(Chronicler's; 09-03; p.2)

Bavarian elections

Off the Wies'n (another word for the Oktoberfest in Munich, some rightly call the most expensive opportunity to get pi**ed) over one half of the electorate - 57,3 percent - decided on 21 September about the composition of their parliament.
Surprises or just turn-outs that were awaited eagerly were only about the height of the Christian Socials (CSU) victory, the results of the Greens or whether or not the Liberals (FDP) will be part of parliament again. - The Christian Socials are the Bavarian sister-party of the Christian Democrats (CDU), the main opposition party in Germany's parliament.

To shed some light on the power relations in Bavaria in a historical dimension, the following remarks are given:
• since 1970 the CSU reigns in Bavaria with an absolute majority,
• the Social Democrats (SPD) do not get more than between a quarter and a third of valid votes since that time,
• FDP and Greens get since 1970 and 1978 respectively about five percent of valid votes, thus always have to fear loss of parliamentary representation; since the 1980ies the Greens get clearly more votes than the Liberals.

The September election brought the following result:

party	percentage of votes	=>	seats
CSU	60,7 %		124
SPD	19,6 %		41
Greens	7,7 %		15
sum	88,0 %		180
The Bavarian election right is peculiar in the German context: Bavarians may give a first and a second vote as in all other German elections. However, both votes are added for the share of parties in parliamentary seats, provided that the party of the candidate voted for with the first vote gets more than five percent in total. Different from e.g. federal elections, a candidate chosen by his constituency is not automatically elected for parliament - his votes and so his election count only, if his party gets over the five percent hurdle.

The FDP does not get any seat in parliament, running up to 1,7 percent of the votes, which is less than the "Republikaner" - a far right populist party - and the "Ökologische Demokraten" (translated: Ecological Democrats) - a somewhat murky splinter group loosely arranged around ecological topics. (read on here)