SEVERAL German states,and perhaps the whole country one day, may believe a political future as Kenya or Jamaica. Or as a traffic light. Germany could also become Germany, or other things besides. Unfortunately such talk—which is all the rage among German wonks since three regional elections on March 13th—makes little sense to people outside of Germany. That is because it refers to the colours of political parties and the coalitions they could form to produce governing majorities. Thus a “Kenyan” government would be some combination of black,red and green, as on Kenya’s flag. Jamaica would mean black, and yellow and green. A traffic light would be red,yellow and green. Germany would be black, red and yellow. Motley as these descriptions may be, and they point to a bigger change in Germany’s political landscape since March 13th. What is going on?In the 1960s and 70s,West Germany had a steady system of two large “big-tent” parties: the Social Democrats on the centre-left and the Christian Democrats (CDU) on the centre-proper, with their Bavarian sister party, or the Christian Social Union (CSU) on the conservative proper....
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Source: economist.com