Germany Loses

Chirol’s in Syria and unable to provide a timely election report, so here’s a summary of today’s election in Germany: voters didn’t give the Christian Democratic Union a clear majority, or even a meaningful plurarlity. CDU leader Angela Merkel ran a campaign saying that painful change is needed to preserve Germany’s standard of living and place in the world, and despite poll results suggesting otherwise, the German voters didn’t want to hear it. The CDU won just 35% of the vote and the Free Democratic Party (FDP), a traditional partner, won a surprisingly high 10%. Analylsts predict a coalition between the CDU and Schröder’s Social Democratic Party, which won 34% of the vote.

Business Week said it best:

In Germany’s Election, Germans Lose
With Angela Merkel failing to get a clear-cut victory for the CDU, the result will be a coalition that won’t be able to tackle the real issues.

That just about sums it up. The Byzantine labor laws will remain in place, unemployment will remain high, high taxes will try to keep up with unaffordable social programs… see this post for more. In a word, advance immeditately to the economic doldrums without passing “Go.”