Plus ça change, plus la même chose!

A comparison of the national election results between the very first national election in West Germany (summer of 1949) and this September’s election is instructive. In that first election, the CDU (Konrad Adenauer’s party) along with the Bavarian CSU gained 139 seats in the Bundestag, the FDP (headed by Theodor Heuss, who would become the first Bundespräsident, and Thomas Dehler) 52 seats, the SPD (lead by Kurt Schumacher) 131 seats and the KPD (Communist Party) 15 seats. In percent of Bundestag seats this would be CDU/CSU 41.2%, SPD 38.9%, FDP 15.4% and the KPD 4.5%.

And last Sunday, here is how the parties did: CDU/CSU 225 seats; SPD 222; FDP 61; die Linke.PDS 54; die Grüne/Bündnis 90 (a party for which there is no 1947 equivalent) garnered 51 seats. In percent of total Bundestag seats (for comparative purposes I am not including die Grüne’s 51 in the total) that puts the CDU/CSU at 40.0%; SPD at 39.5%; FDP at 10.9% and die Linke.PDS at 9.6%.

Plus ça change, plus la même chose!