Die Macher (5 June 2010)

Its been about a year since we last played Die Macher and Peter and I were getting withdrawal symptoms, so as Queen's Birthday weekend was predicted to be wet we organised to get together for pizza and politics. John was keen on yellow, so I took blue (which confused me for the first hour or so, but not seriously).

Party Leaders

CDU   - Peter
FDP   - John R
Grüne - John B
SPD   - Anne
PDS   - Ian

Election Details
The first election (in Brandenburg) didn't attract a lot of attention from the parties (with the exception of Grüne). Grüne felt comfortable enough with the cash from their win to turn down a big donation and get a big boost in party membership and the some cash that way.

The next two elections attracted more attention with SPD and PDS romping away in Sachen and Rheinland being even more hotly contested. But the biggest prize was fourth election (in lucrative Bayen). FDP and PDS formed a coalition to see off the others, but everyone had a piece of the pie.

In Schleswig-Holstein FDP started to flex its muscles using an opinion poll to put paid to PDS's chances. Little Bremen was an anticlimax with only CDU and Grüne taking it seriously and only FDP took the last election in Saarland (with it potentially huge impact on National Opinion) as seriously as it should be taken.

Regional Summary

#  State             Seats CDU FDP Grn SPD PDS  Winners  and Media
1. Brandenburg        (28)   5  13  28  11   9   Grüne   (25 media)
2. Sachen             (46)   7   0  21  26  26 SPD + PDS (20 media)
3. Rheinland          (42)  42  42   6  32   9 SPD + CDU (20 media)
4. Bayen              (60)  54  60  54  42  60 FDP + PDS (15 media)
5. Schleswig-Holstein (32)  10  32   0  22   5 FDP       (15 media)
6. Bremen             (15)   8   0  15   0   6   Grüne   (12 media)
7. Saarland           (20)   9  17   9   3   4 FDP       (10 media)
Σ                          135 164 133 136 119

Nation Wide
Of course elections are not just about the regions. What about the party members, the secret donations and the national opinion? Unusually the parties seemed to care about their membership (especially Grüne which continually had the biggest membership).

As you might expect the National opinion favoured those who won the later elections. But only one opinion was secured.

Final Results

Parties         CDU FDP Grn SPD PDS
Mandate Σ       135 164 133 136 119
Media Points     20  40  37  40  35
Party Members    42  42  53  49  50
bonuses                 +10      +6
National Opinion 37  70  72  15  47
secured opinions     +5  +5      +5
Totals          234 321 310 240 262

Pundits Summary
Unlike previous elections there was little use of opinion polls to harm opposing political parties. Political observers noted that it had been a long time since the last election and perhaps the politicians had become soft. Against the trend FDP start using opinion polls aggressively in the last three elections. SPD was particularly upset with FDP in the Saarland election, saying it was "uncalled for".

Another trend the pundits noticed was the over use of Shadow Cabinet early, with very few kept until the last two elections.

In an interview with the press after the election the leader of the Grüne said:

I turned down 30,000 on round 1, (getting 5 dice, and launching me to the front of party membership for most of the game) and it was the only cash I did turn down - though I thought about doing so on round 2 as well, but decided not to because Ian was "certainly" going to do so, and could afford to turn down more than I - and not only did he not - but no-one did that round, and there was much [silent] gnashing of teeth on my side of the table!

The FDP government might not last long as there have been calls for an early election, possibly in July.