this point the NSDAP positions might be left of them (obviously not the actual party on account of no longer existing). Especially the insanity in Florida.
And the most right-wing party that at the moment is the NPD.
How dare you? Don't you know that nowadays republicans have become fascists? 🤣 Joel Roth the pedophile said this. And Biden the second pedophile, too. So it must be correct. 🤣 Just like it must be correct, that AfD are fascists. Because..... because..... ehm....... ISSO! The Mainstream media says it! 🤣 So it must ne true.
1:12 That Bertelsmann Foundation is the most powerful lobby group/think tank in Germany.
Traffic Light: "German words are sooo long!"
Ampel: "Hold my beer."
...also Ampel: "Well, Ampel is only my nickname! My full name is Lichtsignalanlage!" :)
@@JohnHazelwood58 Truuuuuuueeeee hahaha
Also:
"My name is 'raumübergreifendes Großgrün' but my friends call me 'Baum'"
We can discuss this during the next Regierungskoalitionsverhandlungen.
And english words are like: "Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis".
99,9% game over at the american spelling contests for sure! XD
I stick with the much easier and shorter german translatation: "Quarzstaublunge".
@@JohnHazelwood58 wait, wasn't it "Wechsellichtzeichenanlage"? Or am i wrong?
watching you understand things made me appreciate this video (from Bertelsmann Stiftung umm Foundation). There's loads more to understand but hey, step by step does the trick! looking forward to your future education on the basics of German politics.
Your reaction when you finally learned about the Ampel was why I waited for this video. 👌
I think you got a good grasp on our political system as shown in this video, you got everything they explained. The next thing to get a better understanding of how these things work would be watching a video about the "5% Hürde" (Hürde = hurdle), but I don't personally know a good enlish video about this topic.
Maybe a fellow commenter can link you to something regarding this, or maybe you find one on your own!
best wishes
No Video but (maybe) a short introduction: The 5% hurdle was introduced because the missing of such a barrier was one brick in the instability of the Weimar Republic and was also one reason Hitler was able to use this political instability to raise power.
In the Weimar Republic every party with a few votes got a seat in the parlament and therefore the goverment has to be a coalition of many small and tiny parties. This made it near impossible to create a stable coalition and caused that often no majorety was found and one election after the other (As I remember in one year 3 or 4 Elections) where needed. So no continuity, no safety, no stable goverment.
When the "Grundgesetz" (Constitution) was formed in 1949 they introduced a threshold of "minimum 5%" of the votes was intruduced to limit the number of parties in the Parlament (theoretical max. 20 parties each with 5% of the votes are possible) to avoid this instability.
In reality in our German parliament the coalition often has LESS than 50 % of the votes but more than 50 % of the seats. That's due to our 5%-Threshhold. A party must get at least 5 % OR at least three direct candidates to form a fraction/group in parliament. So the sum of those other parties might have a share of about 9% of votes but none is represented in the Bundestag. This means a possible coalition would only need about 45,5 % of the votes to form a government because they would still have more than 50 % of the seats in parliament.
The last election results of 2021 were:
SPD: 25,7 %. 206 seats
CDU/CSU: 24,1 %. 197 seats
Greens: 14,8 %. 118 seats
FDP: 11,5 %. 92 seats
AfD: 10,3 %. 83 seats
Left: 4,9 % (represented in parliament because they got three direct candidates) 39 seats
OTHERS: 8,7 % (one seat because ONE protected minority party related to the Danish was won) 1 seat
Total number of seats in parliament: 736
necessary amount of seats to form a coalition: (736/2)+1 = 369
Number of seats of the current traffic-light-coalition: 52,0 % of votes and has 416 seats (56,5 %)
A grand coalition (SPD/CDU/CSU) would have 49,8 % of votes but would have 403 seats (54,8 % of seats) in parliament.
A Jamaica-coalition (CDU/CSU/Greens/FDP) would have 50,4 % of votes but 407 seats (55,3 %) in parliament.
A theoretical CDU/CSU/FDP/AfD-coalition would have 45,9 % of votes but 372 (50,5 %) seats in parliament.
An SPD/Left/Green-coalition would fail to form a coalition because the number of seats would be 363 (49,3 % of seats). However they would unify 45,4 % of votes. They could have ONLY formed a coalition if the OTHER parties had achieved a higher share of unrepresented votes! Check out the close call with the theoretical center-right coalition with 372 seats!
