An Overview of the State Elections in North Rhine-Westphalia

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2017 NRW election results by number of seats

Yesterday’s state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) were billed in the international MSM as a resounding victory for Angela Merkel’s party, the Christian Democrats (CDU). Which they were, but there was more to the results than that.

For example, in percentage terms, the AfD (Alternative für Deutschland, Alternative for Germany) gained more than any other party:


2017 NRW election results by percentages

See these two articles from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung for detailed information on the elections (in German):

Our German translator Egri Nök has compiled a summary of the NRW election results for Gates of Vienna readers.

The Elections in North Rhine-Westphalia

by Egri Nök

North Rhine-Westphalia is that heavily enriched German state we have been talking about so often lately.

These are my observations:

First, I knew that Martin Schulz (SPD) was a complete air bubble blown by the MSM. I did not buy the hype for a second. It is not even worth discussing.

Why did they vote CDU (Christian Democrats; the local Bavarian party is the CSU) and FDP (Freie Demokratische Partei, Free Democratic Party*), and why did the AfD score only 7%?

I think there are different factors:

1.   NRW has been red continuously since the 1960s, so even being a bit less red is a big step for them.
2.   That 13% for the FDP represented people who wanted to “show Merkel”, but could not bring themselves to vote for “Nazis”. The FDP is an irrelevant “economic-liberal” party who do not even comprehend what Islam or Western culture are and who have been at 8.6% in the last elections. They are famous (and ridiculed) for forming a coalition with anyone and changing their opinion with each coalition partner.

I realize that people may be offended by my negative characterization of the FDP. But I had one (of many) wake-up calls about them in March of last year when they mocked the CDU, when the CDU spoke about how there is no pork served anymore at all in schools, kindergartens and in most work canteens. The FDP argued, “So what? Everyone is free to eat what they like,” and mocked the pro-pork politicians as peasants and idiots. As if they didn’t understand that eliminating pork was narrowing the choice, not making it greater.
3.   The AfD itself:

a)   The Höcke disaster. Germans currently have so many urgent problems; no one cares about a historical re-evaluation of the Third Reich.
b)   The new NRW party leader, Markus Pretzell, Frauke Petry’s new husband and the father of her unborn child. His reputation is not exactly sterling. He is broke, which leads many to think that the AfD is just his chance at a career. Recently he refused to pay invoices for speeches written, so the fellow AfDers who had worked for him had to show the contracts, emails and text messages by Pretzell to get their money. It was quite an embarrassment, and the media feasted on it. Everyone in the AfD hates Pretzell; no one understands why Petry is with him. The general opinion for months has been that she is a smart woman, but that this incomprehensible weakness for this man is becoming her downfall.

As if all this weren’t bad enough — and I know this is a bit ridiculous, but it’s the truth, and I can’t help it — his voice sounds like Kermit the Frog when he shouts, so hearing him deliver a speech is a disaster.
 
4.   The CDU base are doing something brilliant currently: they have formed a conservative opposition, and in NRW made Wolfgang Bosbach their leader. He has an excellent reputation. He has always been a staunch conservative, and the icing on the cake was that he stepped down from his offices last year to protest Angela Merkel.

So people who voted CDU in NRW were in fact voting Bosbach.

When the CDU leadership makes it into a pro-Merkel statement, of course they are right, because she is the party leader [of the CDU-CSU “union”] — but I think the more nuanced way to see this is: by opposing Merkel at the state level, the CDU was able to hold — even gain — ground.
 

What also scared a lot of people away from voting AfD — and the CDU base used this argument aggressively — was that currently NO ONE will form a coalition with the AfD, so they voted CDU instead, hoping that a strong CDU would prevent another Red-Green coalition. A strong AfD could not have prevented that, because no one would have formed a coalition with them.

A final note: I wonder how many could not even find the AfD on the voting form:

*   The FDP also call themselves “Die Liberalen” (“The Liberals”) but that is misleading when you know what “liberal” has come to mean in the USA. The FDP mean: as opposed to socialism, regulating markets, etc.
 

