Merkel dented by presidential vote
Round 2
After a second round of voting Germany still does not have a president.
It is a further wound to the reputation of the Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Her
candidate Christian Wulff gained an extra 15 votes, but not enough to gain
an absolute majority.
The opposition candidate, Joachim Gauck, actually saw his vote slightly decline in the second round.
What this means is that all the behind-the-scenes arm-twisting has not been able to get the votes in for Wulff. The embarrassment for Angela Merkel lies is the fact that if all the members of her coalition had voted for Wulff he would have been elected.
There will be a break and then a third round of voting. In the final round, whoever gets a simple majority will be president. The expectation has to be that Mr Wulff, the political insider from the centre-right ,will win. But the MPs and the representatives have broken for an hour, and the Reichstag has become a place of intrigue and a numbers game.
All of this eats away at Angela Merkel's credibility after a period where she has been judged to have made mistakes and lost her sureness of touch.
Round 1 (1330 BST)
Angela Merkel's candidate failed to get an overall majority. Christian Wulff needed 50% of the votes of German MP's and regional representatives to become President. He got less than that.
What is interesting is that it seems that between 30 and 40 people from Chancellor Merkel's camp voted for the opposition candidate Joachim Gauck.
There will now be a second round but this result will be seen as a setback for Angela Merkel and a dent to her authority.
I'm 
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Politicians always believe that the only thing that matters is politics. Some of her party may actually be listening to the people they represent. I know that sound strange but some people are angry about bailing out banks and countries and all the things that were promoised not to be done. Politicians seem to assume that citizens should assume that they are lying and not get upset when they do. Bankers and politicians, the corrupt dealing with the corrupt over who should be the trusted face of corruption....an honor to be sure.
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ghostofsichuan - I think you use the term "corruption" too losely.
If Merkel is corrupt, then god help us.
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Gheryando:
Politicians rationalize everything. They like the concept of the Greater Good because that allows them to protect their interest and the interest of political contributors. When the banks were in collusion to finance the housing bubble with an empty chest and relying on the governments to bail them out, the governments were told well in advance that the scheme was a house of cards and did nothing at the behest of banking lobbyist. If that is not corruption I do not know what word you may select. The taxpayers now own large shares of most major banks and the banks had their politicial allies assume the bad notes they had created. There was no vote, the people were not asked they simply assumed the large debt so the wealthy would be made whole. Of course the very taxayers who now own all this debt are being taxed to pay for it and services are being cut in many countries. The banks will take 1 in 5 of debt repayements in interest charges even though the governments supposedly own large shares of the banks. The governments are saving the governments and the banks and the taxpayer is underwriting it all and with no benefit to be gained. There has been no action to replace the lost retirements accounts, but the wealthy have been made whole. The process is still going on as the banks fight every attempt to regulate their gambling and their unfair fees. When the interest of the wealthy are paramount to those of the people and the people are taxed to benefit the wealthy it is simply corruption. It is the corruption of the basic democratic ideals, it is the corruption of the political system where wealth determines policy and it is corruption of the economy when the worker does without for the benefit of the wealthy. These were issues 200 years ago and citizens have abdicated their responsbilities and the wealthy have corrupted the governments once again. These are historical cycles, nothing personal to her or her peers, they simply lack the will to represent the people. In the past the reform has always been messy as no one gives up power willingly. The rationale that the banks had to be saved to save everything else is an empty statement as public banks could have been formed to do the same thing and probably at less costs to the taxpayers. The elite believe they are better and deserve more and have different rules....very much like the old days of castles and fifedoms only now they are banks. Maybe you did not find it offensive that banks were paying out obscene bonuses while taxpayers were bailing them out but this is simply an indcation of how the ruling class views their privilged status. "Let them eat cake" is very much again in political fashion.
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I prefer not to see this two-round vote (heading to a third) as a sign of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s dented authority.
Rather I chose to see it as a tribute to a wonderful gentleman. Merkel contributed a newspaper article that ran one full page in a popular German Newspaper about the several and honorable achievements of Mr. Gauck.
I’m pleased that so many voters supported Joachim Gauck.
Yes, Merkel's center-right coalition has struggled. It’s been hit by intermittent bickering. But I feel the contest for the presidency was about something more important. It was about Gauck. Gauck, who after East/West reunification, headed the process that oversaw the criminal activities of the former East Germany's secret police (Stasi).
The man deserved nomination. At 70, he was very likely not supposed to win the Presidency, but he was deserving of winning the Presidency.
Maybe Merkel has a lot more political acumen than that for which you give her credit.
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GhostofSichuan
It is simplistic to assume that "the people were not asked they simply assumed the large debt so the wealthy would be made whole".
Mind you, in the US, most people who would have lost would have been middle-class home-owners.
I do not deny that the people at fault got away with much but I do not believe that politicians (at least not Merkel) acted in a malevolent way towards the citizens but in a responsible way that made sure that there is no global meltdown. If that would have happened anything could have followed, anarchy, war, etc.
People who like to bash politicians for making these difficult decisions (do you really think Merkel had not preferred to use the money on improving her country otherwise), yet no one can provide a real alternative.
Then again, I agree with the concept of rationalization that politicians like to employ.
Politicians logic: "We must do something. That is something. Therefore, we must do it!"
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Bluesberry #4,
very good post. I absolutely agree with you. Gauck is a very honorable man and Wulff recognized him in his acceptance speech.
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Gheryando:
My main point is that all of the governments were warned well in advance that the crisis was coming based on the scheme the banks had set up. Now all these great banking minds and not one of them saw what was coming. Well it was either complete incompetence or a criminal collusion. In either case they should not be the ones dicating future policy. The governments did nothing when told what was in the future based on the derivitives and hedge-funds and the lack of any funds to back these bonus fueled bad loans. The reason no reasonale solutions are coming out of governments is that the governments were clearly complicit in the meltdown and neglected to protect the investments of the people. Was it malicious, probably not, but it came from the arrogance that wealth brings to the table. The citizen must be vigilant because there governments will surely betray them if they are not. I suggest you recongize that all the shoes have not fallen and the meltdown is still in freefall and when the rest of the PIIGS show their empty treasuries things will get interesting. I resent the failure of the demoncratic governments to represent their citizens and I feel no punishment is sufficient for the bankers that caused it all. By not punishing the bankers the faith of the people in their governments have been greatly diminished, this is always troubling when citizens believe that their governments are corrupt.
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@ 7
It would have been political suicide to reign in the banks while they where fuelling the growth of the western economies and letting everyone live basically much better than they could afford.
Especially if it had been done on the basis that 'in the short to medium term future there is a high chance of a banking crisis, so to avert it we are going to throttle credit now so that instead of having less money in the future, you will have less money now AND in the future.'
Do you think people would have cared that it wasn't real money that they now couldn't spend, or simply that they couldn't spend?
It's the reason why eventually this will happen again... remember a few years ago, when the crisis was in its Embryonic form, it was blamed on Americans taking out silly loans to buy houses they couldn't afford. The banks are part of the problem, a major part; but nobody forced anyone to take out those loans or use all that cheap credit.
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The whole discussion going on about whether the chancellor has taken damage from those two additional electoral rounds just disgusts me.
The President is not supposed to be decided on by the parties.
This whole process has turned into a perverted, political charade.
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