German Election

I found the mock German election to be very interesting. I found it very interesting that the FDP could win the most seats in the Bundestag without any of their individual candidates winning. The two vote system makes it so that after voting for the representative for your region you also vote for an entire party. FDP got nearly all the party votes.

However, the thing I find most interesting is that they ended up not being in the controlling governmental political alliance. The party with the most votes should be in the strongest position to take part in the majority coalition. However, the leaders of the CDU/CSU and the SPD in our class decided to use the Green Party to get the most possible power. Initially the FDP came to my party, the SPD, with an offer of a coalition and four ministerial positions. however, we wanted the chancellorship and began talks with the two smaller parties to form a three party government. Our greed got the best of us and the CDU/CSU ended up with the chancellorship and we only got three ministries. The FDP ended up on the outside looking in, and they can attribute that more to the other party leaders individual ambition than to their own political blunder.

Democracy and Austria

After World War II, Austria was able to reintroduce its original constitution from 1920. The government in Austria is a democratic republic which includes a parliament. This parliament is bicameral. In this government the head of state is the Federal President, who is elected directly by popular vote. This president is responsible for appointing the Federal Chancellor, who is the chairman of the Federal Government.  For the most part , the Austrian government is dominated by five political parties , which includes  the Labor Party, Conservative Party, Environmental Party,  and two right-wing nationalist parties. Also since 1995, Austria has been a member of the European Union.