10 thoughts on “An Overview of the State Elections in North Rhine-Westphalia”

  1. Look, you can look at data in many ways; but the reality stays: merkel, the killer of her nation will maintain power.This is a disaster similar to one in holland and france.
    it is too late for europe.It is almost too late for Canada.And it may be very very close late to USA.

  2. Egri Noek writes of the German politician Markus Pretzell: “As if all this weren’t bad enough — and I know this is a bit ridiculous, but it’s the truth, and I can’t help it — his voice sounds like Kermit the Frog when he shouts, so hearing him deliver a speech is a disaster.”

    For sake of voice comparison, can a video clip of a speech by Pretzell be found? Is the children’s TV character Kermit the Frog known in Germany, and does the German KtF has the same voice as the American KtF? The creator and voicer of KtF was
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Henson
    When I heard him interviewed on radio, I was surprised to realize that his natural speaking voice was the distinctive voice of KtF.

    • I enjoyed the Muppets 30 years ago and at an adult age.
      I doubt that todays children know kermit and btw, I think that the satirical tone of J Hensons puppets was more adequate for adults, i.e. the desperate attempts of Fozzie Bear, the down and out comedian, to be funny or the Lady- like upper- crust manierisms of Miss Piggy.

    • Of course Kermit the Frog is known (and loved) in Germany! But I realize that I never checked if his German voice was the same as the original American voice!

      If you listen here from 0:54 on for example, or later in the speech 🙂
      https://youtu.be/AJxuIpUrkkg?t=54s

  3. I think electing Merkel is proof positive that all Germans (less the 8% voting AfD) are incapable both of acting in their own best interests and in the best interests of other E.U members. Electing Merkel and expecting change is idiotic.So the Germans must either be really really stupid or really really want to continue importing a hostile violent barbaric replacement population to be their masters.

    Muslims will outbreed ,brutalize ,terrorize, murder and maim the Germans to extinction .And that wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that Germany is forcing the very same bleak future on all of Europe.

    I have more sympathy for those(in the E.U) that
    the Germans are pulling lemming like over the cliff with them ,than I do for the Germans.If a man wants to jump out of a window into a raging fire to his death to prove how noble and self -sacrificing and virtuous he is that’s one thing.If he chains himself to his neighbours and drags them into the fire to prove how noble he is that’s another.

    The first scenario is suicide and the second scenario is nothing short of murder.
    The election and re-election of Merkel will be seen in generations to come as
    the ;longest ,most stupid, the most self-serving ,the most selfish ,the most arrogant ,suicide note in all history.

    Mark my words when children learn the history of Germany under Merkel they will wonder how the tyrant got away with it ,in a shameless charade ,a horrible mockery ,an absolute perversion of democracy.And they will curse the Germans in perpetuity for the extinction of Europe as we knew it.

  4. Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhh………………………………

    In case nobody has noticed–EAST GERMANY won the Cold War vs. the West.

    Merkel and her ilk are the embodiment and as such the PERSONIFICATRION of the evil of communism.
    The destruction of the West/Democracy/’Capitalism’ (whazzat?) is what communists DO.
    It’s ALL they do.
    They distribute destruction and create NOTHING.
    This ridiculous islamic importation/’immigration’/invasion mess is the MEANS used by them to destroy Western Civilization–one soul, one court, one school, one Police Precinct at a time.
    It is a joke. “They” think communism will rule in the end. “They” should take a look at recent history in Iran. The commies there got rid of the Shah–true. Six months later–they all had been executed. (Think Ernst Rhoem and the BROWNSHIRTS of the 1930’s–that “history” stuff, again).
    Well, nobody knows History anymore. Certainly not Deutschland.
    Not even their own.
    Suicide is an ugly death. Pity the sane 7-1/2 percent.

  6. The Germans have made their choice and they will elect Merkel again later this year. Understandable given the other choice is Schulz.
    – All I want is the Germans to leave the other countries alone. They are welcome to enjoy their refugees who are bringing so much diversity and enrichment. Macron wants them as well. Enjoy.

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