It is not a loose association of parties. The coalition is governed by contract. This contract contains the political goals for the legislative period.
The afd effectively consists of two kinds of people: racists/nazis, and the people who maybe aren’t ones themselves but are okay with being in the same political party as nazis.
There are even court rulings that allow to call some of the heads of the party that, so ..
7:14 "5% or whatever they bring to the table" *cries in 10%*
The most important difference between the political systems: in theorie, having multiple parties enables the voter to vote not only for the lesser evil, but something that actually suits their needs and wishes.
In reality, there is some messy stuff going on, like one party hindering the other to get things done.
Best example right now would be the legalization von cannabis:
The greens have been pushing this issue for decades as well as the (neo)liberals (FDP, represented by the yellow color), the social democrats (SPD, represented in red) only changed their attitude when entering the traffic light coalition. Speaking of coalitions: yes, after agreeing on the different politcal aspects, they actually set up a contract.
The opposition however, consisting of the far right AFD and the also very much rightwing CDU/CSU, is totally against legalization.
Since the german political system has two houses (Bundestag and Bundesrat), things get a little messy:
The Bundestag ("lower house") has the traffic light coalition, so things should work out pretty easily. But since the Bundesrat ("upper house") must agree to bigger changes, this is not as easy:
the Bundesrat represents the political coalitions of the individual states, the number of seats for a state represents the number of inhabitant in that state: more inhabitants equals more seats. For a law to be accepted, it must get 50% of the votes in the Bundesrat after having passed the Bundestag.
And the Bundesrat is dominated by the right wing CDU, which enables them to block the implementation of this law, essentailly resulting in a standoff situation with overall stagnation.
About the coalition thing and law ... actually, coalitions are kind of against the german Grundgesetz (the name of our constitution), as it says in Article 38 that every representative isn't bound by instruction. And coalitions are all about instructions from "higher" authorities inside the coalition.
Athough it is usually accepted as "neccesary" for the stability of germany that the executive branche controls part of the legislative branch (even with stuff that borders to extortion), though not very democratic in my opinion.
You might want to watch another video explaining the voting system in germany. You actually have to votes. The first one us voting for a candidate in your county, they don't have to run for a party, but they usually do. The person with the most votes for every county gets to the parliament. Your second (arguably way more important) vote is for a party. If a party gets three or more direct mandates (that is elected canditates running for their party) or alternatively over 5% of second votes, the party gets to send a number of representatives proportional to their amount of second votes to parliament. However now it gets tricky. If a party has got more direct mandates, than are indicated by their second vote share ( of the parties in the bundestag), all the other partyies are granted additional seats until the share of seats for each party roughly resembles the percentages again. I know its quite complicated but I think its actually thought through quite well.
6:43 Even though the coalition partners sign a "coalition contract" at the beginning of their term, it's not legally binding at all! It's more like a "letter of intent". In theory, a coalition can split up at any time by one (or more) coalition partners refusing to continue to cooperate (e.g. voting against joint legislation). It has only happened once in the history of modern Germany (in 1982), but of course it's a common threat among coalition partners when disagreements arise.
Pretty similar to how it works in Sweden too. (except here, the far-right option has slowly gotten bigger and bigger until it is the second largest party and is now impossible to ignore, so it is actually part of our current government... )
Interesting, now it would be interesting to see the difference of definition of far right between Germany and Sweden. For example our far right party wanted to shoot at refugees if they try to enter the country illegal. (Most extreme proposition the talked about) and all foreigners with no german heritage are not allowed to have a german passport.
@@v.kut7307 And I was always wondering why people were so angry about it. The CDU was also saying we needed "safe borders". You can't have "safe borders" without shooting. It's not a "save" border if all you see of it is a sign in the middle of a field.
Everyone who calls for a save border is calling to kill people.
@@v.kut7307 Not even entering illegally.
Frauke Petry said this specifically in regards to asylum seekers.
If you seek asylum you are not illegally entering. Period.
And no, the rule of seeking asylum in the first country you set foot in does not supersede this.
