Who knew the Germans loved their parties? Whereas most Americans tend to choose between Republicans and Democrats, in Germany there are five parties that could plausibly share power. The five are the Christian Democrats and Bavarian partner Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU), the Social Democrats (SPD), the Free Democrats (FDP), the Greens, and The Left (die Linke). But on the ballot there will be many more from which to choose (some would say "waste a vote on"), such as the Grays (senior citizens), the Marxist-Leninists (even further to the left than The Left!), another party that supports Lyndon LaRouche's wife for chancellor, and the Pirate party. The latter has nothing to do with Jack Sparrow but everything to do with Internet piracy. The Pirates are from Sweden (where they earned a surprising number of votes) and are demanding a free Internet and a transparent state-data protection. One online poll indicated the Pirates could win 19 percent of the vote on Sunday. (Of course the poll was taken by studiVZ, a German version of Facebook. Speaking of which, one German tells me his fellow Facebook users have yet to be as open as American users. You won't see them sharing all of their likes and dislikes. "It's pretty bare," said the German. "Maybe you'll see marital status and it's probably listed as ‘complicated.'")
But the coalition-forming process has become problematic. No longer does the electoral landscape consist of CDU/CSU and FDP on one side and SPD and Greens on the other. At the moment there is a grand coalition of CDU/CSU and SPD-imagine an administration run by Democrats and Republicans. There's talk of a traffic light coalition (based on the official colors of the SPD (red), FDP (yellow), Greens) as well as a "Jamaica" coalition (CDU [black], FDP, Greens). And maybe even an SPD-die Linke-Green government. Of course the Greens say they have no desire to govern on the federal level with the Christian and Free Democrats. The SPD is not yet willing to join the far left. At least for now.
Who can keep track of the possibilities? Are you even interested in the possibilities? As Claus Gramckow, the U.S. representative of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, put it, "You get three Germans together and they'll form four clubs."
