Ah, Schulz - German general election, 2017

[ursus arctos]

There's been a bit of musing on that in the German press as well, though it still isn't seen as likely.

I wouldn't rule out some kind of split, though. The growing urban/rural divide (which is also a divide in age and education) is an existential threat to the party as we've known it.

[Logan Mountstuart]

I heard one analyst on the radio saying that this result is actually good for Merkel. The Bavaria CDU went full bore with
the anti - refugee fear factor, hoping to capitalise on supposed Bavarian conservatism and this actually backfired on them badly, as they lost swathes of their own more moderate supporters to the Greens.

The Bavarian party influence in her cabinet is now hugely weakened. And that there's a natural, quite Liberal coalition forming between the moderates in the CDU and an affluent Green vote who both see a Christian or moral obligation to help refugees.

As I said, not my thoughts, but they seem plausible.

[ursus arctos]

That's exactly how I would spin it if I was working for Angie, but it can't be good news for the GroKo that the SPD are on the brink of irrelevancy in Bayern.

[ursus arctos]

After the CDU loses ten points in the elections in Hesse (as did the SPD, with the Greens being the primary beneficiaries), Merkel announces that she will step down as party chairman at the end of 2019, but intends to fulfill her term as Chancellor (through 2021).

[ursus arctos]

Seehofer is resigning as CSU chairman.

[Flynnie]

Do we have a 2021 election thread? I can't find it.

I haven't been following too closely but I get the impression Armin Laschet is just tripping over himself every chance he gets, and the SPD may well be able to form a government.

[G-Man]

It's the CDU Leadership thread.

[DCI Harry Batt]

The CDU leadership thread seems to have become the 2021 election thread, I think. Or it's had lots of polling stuff on it, anyway. But then you've posted there, so maybe that's not what you're after.