You still must properly look into the case and if you find out they should have asked for asylum in Greece or whatever you then can send them back
(which I am against, too, but that's another point)
I repeat:
Frauke Petry and the Afd, which fully supported her, wanted to shoot innocent asylum seekers for the "crime" of fleeing from certain death.
Absolutely disgusting. This should have been the end of this toxic sludge that calls themselves a political party.
@@ngotemna8875 woah that's even worse then I thought
@@ngotemna8875 And let's not forget that Petry is considered more moderate than the people who are now in charge of the damned party....
6:45 yes, (at least here in the Netherlands, but I assume in Germany too) a coalition is the government. That means if a coalition splits up, new elections are needed to form a new coalition.
Sometimes it's hard for parties to come together, if the biggest parties don't want to compromise. We have a rather racist party over here that's consistently getting a bit part of the votes. The biggest party refuses to work with them, because they're just unprofessional in their language, so that often leads to a stalemate here and results in us not having a formal government for weeks or months.
I mean basically AFD.
coalitions are usually formalised by a kind of contract or government declaration what political projects they want to do together. it is not legally binding but politically often the yardstick for a government
Germany has these political foundations which are usually politically somewhat biased (Bertelsmann tends to be business conservative - they whole coalition building part across the Atlantic at the end was kinda an ideological point for them, Adenauer foudnation conservative, Friedrich Ebert foundation social democratic etc...)
your comments make these videos very much interesting !!!
And most of us are happy with our political system.
The two party system of USA is here a horror scenario, which is warned about.
Because in USA you have everytime the same clush between two sides and no progress.
9:10 what the video doesn't mention is how the Bundestag, which is a so called "working parliament", functions.
The representatives are not there to be present in debates all the time (although that's part of their job as well), they're mainly part of the Bundestag to work in committees and do faction work.
Cause in the Bundestag there are no parties but factions consisting of representatives being member of a party. That's why the parties CDU and CSU's members are part of the "Union" faction in the parliament and not split in two according to their voting shares. There may also be independent representatives not part of any faction or party.
In theory any parties could merge to one faction in the Bundestag, like Greens and SPD for example.
It's the same in the parliament of the EU, there are multiple parties from multiple countries in parliament but they join together in few factions, like all the Green or environmentalist parties in Europe are part of the Green faction in parliament, it's even better to understand with the example of the EU parliament I guess.
Back to Germany: The members of each faction get to work in committees and all factions have the right to have a certain amount of committee members and actually also committee leaders - which is more like a committee spokesperson and organization manager rather than a political leader. Committees work on proposed legislation, current issues and so on. So the AfD gets the same rights as other parties/factions and they also get to propose representatives for their slots in the committees.
Reallistically speaking however the AfD proposed some people with right extremist events in their past for certain committee positions and rightfully so got their applicants rejected by the other members of the committees. Of course the AfD instantly cried like little babies about it and played the victim card. Had they proposed people without extremist backgrounds the other members would have approved the applicants. I think it was part of the victim role strategy of the AfD, they constantly complain about being disadvantaged in many ways but if you take one second and do some research it's evident that they just like to play the victims without actually having any valid argument.
This is exactly the video I was waiting for after Ryan recently got confused by the meaning of "Ampel" in german politics!
It is kind of official with the coalition, they even formulate a coalition contract where during negotiations discussed points are written down.
There is a really good video about the Berlin airlift that is way shorter than 50 min on the extra credits/extra history channel.
6:57 it's not a law (that wouldn't make sense, because the government changes), it's a "coalition contract" (which is broken a lot these days by the FDP)
6:50 Usually there is a coalition treaty stating which are the goals for the current legislature period, which are the common projects of the coalition and which party gets the lead for which department. Nowadays in most parties that treaty has to be ratified by an assembly of delegates. Afterwards the coalition elects a representative of the biggest party as chancellor, the first test for the ability of the party leaders to hold a majority in parliament together.
Coalitions are for 1 voting period, a coalition of over 50% forms the governing coalition, everything else is the opposition. They usually form a written agreement of their major goal for the 4 years period at the start.
So nice to see how Ryan suddenly understands
Thank you!
About the AfD, do they get anything done, no they don't. All they do is basically interrupting the normal procedures.
Like shouting during discussions, submitting proposals that have to get voted on (even if there is zero chance they will pass), or playing other political games.
