Democracy vs liberalism in the heart of Europe

‘All state authority is derived from the people’

German politics used to be boring. They liked it that way. It was the whole point of the system. Not anymore – now it’s positively exciting.

The federal election takes place tomorrow and never in our lifetimes has the country’s politics engaged more interest. As Katja Hoyer described it, ‘This is the most heated German election campaign I have experienced. It might also be the one that has drawn the most international media attention in recent history.’

For decades the CDU/CSU (they are the Christian Social Union in Bavaria and the Christian Democratic Union everywhere else, collectively referred to as ‘the Union’) and the Social Democrats (SPD) dominated German politics, which was famously dull. Central banker types droning on about interest rates - that sort of thing. The two main parties usually won more than 80 per cent of the vote, with the liberal Free Democrats FDP going into coalition with one of them.