Democracy is great.

[Workingman]

Just as long as it is the 'correct' type of democracy.

In the German state of Thuringia two centre right parties and a few left wing MPs voted for the liberal leader of the minor Free Democratic party as premier. The problem was that he also got a few votes from the AfD, a party the media like to brand as far-right. Those votes let him beat Die Linke (The Left) the biggest party's candidate by just one vote, 45 - 44, and that is a big no-no.

So, pressure has been put on the winner to resign so that new elections can take place and the correct candidate (according to the Elite) can be voted into office.

The biggest laugh would be if AfD got behind the Die Linke candidate - then what?

[Suff]

Even in Germany this kind of action benefits AFD as people who are annoyed tend to become even more radical.

[Workingman]

Does this also mean that when the AfD puts any votes behind any candidate and that person wins new elections will be called?

This is a dangerous game for the Germans to be playing because the AfD could screw over all sorts of elections by voting tactically. Say they do not want the CDU candidate to win all the AfD has to do is back them and then when they are declared as winner somebody (using the courts) could call for new elections - a precedent has been set.

[TheOstrich]

Vote until you get it right, plebs. Ah, where have we run into that before?

[Suff]

You are right WM, they are not considering how they can be played.

Ossie, this whole vote till you get it right has been used several times, Austria, Denmark, Ireland..

[cromwell]

The German people have been told repeatedly that anything resembling right wing politics or nationalism is the devil's work, and must be suppressed.
Which does make me wonder why AfD are getting so many votes. Some Germans must be fed up with the status quo.

[Suff]

Their base is in East Germany. The people of the DDR did not grow up with a steady diet of how evil Germany was in WW2. After all Russia was hardly likely to want to highlight the evil of prison work camps in those days..

It shows in how they vote.