How could they get anything done if they never get the chance to get into any position to do so?
No matter what they say, do or propose. It get's ignored anyway. So how could they get anything done? Please explain.
And when it comes to interrupting and shouting etc. in the Bundestags-discussions. Open both eyes and ears. It's something other parties do too and on the same level.
That video was very informative
@6:55 when a coalition is formed, they do it with a legal contract which includes which resorts each party will get and which will the government main focuses
4:20 I don't know much about how the German government system works but generally in my country (which currently the ruling coalition has a supermajority for the second time in our history), it would be easier and faster to pass laws you want than compared to if your coalition won at like 50.9% for example.
Here's a little fun fact in between: in Germany, any normal citizen can found his own party - all he needs is a constitution and a certain number of members and you can start doing politics yourself.
9:17 no they don’t get anything done, and I hope that stays that way
A Video where you React to German Music Would be Cool 👍
Oh yes, he could start with TruckStop, that would sound most familiar to his American ears.
The law says the Kanzler is elected by the Bundestag and he/she forms the government.
In the real world, a coalition is formed, they agree to a contract about politics and ministers and then elect the Kanzler. It has happened several times, that the coalition didn't last for the whole term. In this case, a new coalition can be formed and elect a different Kanzler or the Kanzler tries to govern with a minority and looks for partnership in each single question. If both didn't work, we get a new election within a few month.
Nice! 🙂
Bertelsmann is a well-known German publisher founded in 1835.
The problem with this coalition system is, that when they "don't like" how we have voted them (aka when they can't settle on pulling on the same side of the string in various discussion point (or however you want to phrase it)) the can call for re-votes.
Seriously, if they got voted in a way that a coalition is not possible for them, then ... simply ... don't form a coalition. This would be a minority leadership since no major blob of agreeing with each other could have formed.
But this would mean that they would have to discuss and trying to convince each other. We would call that "democracy". They call it "work". And that scares them.
4:30 @RyanWass you think wrong, those blocks form a coalition to get 50% or more… if they „get rid of one block“ then they have less then 50%.
You should do more videos with germans to explain you the details. I think that would answer some of your questions :D
To put it in perspective what you call center is right wing in germany.
7:29 It is a history thing ... 😉
7:00 points out perfectly one of the problems that exists in American politics, or any political system with only 2 main parties.
In a coalition, the more extreme ideas that nobody else agrees with can be kicked out of the main parties and relegated to the minor parties that nobody wants to work with. They will get a vote and their voices can still be heard but they can't influence major policies that everyone else disagrees with.
In a 2 party system where each party only cares about beating the other party in every election, neither can afford to remove the extremes. There is no other party for them to go to and if they don't get the votes then the only other alternative is for the other party. If the politician with the extreme views is smart and recognises how important they are to their parties victory then they can attach a lot of demands to their continued support, knowing that the party can't, or won't, kick them out no matter how unpopular their views are.
We have MMP here which is similar in many ways to the German system but we also vote for our local politicians who will represent us in parliament. IMO it was a big improvement over "First Past the Post" (party with greatest number of seats wins) and encourages collaboration with smaller parties and more balanced policies.
the problems with a "red-white-blue" coalision are as follows:
1. we do not have a white party as far as I'm concerned
2. there would be no way a center left party and a far right party would join together because their core values are far to different.
heck the traffic light, which is all pretty centric, has a lot of problems finding a problem to agree on 😅
By the way: The Bertelsmann Foundation was founded in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn, majority shareholder (by inheritance) and CEO of the Bertelsmann corporation, which he grew from a mid-size publishing house (which his grandfather Johannes Mohn had taken over in 1887 from his father-in-law Heinrich Bertelsmann) to a global media conglomerate. Since 1993 the Foundation holds the majority of shares of the Bertelsmann corporation, but because of the legal structure of the corporation as Bertelsmann SE & Co KGaA those shares establish only very limited voting rights regarding company policies. The Foundation is however very rich and uses its influence also for its own interests; some critics regard it a think tank for economic liberalism or even neoliberalism.
oh oh
Theoretically, it's possible to have just one party run the country... a "coalition" is not required to form a government.
But for that, they'd still need more than 50% of the Bundestag - our parliament - to consistently support them... and no party has managed to achive that in the history of the Federal Republic.
