Truly German – Episode 05 – 2nd October 2009

Truly German is a podcast that talks about the news in Germany. Sometimes this will by national news, maybe political, but we will also be covering some local topics.

We want to have some fun at the same time, so part of the podcast is our Länderquiz – in which our contestant has to guess in which Bundesland three different news stories took place in.

Will Maria win herself a T-Shirt this week?

The topics are:

  1. Election results
  2. Döner reward for voters
  3. Hessen to relax smoking laws

The quiz covers the following stories:

  1. Manga fans meet up
  2. Diplomats gather at Schloss Horst
  3. The 356th Onion Market

Listen to the episode and contact us if you’d like to have a go yourself!

(Press the “play” button to listen to the podcast)

Download the MP3 file

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http://www.derwesten.de/nachrichten/staedte/gelsenkirchen/2009/9/29/news-135061367/detail.html

Hessen darf wieder wählen

Die Parteien rühren die Werbetrommel, dass es nur so spritzt. Die eigene Partei ist die beste und die anderen sind ja soooo schlecht. Was mich an den Werbezetteln so fasziniert, eigentlich bei allen Wahlen, ist dass die Hälfte des Platzes auf dem Flyer dafür verwendet wird andere Parteien schlecht zu reden, als die Gründe warum man gerade diese Partei wählen sollte. Warum ist das so, dass auch in den Reden so oft von den anderen gesprochen wird und nicht von sich selbst, was man an “guter” Politik vor hat?

Der Sinn vom Wahlkampf ist doch die Wähler von seiner Partei zu überzeugen, dachte ich zumindest immer. Mittlerweile ist das größte Thema von allen was die anderen schlecht machen und nicht was die Partei in Zukunft besser machen möchte.

Ich hoffe jedoch, dass die Wahlversprechen eingehalten werden und nicht, dass alles vergessen ist und Plan B bereits eine Woche nach der Wahl aus der Schublade geholt wird…

Hessen in Chaos

The political landscape in Hessen is in Chaos. After weeks of talking (or not talking, as the case may be), one of the parties finally made a move. The SPD decided to accept the support of the left-wing “Linke” party to get themselves into government.

However the support appears to have been limited to the vote on the position of Ministerpräsident(-in), after that there would have been a minority red-green coalition (SPD/Greens).

All went well until one MP, Dagmar Metzger from Darmstadt, decided that should could not accept this way forward and would not be voting for her own party.

Now Frau Ypsilanti now longer has the majority that she needs to be elected, so the Local Government remains in a state of limbo. Roland Koch remains as the Ministerpräsident until further notice and no party has a working majority.

This afternoon I even read that the SPD is being criticised for mobbing Frau Metzger into giving back her mandate.

Is it really mobbing to suggest that someone who got elected for a particular party is asked to hand their mandate back for not following the party line just a month after the election?

I’m undecided on this one. On the one hand I think the party could expect its MPs to follow its lead. In fact, they even asked at a meeting of MPs if they would be doing so and all agreed to. Frau Metzger did not even attend!

On the other hand, Frau Ypsilanti stated quite clearly both before and after the election that should would not be working together with the “Linke” party.

So who is going back on their principles? Who is right and who is wrong?

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