Germany elected its national parliament yesterday and the results are quite interesting. Angela Merkel’s party the CDU/CSU added substantial gains going from 33.8% in 2009 to 41.5% of the public vote now. That is almost the largest majority for any German chancellor (since Konrad Adenauer). These gains were aided by the collapse of Germany’s historic third party, the FDP which went from 14.6% in 2009 to 4.8% now which, if confirmed, means the party will no longer be represented in the German parliament which has a 5% minimum threshold! 

The three other parties which will make it into Parliament are the SPD with a slight gain, the Left and the Green party. The Pirate Party had small gains from 2.0% to 2.2% but fell far short of the 5% hurdle. On the other hand the brand new AfD which stands for Alternative for Germany (just formed earlier this year) almost made it into parliament achieving 4.7% of the vote. The AfD’s primary policy platform was a push back against the Eurozone asking for more public votes and the ability of countries to exit the Euro.

All in all the results reflect an interesting dichotomy. With gains for the large parties there is a kind of “flight to safety” and clearly the majority of German don’t want any big experimentation with the EU. A small minority though disagrees so strongly that they would back an entirely unproven party. The existing smaller parties provided neither got clobbered as a result.