So practically, even if you are the strongest party, you always have to find some other group to form a coalition with.
Well i don't know how its done in Germany but in the Netherlands you can sort of form a minority governement. Governing will be a bit tricky and they ussualy don't last. but you can shop by different party's to get the votes for diferent issues.
@@arturobianco848 Yes you can form a minority government but with the same problems you pointed out yourself
@@arturobianco848 Technically you can do that, but minority governments are considered instable and have therefore never been done on the highest level of government (though they happened a few times on the lower levels, meaing in the cities or the "länder").
@@swanpride Well the one party also never happenned in the Netherlands to, as fas i'm aware. But what the original poster stated is false you do not need a majority. Its just preferd for practicall reasons. So we should educated the poor american fellow propperly and confuse him a bit more 😉.
6:41 Is that a tank called IS-6 in the picture in the grey corner? I think it's from World of Tanks or maybe Warthunder.
The couldn't cut the Green out, because Black and Red would NOT be over 50 % that's exactly the point. The graph didn't show the whole scale of 100% because no coalition ends up being 100% they all form to get just over or a little more over 50%. Otherwise they would form a two party coalition like the Grand Coalition that was right at the top.
The graph went to maybe about 60% on the left side. But it's just am abstract representation of how coalitions can form, and what nickname each color combination has gotten. The nicknames are just a quick and catchy way of conveying what combination of colors ( = parties) you are talking about.
It has become common for a coalition to sign a "treaty", outlining their intended legislatory initiatives for the upcoming election period, but that is not binding, but rather a declaration of intent, and therefore usually not followed through strictly. A coalition is technically not required by law, but with less than 50% of the votes in Bundestag you will most likely not get your chancellor elected and not many laws passed. There are a very few examples of minority governments on Bundesland level and below, but those are usually the last resort, when no other coalition could get to an agreement. Usually they are "tolerated" by another party, that does not become part of the government, but helps to get them elected and will usually not completely block all of their legislation.
In Belgium we also have names for coalitions based on their color in the political spectrum.
"Purple coalition": liberals (blue) + social democrats (red)
"Swedish coalition" (colors of Swedish flag): liberals (blue) + Flemish nationalists (yellow) + Christian democrats (the cross)
"Vivaldi coalition": coalition of 4 parties (actually 7, for three of them there's a Flemish and a Walloon variant). Refers to Vivaldi's Four Seasons (though it may have been called the "Pizza coalition" for the same reason 🙃).
Cooporation across different states, different parties, ideologies the nation, Europe, the world. That has always been a part of german politics. Even during the holy roman empire the emperor was voted on by different kingdoms and duchies (and just as today there was obviously corruption)
And just as much as back then, we're still bickering and make jokes about each other, but work together and get to a compromise when we have to.
Well in the us the president isn't really voted directly either as there's the electoral college
You can also vote by mail weeks ahead.. ive been doing that for years..
It's kind of the same in the Netherlands 🇳🇱
Red white blue are the colours of the Dutch and French flag
I think red, white, blue must be the most popular colours for a flag. You can add US; UK; OZ; NZ; Liberia; Norway; Russia; I think Croatia. That's just off the top of my head.
@@michaelgoetze2103 thank you ..
Very nice...
(Well they are simple colours...
Therefore maybe easy to like 😉)
the coalistions are formalized with a so called "koalitionsvertrag", a coalition-contract, where the two or more parties that form the coalition state their goals and ministerial posts.
I like these every day changing "hello" effects, i bet they cost millions to produce 😆
The coalition has sort of an official status, because when a coalition is formed, the parties work out a lengthy document, laying out all the agreements and compormises from the earlier negotiations. This document is then signed as a treaty for the parties to rely on, so they can say: "See, we agreed on that topic and you signed it." But as you can see right now, there is still a lot of wiggling room and debate over it, like the FDP would often be like "Yeah, we agreed on that topic IN GENERAL, but it isn't specified if this includes X (which we think it should)."
