I'm thinking about commenting on the election still, but there're so many articles out there regarding the actual outcome, that this will have to wait. Actually all the trouble isn't over until the one constituency here in Dresden (no, I'm living in another one and did vote last Sunday) and a chancellor will be elected…
What I'm much more confused about is the discussion about changing the voting system. Here in Germany we have a pretty complex conglomerate of a majority voting system and a proportional representation. Both systems have their (dis-)advantages. Switching to a majority voting system alone will definetly stop fragmentation of the parliament effectively. In the new parliament there would be to big factions (CDU/CSU and SPD) and then there would be about two of PDS and one of the Greens—voila, no problems any longer…
But consider Germany today without the Greens in parliament! Or even FDP (I think esp. in jurisdication FDP set quite some marks, even if not so many in their late years).
On the other hand just using a proportional system isn't the best thing as well. Because then there's no chance to get politicians into the parliament without being supported by a party. Esp. if it's an exclusive proportional system, chances are good that contrarians in one party wouldn't get much chances. In a majority system a well-known and popular contrarian may get a chance if he has a high chance to win his constituency.
So the combination of both system is basically very good, but the system used in Germany is very complex and not always just (some time ago there were some articles about this in Spektrum der Wisssenschaft the German edition of Scientific American). The system is so complex, that the by-election in the one constituency in Dresden may lead to a shift of up to three seats in parliament (then there'd be a real stand-off of SPD and CDU). It's paradoxical: for this to happen, CDU has to win this constituency and will loose one seat by this in parliament…
I think the new constitution of the parliament shows the spirit in Germany quite well: there's no majority for the politics of CDU and FDP. That doesn't necessarily mean that Germans don't want reforms, but they don't want to follow the ways demonstrated by CDU and FDP.
Electing again soon would be a shame as well. The politicians couldn't warrant a more pleasent (for them) result anyway…
Been following the German election a bit (due to healthy interest in German culture and politics) . Found it pretty interesting both Merkel and Schr"oder claiming victory. (Though the previous ' kanzler's continuing victorous stance sounds a bit ... hollow and embarassing.)
Many people here and probably in the remaining EU seem to be interested, but I tend to think that most of the Germans want change, but in a controlled way. They probably want a CDU/SDP block to govern the country.
By the way, the Linkspartei, comparing its program with the especially leftist parties over here in Holland, seems to be moderately left. So ruling out a grand left/green coalition of left/green, which has a majority in the Bundestag, is a bit surprising.
The problem with the Linkspartei is their history. Most members are members of PDS which is the successor of the SED: the ruling party of the GDR! And I still have the feeling, that many of the PDS members have been SED members before. It's true that there have been a CDU and LDP (FDP) in GDR which where synchronised with SED (AFAIK), but the members of GDR CDU and LDP at least chose actively not to join SED and they merged in a bigger bulk after rejunification (you could argue if it is not even worse joining a synchronised party for getting a better position in job instead of joining the One).
For me, this fact is a big problem I have with SED/PDS/Linkspartei. For me they didn't distance theirself sufficently from the system of GDR how it was (I don't care about: but it's been a great idea and it should've been different). As long as this doesn't happen, they are no option for me. And BTW, they may have quite a few yet unknown members of the inteligence service of GDR in their ranks (they have some known as well)...
Germans may follow changes easily, if there are some visions ahead, which are not just returning to a situation like a hundread years ago. And I don't think that's necessary as well (this is an article in pipeline, but as it will get quite long...).