Mid-term election for the traffic lights
868 days after the 2021 federal election, there is now apparently a final final result. The first repeat election gave Berlin a new mayor last year; yesterday's second partial repeat of the federal election has no major consequences. Some candidates at the bottom of the list are likely to lose their mandate. Annoying for them, but otherwise irrelevant? Not quite.
The same candidates had to stand for election as in September 2021, strangely enough including AfD woman Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who is now in custody on suspicion of forming a terrorist organization. But at the same time the world has moved on, terms such as “turning point” and “building energy law” have been added. And so the subsequent election of 2021 was also, in a strange time loop, a vote on the traffic light government in 2024.
The losers of the partial repeat election are, not entirely surprisingly, the SPD and the FDP. The CDU – and the AfD – have made gains. As if the debate about “remigration” and the demonstrations by millions of people against right-wing extremism hadn’t existed. Even the presumed Reich citizen Malsack-Winkemann got 0.2 percentage points more in her constituency than in 2021. That doesn't mean anything good, around six months before the state elections in Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia.
More on the election outcome in Berlin: Kevin Kühnert's could-have-been-worse result
Read the current SPIEGEL editorial here about the Berlin election
An election that should not be repeated:
Cast your vote again in the federal election two years late? The absurd case in Berlin shows that objections to the election results should be examined more quickly in the future - and better not by parliament itself.
As Shadow Chancellor in Jerusalem
Started as opposition leader, ended up as Federal Chancellor: This is how Friedrich Merz is likely to feel during his visit to Israel today. He will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Foreign Minister, the President and the two main opposition leaders. You can hardly get more chancellor feeling. In Israel they also read German surveys.
Foreign policy is the supreme discipline; anyone who wants to become Chancellor needs pictures with the powerful in the world. The CDU chairman has also been to Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Selenskyj. At the same time, it shouldn't look as if the big stage is being sought for domestic political reasons (Markus Söder was already in Israel in December!). So what will Merz's message be in Israel?
After the brutal terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7th, he called for naturalization in Germany to be linked to a commitment to Israel's right to exist. A stop in the West Bank is not on the agenda during his visit. That would have been an important signal.
Almost 28,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza Strip so far, many are starving, sick or injured. Nevertheless, only a few days ago Netanyahu ordered the army to prepare a military offensive on the city of Rafah in order to crush Hamas there. But the majority of the 2.3 million people have fled there - with no way out. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock surprisingly clearly called a military offensive in Rafah “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
It would be good if Merz found similar words. Anything else would make it too easy for himself.
Read more about the possible Israeli attack on Rafah here: In the impasse
The people don't vote the way they should
Imagine: It's election time and everyone goes and votes what they want. This was probably unthinkable for the Pakistani military; it took more than 60 hours until the election results were officially announced. For the first time, the military has failed to use intimidation and manipulation to secure the desired outcome. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been in custody since last year. His party was excluded from the election; candidates could only run as independents. But that didn't stop Pakistanis from voting for them - most of the seats went to the "independents." The military's preferred party of Nawaz Sharif, also a former prime minister, only came in second.
"This is a clear rejection, especially from young people, of the country's secret rulers, the army," says my colleague Susanne Koelbl. "The people have shown that they are fed up with this interference and no longer want to be ruled by the old feudal elites."
Khan and his party are now calling for protests. Will this become a mass uprising that shakes the nuclear power of Pakistan? That also depends on the military's reaction. There are enough reasons for people to be angry: it's not just the election manipulation, Pakistan is on the brink of economic collapse and it is one of the countries in the world most affected by climate change.
More on the topic: Police threaten to crack down on protests by Khan supporters
Click here for the current daily quiz
Today's starting question: Where is Deutsche Post headquartered?
Winner of the day…
...is Armin Papperger. Before the Russian attack on Ukraine, politicians were reluctant to be seen with the head of the arms company Rheinmetall. Since then, times have changed, posing on tanks has become fashionable and Papperger is the man of the hour. The group is making record profits, it has been promoted to the DAX, and its share price has more than tripled since February 24, 2022. When Papperger invites you to the symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for the new ammunition factory in Unterlüß, Lower Saxony, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius will also be there. The ammunition is urgently needed because the EU has failed to achieve the goal it set a year ago of supplying Ukraine with one million artillery shells by March 2024. Starting next year, 200,000 artillery shells will be produced annually in Unterlüß. A start, but certainly not enough: Putin's army is currently firing 200,000 grenades in 20 days.
Ammunition in short supply: Scholz reloads
The latest reports from the night
Kansas City Chiefs make a dramatic comeback – and defend their title:
Little went right for Patrick Mahomes and his Kansas City Chiefs against the San Francisco 49ers. The superstar then led the defending champions to a hard-fought victory in overtime.
Two teenagers are said to have shot 19-year-olds in the head with a blank gun:
At close range in the head: In a park in Porta Westfalica, two teenagers aged 16 and 17 are said to have aimed a blank gun at a young man. Now they are in custody.
Sick US Secretary of Defense hands over tasks to deputy:
Once again, Lloyd Austin, who is suffering from cancer, has to be treated in a military hospital because of an acute bladder problem. At first he wanted to work from there - but nothing came of it.
I would particularly like to recommend this story to you today:
“This will be the most productive decade in human history”:
With DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman achieved historic breakthroughs in AI research. Now he is developing a new chatbot. In a few years, he believes, an AI could be making money on its own. Will there soon be nine billion new millionaires in the world? My colleague Patrick Beuth spoke to Mustafa Suleyman. “He seems very deliberate and very self-confident,” says Patrick. »You don't have to share your ideas about the near AI future, you can even consider them absurd. But you also have to remember that hardly anyone on this planet is as close to this possible future as Suleyman.
I wish you a good start to the day.
Your Juliane von Mittelstaedt, deputy head of the international department