And yes, breaking up a coalition is much like a divorce, with the parties going: "You betrayed me. I should have known from the start that you didn't mean it." or "You're not the party you used to be when we coalitioned two years ago." Also, there will be a lot of counselling and the junior partners be like: "Oh no, don't break up - what will become of us?" and the opposition leader party be like: "But what have they ever done for you? You'll be better off with me - let's form a new coalition and together, we will rule the galaxy!" So German politics is basically a Telenovela.
a coalition agreement is not legally binding. it is an agreement between the parties involved. it contains, for example, the desired goals, basic values and codes of conduct.
Here in Switzerland it works slightly different. The people elect the two chambers (similar to the Senate and the House of representatives in the US) and then they decide on the 7 heads of state for Switzerland. But since their power is very very limited it doesn't really matter other than for prestige. The power lies in the Parties who sit in the two houses. But since they barely ever find a consent, the final word is very often the people of Switzerland who kinda act like a referee. It's also very easy here to challenge a law made by the parties by a referendum so that the final say comes to the voters, no matter how the parties decided in the first place.
It is a bit more complicated than that of course, but in a nutshell, that's the swiss semi direct democratic system. Almost every country in Europe has it's own flair of system. The american one seems weird to most here, especially when it comes to things like Electoral College
Coalitions are publicly known and announced but not necessarily a legal thing. It's more to inform the voters that these parties are working together and agree on certain things, which plays into re-elections a lot, but in the end a coalition can always fall apart and not everyone in a coalition will always support every choice of the coalition
READ YOUR FREAKING COMMENTS: we told you weeks ago what it means
The power of the parties far right and left is, that they take voters from the center-left and -right parties, so these are then weaker in the coalition negotations - which finally end with a treaty between the coalition partners. To not be "too weak" more center parties may take over some of the "ideas" of the more extrem parties to not loose even more voters or get voters back.
The coalition agreement is a very important part of an upcoming government. The coalition parties will compromise with each other on certain political points, but not all.
For example, party A wants to raise a certain tax by 10%.; its perspective partner is against it; in the end the coalition agreement could see the tax not implementet at all, raised by the full 10% or raised by 5%, depending of how important that political point is for the agenda of each party.
It's a "giving & taking", one party compromises on one point and gains on another.
Small parties(in % of the vote) can even force some of their agendas through if they dont compromise on it and the other parties need their votes.
Although the final political agenda is never as "extreme" as the parties promised during election, this system ensures that the wishes of smaller population are not ignored and the country changes slowly over the election cycles and not abruptly during just one election. Slow and steady; it has its own merit and demerit.
You actually understood it perfectly
7:55 I think this is actually better here in Germany than in the US, since you can only be the head of the executive branch of government, if you have a majority in the legislative institution(s) (Majority in Bundesrat not actually necessary), so a stalemate, like it is now in the US or has been in the second half of Obamas second term, isn't possible or at least not as hard and troubling for the nation . So this limits the harm the different parties can do to the system if they disagree on all matters
7:21 Unfortunately it probably won't be "5%" next time.
minute 5.00 Yeah, he's got it. 👍😀
many react the same way you did: "wait.. why is this combination called traffic light?"
then shown a literal traffic light: "oh they meant it really that way"
The coalition partners actually sign a contract, in which they commit themselves to pursuing certain political goals together.
4:36 While i don't recall it happening before, Parties might want to form a Coalition that encompasses significantly more than 50% under certain circumstances. Notably they might want to reach 2/3 to be able to change or ammend the constitution.
But even then it would basically be impossible to change the constitution since having a whole coalition agreeing on a change in the constitution is basically impossible
To backtrack a little bit: Few Minutes after the voting booths close we know the Results with like ~90% accuracy. Things can still change a little bit until the official results a few days or weeks later, but you'd genuinely expect that the results only vary by a handfull of parliament seats. This does however get interesting when a party (most likely FDP or Linke) are scrapping the 5% Bar, so it isn't sure until the official results if they are actually making it into parliament.
Coalitions are something semi-official. I don't think there is actually any legislation on them - i'm certain that they are not mentioned in the constitution at least, while parties themselve are - but that doesn't mean that they are entirely informal.
