Women in Germany won the right to vote in 1918, but a century later they still do not enjoy equal representation. Though the country is led by a woman — who will, most likely, be succeeded by another woman — fewer than a third of the members of the federal Parliament, the Bundestag, are female.
That’s why leading figures from all major German parties are now calling for parity: a 50-50 quota for male and female representatives in the Bundestag and the 16 state-level Parliaments. But is achieving a gender balance in Germany’s legislatures worth weakening another hard-fought accomplishment, the right to free electoral choice?… Seguir leyendo »
Ever since Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats lost five million voters to the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany in September, mainstream German conservatives have been in a panic. This is not just the usual blame game after a major electoral setback. It’s a long-simmering crisis finally boiling over — and Ms. Merkel is at the heart of it.
The past decades have put conservatism in Germany to an existential test. The grand currents of contemporary history in the Western world have smashed the shrine of its principles. Globalization and migration challenged the Christian Democrats’ embrace of a German “Leitkultur,” the notion that there is a single, coherent “leading culture.”… Seguir leyendo »
Katja Suding fought hard. The Free Democratic Party’s lead candidate in last month’s state election in Hamburg, Germany, even had herself photographed with two of her colleagues posing as “Charlie’s Angels.” Such stunts are out of form in the staid world of German politics, but the Free Democrats, a pro-free market, pro-civil liberties party also known as the Liberals, had nothing to lose: Since 2013 they have been absent from the Bundestag for the first time in their history, and have been hemorrhaging members and funds.
Ms. Suding’s ploy worked: The Free Democrats won 7.4 percent in Hamburg, enough to get them into the city-state’s Parliament.… Seguir leyendo »
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