# General elections in Germany



## LaFoto (Sep 18, 2005)

Today, 18 September 2005, we are asked to vote for a new parliament.
We might get a change or we might stay with what we have.
In an hour from now the polling stations will be closed, in two hours we'll hear about the first results in TV.

This is around and where we have just voted:


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## JonMikal (Sep 18, 2005)

why do you guys have voting on a sunday?


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## LaFoto (Sep 18, 2005)

It's ALWAYS on a Sunday. ALWAYS. No one's working, everyone has the TIME to go and vote.

And the result is.... oh dear. A clear "yo" or "nes"..... :roll:


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## dalebe (Sep 18, 2005)

good shot lafoto, i did hear of this on our news, but to expand on jonmikal's comments,sunday? that's or day of rest, even from voting


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## LaFoto (Sep 18, 2005)

Weeeeelllll, ever since I remember elections have been on Sundays.
But the results that we get to hear get worse and worse.
I wonder what will be the end of all this?


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## JonMikal (Sep 18, 2005)

now that you explained, i bet voter turnout is always high....makes sense.


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## JohnMF (Sep 18, 2005)

i see the elections have ended in stalemate. What happens now? does that mean there will be some sort of colaition between the parties?


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## LaFoto (Sep 19, 2005)

With a "stalemate" such as this one (unprecedented in our history, and "utter chaos" to my mind), any kind of coalition is being discussed (TV was full of news programmes only during all of last night!), even though some of the parties involved had already declared beforehand that they were willing to form a "coalition with these but NEVER with those!"... what I fear, but that is my personal opinion at this point in time, is that they will not be able to find any viable solution and we'll have to go to vote again in 6 months or so. That will leave my country sort of "ungoverned" (apart from administrative work, of course, but without any chance for any new projects to be started and discussion over projects 'on-the-way', i.e. halfway through the jungle of decision-finding, will be "put on ice" for the time being) for all that time. 

This outcome is the worst possible one!


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## LaFoto (Sep 20, 2005)

How much do other people in the world hear about the outcome of the German General Elections, I wonder?
It is THE topic on all the news programmes, in every newspaper, among everyone in my country right now.
To me, this outcome is a disaster. A catastrophe.


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## airgunr (Sep 20, 2005)

Actually we do hear quite a bit if we listen.  The major news orgainzations here give little coverage but there is always DW and BBC.  Looks like you have an interesting situation.  From what I understand the SDP is claiming victory since they are saying the conservatives are actually 2 parties and therefor didn't win.  What a mess!  It will be very interesting to see how it all works out.  Good luck!


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## Meysha (Sep 20, 2005)

Nice photos Lafoto. I particularly like the angle on the second one!

Well we haven't heard anything over here about the german elections.

We're having our own political fights at the moment. One of the old opposition leaders has just put out a book bashing all of his old party members and so the media is in a frenzy over that. It just seems like a lot of pettyness to me.


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## LizM (Oct 4, 2005)

Sunday voting?  That would be kinda difficult here.  Most of our polling places are church fellowship halls!


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