The Parties forming a coalition do negotiate and sign a Coalition Contract that then gets published, lining out realitively detailed what they as a coalition think of the country's current situation and what they want to do about it. The German Political Satire Show "Heute-Show" actually had one of their comedians read out the entire Coalition Contract of the current coalition on RUclips and it's an almost 9 hour video. The fucking Preamble is 11.5 minutes on its own. (ruclips.net/video/gZKh5NaWz8E/видео.html)
@@alexanderzippel8809 From 1949 to 2021, the German constitution has been changed 65 times, about 0.9 changes per year or 3.6 changes per term on average. Sure, a tiny number compared to the total number of laws passed, but I wouldn't call it "basically impossible", given that it happens all the time.
It happened back during Adenauer's time, when there were only three parties. I think it was during his second term (might have been his third) that the CDU/CSU actually got more than 50% of the vote, but he decided to go into coalition anyway (I suspect partly to keep the CSU from making too much trouble....)
In Germany, the President and the Chief of the Administration (Chancellor) are two different roles. Formally, the President is Germany's highest office, but in fact, the German President has more of a representative function without much power. The power lies with the chancellor, who (according to the German constitution) "defines the political guidelines" (in German: Richtlinienkompetenz).
The chancellor does not need to be from the largest party in the Bundestag, not even from the largest party in the coalition. Whoever gets a majority vote in the Bundestag, is the next Bundeskanzler. Neighboring Austria, which has a similar system, once had a Chancellor which came from the third ranked party. In 2000, Wolfgang Schüssel was elected chancellor, after the largest party, the SPÖ, failed to find a partner to form a coaltion, and the second placed FPÖ was led by Jörg Haider, a very controversial figure, who had no chance to get a majority vote in the Austrian Nationalrat. In the end, Wolfgang Schüssel's party, the ÖVP, formed a coaltion with the FPÖ under the condition, that Jörg Haider did not become the chancellor candidate.
First of all, I would like to say that things like back then can never happen again because now legal rules have been put in place that can never happen again - once was already too much. Then it is not an unwritten law that the party leader automatically becomes chancellor. We have a Bundestag with well over 600 seats to allocate - each party puts a candidate for chancellor up for election - but we ourselves choose the party and then it's a question of whether we can govern alone with a 2/3 majority with these 600 seats or do I have to look for coalition partners and then they decide among themselves who will be chancellor and who will hold which ministries from which party - so for once the Greens have become the governing party. Another important aspect is that politicians are not allowed to have their election campaigns financed from private campaign donations - this is to ensure incorruptibility the election campaign is therefore paid for by the German taxpayer the advantage of this is that I cannot form any lobbyists in our country and thus influence the formation of the government to their liking.Very importantly, the AFD does not have too high a percentage here, there simply aren't enough people who would vote for it. There are frustrated voters who unfortunately change their minds, but they will never have the opportunity to become so big. But what is democracy that I ban everything even what I don't like or that I discuss and talk about it and try to change something and yes unfortunately it also means that you have to listen to stupid Nazis. And we try to counteract the whole thing by not being as narrow-minded as we used to be and by counteracting the whole thing with education and intelligence and by teaching our children the right values so that no one can be influenced as easily as they were then.
7:25 Sadly it's more like 25% than 5% nowadays...
Reguarding the chancler: In extreme cases we got something called "konstruktives Misstrauensvotum" (constructive vote of no confidence). If a big enough portion of the Bundestag doesn't trust the cancler in reguards of their promised goals or intentions and a big enough portion votes agains him, he will be booted from his possition and a new one will be voted in. This isn't something usual and has only happened once in 1982.
It's nearly impossible for one single party to win the majority vote. And forming a government by coalition keeps the leading party in check, they cannot unilaterally decide anything because if they tried their coalition partner would oppose them thus they would fail.
So compromise is key.
Coalitions are not official or dictated by law, if any party would reach 50% of votes, they'd be the sole ruling party. But since no party ever reached 50% on their own, they have to form a coalition, otherwise there wouldn't be a government to form. I think this 50% hurdle is actually an official law, if I'm not mistaken. But how the parties get there after the votes have been passed is completely up to them.
"Greens in the middle are the friends of both" hahahahaha, oh, you inocent little bird
(ya there are fraction and Koalition) like can not understand this in minutes it takes students 5 years of school and general knowledge of 19 years of live in Germany to understand stand this and only if they had A in every exam is 100% understanding but I appreciate your effort and your interest
That's the difference between presidential system (eg. USA, France) and parlamentaryc system (eg. Germany, UK)