During yesterday’s election of the german president, some interesting glitches happened. I’m not talking about the political aspects of the election, but of some housekeeping issues.
The master of the ceremony was the president of the Bundestag, Norbert Lammert. There have been four candidates. The election consists of at least one round. To win during the first round, you need the simple majority of all votes. If this is not the case (which can easily happen if there are more than two candidates), a second round tries to achieve the desired result. If none of the candidates gets the majority in the second round, a third round will take place, where a plurality is sufficient to win the election.
I followed the election while biking, listening to a broadcast of Deutschlandfunk. After I returned, I read some more about the election. Here are some notes worth noticing:
- While the ballots have been counted, Horst Köhler left the Reichstag and drove to his office. Nothing wrong with that (though I found it a bit strange that the favourite candidate leaves for this short period of time). The counting took a bit longer as expected (they have been counting twice), but as the result was about to be published, Horst Köhler was not back to the Reichstag. So Norbert Lammert went outside the building to wait for him – clearly anticipating the announcement of the result of the election.
- While Mr. Lammert was waiting for Mr. Köhler, bouquets have accidentally been prepared publicly in the Reichstag. This was a further indication that the result of the election already is final.
- The result of the election has been leaked by members of the Bundesversammlung immediately after the counting – using Twitter. Here’s the entry of Ulrich Kelber (14:15) and the one of Julia Klöckner (14:18 local time).
- Horst Köhler arrived around 14:26
- Norbert Lammert finally anounced the result publicly ca. 14:30, first announcing the votes for Horst Köhler, then the results of the other candidates.
Frankly, this looks more like a comedy or even kindergarden than the election of the german president. At least it shows an absolute lack of taclessness concerning the three other candidates. Maybe I’m an old and conservative grandpa, but unlike members of the paliament, I still try to remember my education and social skills. Don’t get me wrong. Horst Köhler will continue doing an excellent job, and he’s the right guy at the right moment. And as far as I can judge, Norbert Lammert usually does an excellent job as well. And anyway, the aforementioned circumstances clearly show that our political class consist of human beings no better than you and me ;-) .
