Eideard

Sigmar Gabriel, Social Democrats + Joachim Gauck + Angela Merkel, Christian Democrats
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Germany’s government and the two major opposition parties have said they will jointly nominate Joachim Gauck, a human rights activist originally from East Germany, to be the country’s next president.

Angela Merkel said her coalition government, and the centre-left opposition had rallied behind Gauck, 72, who was initially proposed by the opposition Social Democrats and Greens.

He is not a member of a political party.

“What moves me the most, is that a man who was still born during the gloomy, dark war, who grew up and lived 50 years in a dictatorship … is now called to become the head of state,” Gauck said. “This is of course a very special day in my life.”

Christian Wulff, 52, resigned as president on Friday after two months of allegations about receiving loans on favourable terms and hotel stays from friends when he was state governor of Lower Saxony. He was Merkel’s candidate when elected less than two years ago…

When Wulff resigned, Merkel immediately said she would work with the Social Democrats and Greens to find a consensus candidate to succeed him…

The chancellor said that clergymen such as Gauck – a former Lutheran priest – were at the forefront of the protests that eventually brought down the east German regime.

Claudia Roth, the Greens’ leader, said “Gauck will restore the respect for the office, will restore dignity,” to the presidency, which had become tainted by Wulff’s actions.

Isn’t it interesting how a nation which parallels so many of our circumstances in the United States figures out how to take different directions, grow and even prosper in hard times.

Anyone even imagine this happening in the United States with the clown show we have in Congress?

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Denmark’s center-left “Red bloc” took power on Thursday after defeating Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen’s government in a tight election driven by voter anger over the state of the economy.

Social Democrat Helle Thorning-Schmidt will become Denmark’s next prime minister, the first woman to hold the post, after Rasmussen conceded defeat…

The center-right “Blue bloc” has been in power for 10 years, during which Denmark, like other countries, suffered the worst economic downturn since World War Two. “Tomorrow I will hand in the government’s resignation to the Queen,” Rasmussen said on TV2 News. “There is no longer a basis for remaining in government.”

Thorning-Schmidt’s Red bloc will have a majority of up to five seats in the 179-seat parliament, its final size depending on the results from far-flung Greenland.

Her Social Democratic party actually lost a seat and will only be the second largest in parliament after Rasmussen’s Liberals, who gained one.

But two Red coalition parties on the far left and in the center made up the difference to put the Red bloc ahead, allowing it to claim victory and forcing Rasmussen out.

The state of the economy has been the overriding issue of the campaign, with the governing coalition parties under fire for failing to spur growth. Thorning-Schmidt attacked Rasmussen for taking the country deep into deficit…

If the count holds up, Denmark would become the latest in a series of European countries to see incumbents voted out at least in part because of struggling economies…

Denmark has been spared much of the trauma suffered by other west European countries because it remains outside the euro zone. This means it is not involved in bailing out debt-laden countries like Greece, an issue that has stirred popular anger in neighboring Germany.

But the economic crisis has turned Denmark’s healthy surpluses into deficits, forecast to climb to 4.6 percent of GDP next year. Danish banks have also been struggling, with small bank Fjordbank Mors falling into the hands of administrators in June, the 9th Danish bank to be taken over by the state since the start of the crisis in 2008.

Bravo. Ms. Thorning-Schmidt seems ready and willing to try progressive – and also unusual – solutions to what Denmark inherited from the global economic crisis. After a decade of economic charlatans and ideologues as backwards as any ever produced by the Republican Party – it’s about time Denmark gets as shot at revival.

Green Party supporters celebrate in Bremen
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Angela Merkel has been dealt another blow after support for her Christian Democratic Union party plunged once again – this time at regional elections in Bremen.

For the first time in state elections, the Green party won more votes than the CDU, capturing almost 23% of the vote on Sunday, according to an exit poll from German state television ARD. The Green surge, if confirmed by final results, means the party will continue to rule in coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), who have been in charge of the north German city for 66 years.

While the Greens’ victory in the smallest of Germany’s 16 states will not directly affect the chancellor’s hold on the federal government, it is another symbolic black eye for Merkel and her party.

In Baden-Württemberg’s state election in March, the Christian Democrats were voted out of power for the first time in five decades. The anti-nuclear Greens became the strongest party there amid concerns over Germany’s atomic future following the Fukushima plant accident in Japan. The win will mean that Germany will have its first Green governor…

Sunday’s vote in Bremen marked the first time in German history that people between 16 and 18 were allowed to vote for their state legislature. Despite that effort to boost the vote, ARD estimated a turnout of 54%, down from 57% four years earlier.

I’m not close enough the streets of Germany to hazard an educated guess on how much of the vote embraced Green ideology and platform and how much was simple rejection of what the Conservative Christians have failed to achieve, have substituted for progress. But, given the diminishing turnout, I’d tend towards the latter sociology – rather than a mandate for eco victory. Yet.